This article invites historians to think more critically about the language, narratives, and tropes historians use to identify, describe, and explain processes of change. By doing so, we raise questions about the possibility of historicizing ideas and experiences of change. The suitability of historians’ descriptive and explanatory tools and frameworks for understanding one of the most important aims of historical scholarship is often very limited. We ponder the extent to which historians’ identification of historical change correlates with how historical actors imagined, experienced, and identified change. Starting from the perspective of the latter enables us to examine how far “change” exists prior to its embedding in the (sometimes conflicting) narratives, discourses, and practices of contemporaries. This article seeks to develop the concepts of “critical junctures” and “discursive thresholds.” While both concepts are used in social science research and literary studies, they have rarely been paired together. We combine them because they help relate the importance of events to change and the discourses surrounding them. As a case study, this article looks at a magazine titled Property and Finance, which was published in Southern Rhodesia (1956–77) and edited by Wilfred Brooks. Brooks’s editorials and political commentary offer an opportunity to consider broad questions of change, imagined futures, and discursive engagements with the political and social developments underway.

中文翻译：

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想象变化，想象未来：独立前南罗得西亚的“可能性条件”，1959-1963

本文邀请历史学家更批判性地思考历史学家用来识别、描述和解释变化过程的语言、叙述和比喻。通过这样做，我们提出了关于历史化思想和变革经验的可能性的问题。历史学家的描述性和解释性工具和框架对于理解历史学术最重要的目标之一的适用性通常非常有限。我们思考历史学家对历史变化的识别与历史行为者如何想象、体验和识别变化的关联程度。从后者的角度出发，我们可以检查“变化”在嵌入（有时是相互冲突的）同时代人的叙述、话语和实践之前存在多远。本文旨在发展“关键时刻”和“话语阈值”的概念。虽然这两个概念都用于社会科学研究和文学研究，但它们很少结合在一起。我们将它们结合起来，因为它们有助于将事件对变革的重要性以及围绕它们的讨论联系起来。作为案例研究，本文着眼于一本名为 Property and Finance 的杂志，该杂志在南罗得西亚 (1956-77 年) 出版，由 Wilfred Brooks 编辑。布鲁克斯的社论和政治评论提供了一个机会来思考变革、想象的未来以及与正在进行的政治和社会发展的话语接触等广泛问题。我们将它们结合起来，因为它们有助于将事件对变革的重要性以及围绕它们的讨论联系起来。作为案例研究，本文着眼于一本名为 Property and Finance 的杂志，该杂志在南罗得西亚 (1956-77 年) 出版，由 Wilfred Brooks 编辑。布鲁克斯的社论和政治评论提供了一个机会来思考变革、想象的未来以及与正在进行的政治和社会发展的话语接触等广泛问题。我们将它们结合起来，因为它们有助于将事件对变革的重要性以及围绕它们的讨论联系起来。作为案例研究，本文着眼于一本名为 Property and Finance 的杂志，该杂志在南罗得西亚 (1956-77 年) 出版，由 Wilfred Brooks 编辑。布鲁克斯的社论和政治评论提供了一个机会来思考变革、想象的未来以及与正在进行的政治和社会发展的话语接触等广泛问题。