The importance of not being too self-confident: Ways of critical historiography

Asking for the meaning, purpose and goal of critical historiography almost inevitably leads to the problem that it is all but certain what “critical historiography” can be. What, for instance, is the opposite of a critical historiography? And why should the art of critique be undertaken from a historical perspective? However, if it is not sure which aims a critical historiography might have, then maybe this is exactly its important quality: not to be too sure and too self-confident. Thus, critical historiography can provoke insecurities, can shake self-evidences and might argue against essentialisms because it questions normalizations and the supposedly unquestionable suchness – in a both critical and self-critical way.