Ethan Kleinberg

Ethan Kleinberg is the Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor of History and Letters at Wesleyan University and Editor-in-Chief of History and Theory. Kleinberg's wide-ranging scholarly work spans across the fields of history, philosophy, comparative literature and religion. In particular, Kleinberg engages with the ways that the past haunts our present and presses us toward the future, advocating for a deconstructive approach to better account for this complex temporal entanglement. His current book project extends this investigation by focusing on how what he calls “temporal anarchy”—the unrestrained mingling of past, present, and future— can lead to a different understanding of history that is not restrained by what has been, but instead attracted to what can be thus pointing us toward critical political and ethical action. The past as future, if you will, rather than a futures past.