Václav Algirdas Zheng straddles the two otherwise incommensurable worlds of history and theory. As a practicing historian, he studies mentalities and experiences in the pre-modern world, drawing on the underexplored history of East Central Europe between 1300 and 1700. His first monograph project, tentatively titled Euchronia: Hope, Anxiety, and the Polish Renaissance, examines the utopian-futuristic impulse and its emotional conditions in later 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 historical project will look more closely at the weave between futurity and pastness at specific historical moments and unearth the rich chronal culture of 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 history of 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 peruses a body of renowned twentieth-century historians in the West. In addition, he is editing a volume concerning Renaissance cultures across the world, titled Turn Back to the Future: Faith and Foresight in the Various Renaissances, and another introducing utopian history as a new form of historical inquiry, titled Sparks: Political, Intellectual, and Religious Utopia in the Premodern World.