We are glad to give notice that the call for papers for the special issue of «Verifiche. Rivista di scienze umane» (1/2025), dedicated to the topic Times of History: Hegelian Perspectives, is now open.

Guest editors of the issue will be Guglielmo Califano (Università di Pisa) and Giulia La Rocca (Univerza v Ljubljani / Università degli Studi di Padova).

Please find below the text of the call.

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This special issue of «Verifiche» will focus on the concept of historical time. It aims to address questions such as: What is historical time?  How do historical and natural times relate to each other? What is the connection between changes, narratives, and structures?
History has been a prominent theme in 20th and 21st-century thought. Models of history have emerged that account for non-progressive historical changes, for a complex interaction between nature and history, and for a plurality of temporalities diverging from the course of modernity. In turn, modernity itself has been situated within processes that extend beyond the Euro-Atlantic space, and the global world has been acknowledged as a subject of history. At the same time, post-Darwinian attempts to align historical and natural time, new connections between temporal, logical, economic, and anthropological structures, as well as postcolonial and global perspectives have all contributed to deconstructing the idea of a linear historical time culminating in Western civilization. In this context, Hegel’s philosophy of history, often interpreted as a teleological, simplistic paradigm, has frequently been a polemical target.
This special issue aims to encourage a dialogue between Hegelian philosophy and post- or anti-Hegelian accounts of historical time: can such accounts help us read Hegel differently, finding in his thought the way to meet the challenges of our time and to address the needs for more complex notions of history? Can Hegel’s philosophy in turn help us to reshape contemporary ways of understanding history?
Contributions are welcome that, starting from this framework, develop potentialities as well as critical aspects lying in Hegel’s concept of historical temporality.
Below some of the relevant topics.

Universal history and plural temporalities.
History and Nature.
Hegel’s notion of history and Darwin, Marx, Benjamin, Löwith, Koselleck, the Frankfurt School, Marxism, Structuralism, Postcolonial Studies, Contemporary Critical Theory, Anthropocene Theories, Natural Histories.
Universal History, World History and Global History.
Universal history and progress.
History and Structures.
Labour, Work, Spirit and History.