Research project Desiring the Past: Retrophilia and Queer Temporality in the “18th-century”

This theoretical investigation is necessitated by the last decade’s burgeoning interest in the past, materialized in various expressions such as nostalgic fashion trends, political retrotopias, historical novels, biopics and popular history and reenactment. The original perspective of the project at hand consists of putting mainstream theory of history in dialogue with the research field of queer temporality studies, a manoeuvre that brings new focal points and research questions into the fore. Mainstream theory of history has hitherto been oblivious of the insights presented in the dynamic field of queer temporality studies, while queer temporality research has not been fully conversant in classic historiographical research. The study starts out from the thesis that increased public interest in history can be explained by a multidimensional model of what is here conceptualized as desiring the past, which has not only erotic but also cognitive, emotional and political aspects. By extension this proposition might even enable an explanation of something which many researchers consider a ”time crisis”, or breaking point, in contemporary Western historical consciousness, i. e. the notion that the future no longer appears promising and desirable but instead bleak and frightful in times of climate change, pandemics and war.