Showing papers on "Enlightenment published in 2008"
TL;DR: The Archbishop of Canterbury as discussed by the authors discussed the implications of some interpretations of Western secular legal systems, which seek to remove from consideration the actual religious motivations and practices of groups in plural societies.
Abstract: This is the complete text of the lecture delivered by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Royal Courts of Justice on 7 February 2008, under the chairmanship of Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the Lord Chief Justice, as the Foundation Lecture in a series of public discussions on ‘Islam in English Law’.1 The lecture seeks to tease out some of the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state, using sharia as an example and noting the substantial difference between ‘primitivist’ accounts of sharia and those of serious jurists within Islam. The Archbishop discusses the implications of some interpretations of Western secular legal systems, which seek to remove from consideration the actual religious motivations and practices of groups in plural societies. Where the law does not take religious motivation seriously, then it fails to engage with the community in question and opens up real issues of power by the majority over the minority and thus of community cohesion. It examines whether there should be a higher level of attention to religious identity and communal rights in the practice of the law: how to manage the distinction between cultural practices and those arising from genuine religious belief; and what to do about the possibility that a supplementary jurisdiction could have the effect of reinforcing in minority communities some of the most repressive or retrograde elements in them, with particularly serious consequences for the role and liberties of women. Is a monopolistic approach to a legal system a satisfactory basis for a modern pluralistic and democratic state? Might there be room for ‘overlapping jurisdictions’, in which individuals can choose in certain limited areas whether to seek justice under one system or another? If we are to think intelligently about the relations between Islam and British law, we need a fair amount of ‘deconstruction’ of crude oppositions and mythologies, whether of the nature of sharia or of the nature of the Enlightenment. Following the text of the lecture is a transcript of the Question and Answer session which followed.
136 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2008
105 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that there is no single or unifiable phenomenon describable as the "Enlightenment" but it is the definite article rather than the noun which is to be avoided.
Abstract: This essay is written on the following premises and argues for them. “Enlightenment” is a word or signifier, and not a single or unifiable phenomenon which it consistently signifies. There is no single or unifiable phenomenon describable as “the Enlightenment,” but it is the definite article rather than the noun which is to be avoided. In studying the intellectual history of the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth, we encounter a variety of statements made, and assumptions proposed, to which the term “Enlightenment” may usefully be applied, but the meanings of the term shift as we apply it. The things are connected, but not continuous; they cannot be reduced to a single narrative; and we find ourselves using the word “Enlightenment” in a family of ways and talking about a family of phenomena, resembling and related to one another in a variety of ways that permit of various generalizations about them. We are not, however, committed to a single root meaning of the word “Enlightenment,” and we do not need to reduce the phenomena of which we treat to a single process or entity to be termed “the” Enlightenment. It is a reification that we wish to avoid, but the structure of our language is such that this is difficult, and we will find ourselves talking of “the French” or “the Scottish,” “the Newtonian” or the “the Arminian” Enlightenments, and hoping that by employing qualifying adjectives we may constantly remind ourselves that the keyword “Enlightenment” is ours to use and should not master us.
100 citations
Book•
31 Dec 2008
TL;DR: Yinghong Cheng examines three culturally diverse socio-political experiments (the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, China under Mao, and Cuba under Castro) in an attempt to better understand the origins and development of the ''new man" as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The idea of eliminating undesirable elements from human nature to create a ""new man"" has been part of moral and political thinking worldwide for millennia. During the Enlightenment, European philosophers sought to construct an ideological framework for reshaping human nature. But it was only among the communist regimes of the twentieth century that such ideas were actually put into practice on a nationwide scale. In this book Yinghong Cheng examines three culturally diverse socio-political experiments - the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, China under Mao, and Cuba under Castro - in an attempt to better understand the origins and development of the ""new man.""The book's fundamental concerns are how these communist revolutions strove to create a new, morally and psychologically superior, human being and how this task paralleled efforts to create a superior society. Cheng begins by exploring the origins of the idea of human perfectibility during the Enlightenment. His discussion moves to other European intellectual movements, and then to the creation of the Soviet Man, the first communist new man in world history. Subsequent chapters examine China's experiment with human nature, starting with the nationalistic debate about a new national character at the turn of the twentieth century; and Cuban perceptions of the new man and his role in propelling the revolution from a nationalist, to a socialist, and finally a communist movement. The last chapter considers the global influence of the Soviet, Chinese, and Cuban experiments.
