Václav Zheng straddles the two supposedly connected worlds of history and theory. As a practicing historian, he studies ideas, mentalities, and experiences in pre-modern world history, drawing on the under-explored field site of East Central Europe between 1000 and 1800. His first book project, tentatively titled The Age of Euchronia: Hope, Anxiety, and the Polish Renaissance, examines the fashion of utopian-futuristic thinking and its emotional impulses in sixteenth-century Poland. A related, ongoing side project is an edited anthology of texts on the fifteenth-century Polish search for the ideal society. And his second history book will look more closely at the weave between futurity and pastness at specific historical moments, unearthing the rich chronal cultures in the early modern Czech lands.

As a metahistorian, he hopes to liaise between historical methodology, critical theory, the history of history, and the philosophy of historiography. His research interests span from the Annales School to the practice of argumentation, as well as the development of and various novel approaches to cultural history. He has been working on a monograph that illustrates (and commemorates) a body of renowned twentieth-century historians. In addition, he is currently co-editing a volume concerning the premodern globe and, alongside a team of scholars, aims to introduce utopian history as a new form of historical inquiry.