Jörn Rüsen Theory of History Between Modernity and Post-modernity: a contribution to the didactics of history

Abstract

This article aims at contextualizing some elements of the theory of the historian Jörn Rüsen, starting from a discussion between modernity and postmodernity. In this sense, his thought had been linked as a response to the challenges that the twentieth century brought to historiography. In particular, the influences of methodological Annales, the self-referential nature of language, derived from the linguistic turn and the micro-histories that can be understand as counter-histories of the past, in the words of Rüsen. We have sought, thus, to widen the understanding of hisdefense of the scientific character of history, of his valorization of method, as well as ofhis theory that claims that history is directly linked to the daily life of the historian. In this sense, from these events pertinent to history as science, the article also sets out topoint to what extent these issues are reflected in Rüsen’s theory of history, especially inthe dimension concerning the teaching of history and history didactics.