Parahistory and the Popular Past

Parahistory and the Popular Past challenges the tired debate over historical fact versus fiction by focusing on what really matters: how different forms of representation create meaning and establish responsibility. Moving beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries, this book diagnoses a fundamental tension between history’s objectives and the generic forms available to achieve them. It develops a pragmatic, present-minded historical consciousness that foregrounds ethical responsibility while engaging with contemporary communicative realities.

Through detailed investigations of narrative conventions, genre and historical experience, the book distinguishes between the historical and practical past. Theoretical insights are deepened through sustained analyses of works like Josef Škvorecký’s The Engineer of Human Souls, Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo. With these analyses, the book develops reading practices to deal with the autonomy of artistic works, demonstrating how they construct complex meanings and reshape audience responsibility. By reconceptualizing the field in terms of a broad history culture, it positions professional history and parahistory as related meaning-making practices, shifting focus from boundary-policing toward the ethical implications of representation for contemporary readers and publics.

This book is essential reading for historians, literary scholars and anyone interested in how we make sense of the past.

Kalle Pihlainen is Associate Professor in theory and philosophy of history at the University of Turku. His research examines historical representation and the uses of history across academic and popular contexts. He is editor of Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice. His books include The Work of History (2017) and Historia Fallida (2023).