Václav Algirdas Zheng straddles the two rightfully connected worlds of history and theory. As a practicing historian, he studies ideas, mentalities, and experiences in pre-modern world history, drawing on the underexplored field of East Central Europe between 1300 and 1700. His first book project, tentatively titled 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 anthology of texts on the fifteenth-century Polish search for the ideal society. His second history project will look more closely at the weave between futurity and pastness at specific historical moments and unearth the rich chronal culture in the early modern Czech lands.

As a metahistorian, he serves as a liaison between historical methodology, critical theory, the philosophy of history, and the history of historiography. Specifically, his research interests span the Annales School and the practice of argumentation, as well as various novel approaches to cultural history. He has been working on a monograph that illustrates the work of a body of renowned twentieth-century historians. In addition, he is 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.