Science & invention / Literature
Hayden White
1928–2018 · historian, literary theorist
Historian whose Metahistory (1973) changed how scholars think about historical writing; he studied and then taught at Wayne State University in Detroit.
- Born
Martin, Tennessee- Died
Santa Cruz, California
aged 89- Birth name
- Hayden V. White
- Detroit years
- late 1940s–1950s
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
White was born in Martin, Tennessee, in 1928. After service in the Navy he enrolled at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he studied history under William J. Bossenbrook alongside his classmate Arthur Danto, later a celebrated philosopher of art; he took his bachelor's degree in 1951. He earned his master's and doctorate at the University of Michigan and returned to teach at Wayne State before moving on to the University of Rochester, UCLA and Wesleyan. In 1978 he took charge of the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His book Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973) argued that historians shape the past through literary forms such as tragedy, comedy and satire, an idea that has been debated across the humanities ever since.
Highlights
- Metahistory (1973), a founding text of narrative theory in history
- Bachelor's degree from Wayne State University, 1951; later taught there
- Studied under William J. Bossenbrook with classmate Arthur Danto
- Led the History of Consciousness program at UC Santa Cruz from 1978
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · late 1940s–1951; 1950s
Wayne State University (then Wayne University)
He studied history here (BA 1951) and returned to teach after his doctorate.