So Arthur Danto died in 2013, but we had to read him my first year in graduate school. Fantastic. Weirdly, his Wikipedia doesn't even mention this part of his career (see his concept of the "ideal chronicler"). Most of his work on this stuff is in Narration and Knowledge (1985), which includes his earlier book, Analytical Philosophy of History (1965).

In my line of work, Charles Taylor is huge, specifically his work on secularism. Critiquing Charles Taylor in my application essay I think is one of the main things that got me into graduate school. His book A Secular Age (one of his big point is that "the secular" is added, and that the division between the secular and the religious is a profoundly modern one) has been hugely important--the Social Science Research Council even named their religion blog, which was for several years must-read for anyone doing religion academically, after one of his concepts ("the immanent frame").

In sociology, there has been a lot of hay made about critical realism and Roy Bhaskar. Much of the debate is about whether he's a hack who may had an intersting idea or two in the 70's or finally an answer to the problem of post-modernism (his emphasis on mechanisms goes well with a separate trend in sociology, analytical sociology which is mainly out of Oxford, but the two are strangely rarely connected). See this post by Kieran Healey (an occasional redditor), a follow up by Omar Lizardo here, and a follow follow up here. These were all occasioned by a review of several Bhaskar books by Phil Gorski in Contemporary Sociology, if you want to hear the pro-critical realism argument first (Gorski is coincidentally one of the premier historical sociologists working today). Here are some of the initial mostly negative Twitter reactions to Gorski's piece. Christian Smith is the other guy trying to bring Critical Realism into American sociology, here are some of his resources on the subject.

I would say Ankersmit is as influential as Hayden White. Have had a lecture of Ankersmit whichi s fascinating, though age is starting to count I guess. His 'Narrative logic' from 1983 and 'Historical Representation' from 2001 are great reads imo. But mayby I am biased as I was schooled by his followers haha

We've read some Marxist Geography in my class as it pertains to History. Particularly, we read David Harvey whom i think is really influential although he is quite old school.

Firstly im intrigued by the idea of studying space and our reproduction of it in a historical context. Secondly, i think David Harvey - by virtue of his marxism - is reintroducing a kind of "Grand narrative" of History. I think this is both politically and academically important if History is to matter and become a force for change. I'm somewhat disillusioned with the complete relativism and rejection of grand narratives that is seen with academics like Hayden White.

I certainly hope we'll see a post-postmodernism in my time.