Religion, Nature, and the Emergence of Academic Historiography (1830-1870)

19世纪，历史在欧洲学术界成为一门独立的学科。这一发展已经从几个角度进行了研究。首先，与思想史相关的方法集中在该学科最杰出代表的著作上，并评估了他们的作品是如何受到“历史哲学”和浪漫主义运动的影响的。其次，学者们研究了学术史学的出现是如何与欧洲民族和国家建设过程联系在一起的。传统的方法分析了历史学家如何通过他们的著作为构建国家身份做出贡献，而最近的研究也考虑了大学或档案馆等学术机构如何在国家或帝国项目中发挥作用。第三，一些研究涉及该学科的主题和方法冲突，如德国方法论。因此，学术史学的关键概念和方法的发展受到了文献学和语言学学科的影响。基于这些见解，我的项目采用了不同的视角。我认为，学术史学及其范式的出现只能在关于自然和宗教的历史性的争论的背景下理解，这种争论在1830年至1870年左右在欧洲流行起来。这些争论是一个过程的一部分，在研究中被称为“时间化”。在宗教方面，从19世纪30年代开始，大卫·弗里德里希·施特劳斯（David Friedrich Strauss）等学者质疑耶稣作为一个历史人物的存在，以及宗教遗迹的真实性。此外，正是在这个时代，真正的“世俗化”历史叙事的关键要素得以确立。在自然科学中也可以观察到类似的模式。1832年，查尔斯·莱尔（Charles Lyell）发表了他的进化论假说之后，自然科学领域就历史变化的原因和如何正确研究过去的问题展开了激烈的讨论。1859年查尔斯·达尔文的《物种起源》出版后，它们达到了顶峰。这个计划的灵感来自于这些争议与历史在欧洲学术界作为一门独立学科的出现的巧合。通过关注1830年到1870年之间的年代，即在上世纪末上述方法论冲突之前，我们可能会对历史的学科框架是如何出现的有新的见解。为此，我的目的是比较英国、法国和德国的历史学家。史学方法和概念的历史化需要双重途径。关于概念层面，我将分析诸如Göttinger《每日新闻》或《世界评论》之类的期刊。在19世纪上半叶，这些期刊在世界各地都有读者，并以所有学科的学者的文章和书评为特色。这项研究的结果将通过对专门研究历史的期刊的审查来支持，比如在这一时期成立的《历史时代》杂志。对这些期刊中的辩论的评估将揭示历史学家的网络，这些历史学家不仅参与了当前时期的概念问题，而且还参与了方法论问题。因此，分析他们未发表的作品，如阅读节选、项目大纲、草稿或日记，将突出概念讨论如何直接影响调查和写作历史的方法。这有望阐明历史研究实践，即如何选择和分析源材料，最后，如何将结果呈现在有关过去的连贯故事中。

During the nineteenth century, history emerged as an independent discipline within European academia. This development has been investigated from several perspectives. Firstly, approaches affiliated with intellectual history have focused on the writings of the discipline's most prominent representatives and have assessed how their works were influenced by the 'philosophy of history' and by the movement of Romanticism. Secondly, scholars have investigated how the emergence of academic historiography was connected to processes of nation and state building in Europe. Whereas traditional approaches have analysed how historians contributed to constructing national identities through their writings, recent studies have also taken into account how academic institutions such as universities or archives featured in national or imperial projects. Thirdly, several studies have engaged with the discipline's thematic and methodological conflicts such as the German Methodenstreit. Thus, it has been shown that the development of key concepts and methods of academic historiography was influenced by the disciplines of philology and linguistics.Building upon these insights, my project applies a different perspective. I argue that the emergence of academic historiography and its paradigms can only be understood against the backdrop of controversies about the historicity of nature and religion which gained currency in Europe between around 1830 and 1870. These debates were part of a process which has been referred to in research as 'temporalisation'. Regarding religion, scholars such as David Friedrich Strauss questioned the very existence of Jesus as a historical person as well as the authenticity of religious relics from the 1830s onwards. Furthermore, it was exactly during this era that key elements of the genuinely historical narrative of 'secularisation' were established. Similar patterns can be observed in the natural sciences. After Charles Lyell had published his hypotheses on 'evolution' in 1832, the natural sciences saw intense discussions both on the reasons for historical change and on the question of how to investigate the past properly. They peaked following the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. The proposed project takes its cue from the coincidence of these controversies with the emergence of history as an independent discipline within European academia. By focusing on the years between 1830 and 1870 which preceded the aforementioned methodological conflicts at the end of the century, we might get new insights into how the disciplinary framework of history emerged. For this purpose, I aim at comparing British, French, and German historians.Historicising both methods and concepts of historiography requires a twofold approach. Regarding the conceptual level, I shall analyse journals such as the Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen or the Revue des Deux Mondes. During the first half of the nineteenth century, these periodicals were transnationally read and featured both articles and book reviews by scholars of all disciplines. The findings of this study will be backed by the examination of journals specifically dedicated to the study of history such as the Historische Zeitschrift which was founded during the period at hand. The assessment of debates within these journals will reveal networks of historians who not only engaged with conceptual but also with methodological problems during the period at hand. Therefore, analysing their unpublished writings such as reading excerpts, project outlines, drafts, or diaries will highlight how conceptual discussions directly influenced the methods of investigating and writing history. This promises to elucidate historical research practices, i.e. how source material was both chosen and analysed and, finally, how the results were presented in coherent stories about the past.