91 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines conceptions of scientific internationalism from the Enlightenment to the Cold War, and their varying relations to cosmopolitanism, nationalism, socialism, and "the West" and concludes that science is fundamentally universal.
Abstract: That science is fundamentally universal has been proclaimed innumerable times. But the precise geographical meaning of this universality has changed historically. This article examines conceptions of scientific internationalism from the Enlightenment to the Cold War, and their varying relations to cosmopolitanism, nationalism, socialism, and ‘the West’. These views are confronted with recent tendencies to cast science as a uniquely European product.
79 citations
03 Jun 2008
TL;DR: Schlutter as mentioned in this paper studied the controversy over the nature of enlightenment in the Chinese Chan (Zen) school in the twelfth century and found that silent meditation was an approach to practice and enlightenment that originated within this new Chan tradition.
Abstract: "How Zen Became Zen" takes a novel approach to understanding one of the most crucial developments in Zen Buddhism: the dispute over the nature of enlightenment that erupted within the Chinese Chan (Zen) school in the twelfth century. The famous Linji (Rinzai) Chan master Dahui Zonggao (1089-1163) railed against "heretical silent illumination Chan" and strongly advocated kanhua (koan) meditation as an antidote.In this fascinating study, Morten Schlutter shows that Dahui's target was the Caodong (Soto) Chan tradition that had been revived and reinvented in the early twelfth century, and that silent meditation was an approach to practice and enlightenment that originated within this "new" Chan tradition. Schlutter has written a refreshingly accessible account of the intricacies of the dispute, which is still reverberating through modern Zen in both Asia and the West. Dahui and his opponents' arguments for their respective positions come across in this book in as earnest and relevant a manner as they must have seemed almost nine hundred years ago.Although much of the book is devoted to illuminating the doctrinal and soteriological issues behind the enlightenment dispute, Schlutter makes the case that the dispute must be understood in the context of government policies toward Buddhism, economic factors, and social changes. He analyzes the remarkable ascent of Chan during the first centuries of the Song dynasty, when it became the dominant form of elite monastic Buddhism, and demonstrates that secular educated elites came to control the critical transmission from master to disciple ("procreation" as Schlutter terms it) in the Chan School.
74 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: Sanneh as discussed by the authors examines the roots of this "post-Western awakening" and the unparalleled richness and diversity, as well as the tension and conflict, it has brought to World Christianity, tracing Christianity's rise from its birth on the edge of the Roman empire to its key role in Europe's maritime and colonial expansion.
Abstract: Long the dominant religion of the West, Christianity is now rapidly becoming the principal faith in much of the postcolonial world-a development that marks a momentous shift in the religion's very center of gravity. In this eye-opening book, Lamin Sanneh examines the roots of this "post-Western awakening" and the unparalleled richness and diversity, as well as the tension and conflict, it has brought to World Christianity. Tracing Christianity's rise from its birth on the edge of the Roman empire-when it proclaimed itself to be a religion for the entire world, not just for one people, one time, and one place-to its key role in Europe's maritime and colonial expansion, Sanneh sheds new light on the ways in which post-Western societies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America were drawn into the Christian orbit. Ultimately, he shows, these societies outgrew Christianity's colonial forms and restructured it through their own languages and idioms-a process that often occurred outside, and sometimes against, the lines of denominational control. The effect of such changes, Sanneh contends, has been profound, transforming not only worship, prayer, and the interpretation of Scripture, but also art, aesthetics, and music associated with the church. In exploring this story of Christianity's global expansion and its current resurgence in the non-Western world, Sanneh pays close attention to such issues as the faith's encounters with Islam and indigenous religions, as well as with secular ideologies such as Marxism and nationalism. He also considers the challenges that conservative, non-Western forms of Christianity pose to Western liberal values and Enlightenment ideas. Here then is a groundbreaking study of Christianity's role in cultural innovation and historical change-and must reading for all who are concerned with the present and future of the faith.
66 citations
Book•
04 Jul 2008
TL;DR: In On Reason, the late philosopher Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze demonstrates that rationality, and by extension philosophy, need not be renounced as manifestations or tools of Western imperialism as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Given that Enlightenment rationality developed in Europe as European nations aggressively claimed other parts of the world for their own enrichment, scholars have made rationality the subject of postcolonial critique, questioning its universality and objectivity. In On Reason , the late philosopher Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze demonstrates that rationality, and by extension philosophy, need not be renounced as manifestations or tools of Western imperialism. Examining reason in connection to the politics of difference—the cluster of issues known variously as cultural diversity, political correctness, the culture wars, and identity politics—Eze expounds a rigorous argument that reason is produced through and because of difference. In so doing, he preserves reason as a human property while at the same time showing that it cannot be thought outside the realities of cultural diversity. Advocating rationality in a multicultural world, he proposes new ways of affirming both identity and difference.
