Scholars as knowledge actors : Taking the knowledge paradigm personally

Abstract

This essay is a suggestion that we should take the knowledge paradigm personally—or at least professionally.1 What if historians of knowledge employed the insight gained from studying knowledge in the past to recreate themselves as knowledge actors in the present and future? How can the historiography of the history of knowledge inspire us to reimagine ourselves, the knowledge we create, and the institutions we work in? For example, if we have learned from our research that knowledge circulates in interactions between different actors, why is single authorship celebrated as the gold standard of publishing in history? This does not suppose naively applying what we learned from the past to the present, as contingency will make our selfhood and practices drift in unexpected ways. Instead, self-reflective knowledge actors put themselves inside history.