Abstract This article proposes a four-layered diagram that displays as an overview of the current field of historical time studies according to the following branches of investigation: 1) the metaphysics of natural time, 2) the metaphysics of historical time, 3) the regimes of historicity, and 4) historiographical regimes. By defining these fields and their connections, identifying essential concepts, revealing the questions they address, and sketching tendencies that have emerged since the 2000s, this article tackles historical temporality as a theoretical and historiographical subject. This framework, which portrays the state of the art in temporal studies, allows for the presentation and classification of the variety of contributions gathered in this special edition.

Resumo Este artigo propõe um diagrama de quatro camadas que exibem os subcampos de investigação como uma visão geral do campo atual dos estudos do tempo histórico: 1) a metafísica do tempo natural, 2) a metafísica do tempo histórico, 3) os regimes de historicidade e 4) os regimes historiográficos. Ao definir esses campos e suas interrelações, apontar os principais conceitos, as questões que abordam e as tendências que se constituíram desde o início dos anos 2000, este artigo aborda a temporalidade histórica como tema teórico e historiográfico. Este quadro, que apresenta o estado da arte dos estudos temporais, permite apresentar e classificar a variedade de contribuições que esta edição especial reúne.

Abstract: This article tries to show how our pandemic´s experience qualified our present as a “present in-between”, a “suspended present”. Following Derrida and Simon, “unprecedented event” as a concept is analyzed. The objective is to show that pandemic´s experience made us to configure a “we as a species”. Chakrabarty considered impossible this last concept.

Resumen: Este artículo intenta dar cuenta de qué modo la experiencia de la pandemia cualificó al presente como un “presente suspendido”. A tal fin, se desarrolla el concepto de “evento sin precedentes” siguiendo a Derrida y a Simon. El objetivo es mostrar que la pandemia hizo posible configurar un “nosotros como especie”, sujeto considerado, por Chakrabarty, imposible de experimentar como humanos.

In recent debates about the scope of historical representation for giving a proper account of events beyond the limits of human comprehension and experience, some theorists and historians have tended to favor the immediacy of lived experience -which apparently would be transmitted by the witness. The retrospective point of view, then, has been obscured. The latter point of view implies a degree of detachment from lived experience and is present not only in testimony but also in historiography. This article will thus analyze the role played by testimony in a theory of history, as "evidence or proof of" real past or as "access" to it.

En el debate que se ha dado en los últimos años en torno a los alcances de la representación histórica para dar cuenta adecuadamente de acontecimientos que exceden los límites de la comprensión y la experiencia humanas, algunos teóricos e historiadores han tendido a privilegiar la inmediatez de la experiencia vivida, que supuestamente transmitiría el testigo presencial del acontecimiento. Se ha oscurecido, entonces, la mirada retrospectiva, que implica distanciamiento de la experiencia vivida, presupuesta no sólo en el testimonio, sino también en la historiografía. En este sentido, se analizará el papel que el testimonio cumple para una teoría de la historia, ya sea que se lo entienda como "prueba o evidencia de" lo real pasado o como "acceso a" lo real pasado.