The past is not a foreign country:a conversation

In this interview, Marek Tamm asks questions concerning some of the main developments and arguments in Eelco Runia's thinking about history. The following topics are discussed: the relations between history, psychology and fiction; the critique of representationalism in the contemporary philosophy of history; the presence of the past; the question of continuity, discontinuity and mutation in history; the importance of metonymy as the quintessential historical trope; the influence of Giambattista Vico on Runia's thinking; the intellectual affinities between Runia and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht; and Runia's ongoing research project on Red Queen history.