Eze draws on an extraordinary command of Western philosophical thought and a deep knowledge of African philosophy and cultural traditions. He explores models of rationality in the thought of philosophers from Aristotle, Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Hobbes to Noam Chomsky, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Jacques Derrida, and he considers portrayals of reason in the work of the African thinkers and novelists Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Wole Soyinka. Eze reflects on contemporary thought about genetics, race, and postcolonial historiography as well as on the interplay between reason and unreason in the hearings of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He contends that while rationality may have a foundational formality, any understanding of its foundation and form is dynamic, always based in historical and cultural circumstances.
61 citations
Book•
03 Jul 2008
TL;DR: The Church in Danger: Latitudinarians, Socinians, and Hobbists as discussed by the authors The Church in danger: Latitude in Danger, Latitude and Living Fibres 4. Mortalists and Materialists 5. Journalism, Exile, and Clandestinity 6. Mid Eighteenth-Century Materialism 7.
Abstract: Preface 1. Introduction 2. 'The Church in Danger'. Latitudinarians, Socinians, and Hobbists 3. Animal Spirits and Living Fibres 4. Mortalists and Materialists 5. Journalism, Exile, and Clandestinity 6. Mid Eighteenth-Century Materialism 7. Epilogue : Some Consequences Bibliography Index
58 citations
Book•
01 Dec 2008
TL;DR: Nesbitt as discussed by the authors argues that the Haitian Revolution was the first modern state to implement human rights universally and unconditionally, and that universal emancipation was a fundamental event of modern history, both in the context of the Age of Enlightenment and in contemporary political philosophy.
Abstract: Unlike the American and French Revolutions, the Haitian Revolution was the first in a modern state to implement human rights universally and unconditionally. Going well beyond the selective emancipation of white adult male property owners, the Haitian Revolution is of vital importance, Nick Nesbitt argues, in thinking today about the urgent problems of social justice, human rights, imperialism, torture, and, above all, human freedom.Combining archival research, political philosophy, and intellectual history, Nesbitt explores this fundamental event of modern history - the invention of universal emancipation - both in the context of the Age of Enlightenment (Spinoza, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel) and in relation to certain key figures (Ranciere, Laclau, Habermas) and trends (such as the turn to ethics, human rights, and universalism) in contemporary political philosophy. In doing so, he elucidates the theoretical implications of Haiti's revolution both for the eighteenth century and for the twenty-first century. "Universal Emancipation" will be of interest not only to scholars and students of the Haitian Revolution and postcolonial francophone studies but also to readers interested in critical theory and its relation to history and political science.
57 citations
Book•
15 Apr 2008
TL;DR: The Neo-Kantian interpretation of Schiller's Essays is discussed in this article, with a focus on the relation between early philosophy and the philosophy of freedom and tragedy.
Abstract: Introduction 1. Early Philosophy 2. An Objective Aesthetic 3. Grace and Dignity 4. Argument and Context of the Asthetische Briefe 5. Dispute with Kant 6. Autonomy versus Enlightenment 7. The Philosophy of Freedom 8. Theory of Tragedy Appendix 1: Rhetoric and Philosophy in Schiller's Essays Appendix 2: The Neo-Kantian Interpretation of Schiller Bibliography Index
Book•
17 Jan 2008
TL;DR: Enlightenment, Governance, and Reform in Spain and its Empire, 1759-1808 as mentioned in this paper offers a new interpretation of political reform in Spanish and its American empire in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Abstract: Enlightenment, Governance, and Reform in Spain and its Empire, 1759-1808 offers a new interpretation of political reform in Spain and its American empire in the second half of the eighteenth century. It examines the intellectual foundations of commercial, administrative, and colonial policy during the tumultuous reigns of Charles III (1759-1788) and Charles IV (1788-1808), and explores how crown reformers employed both the ideas of the European Enlightenment and Iberian juridical concepts to create a distinctive ideology of governance. They sought to use these ideas in order to reinvigorate the Spanish monarchy and to transform the institutions of the Old Regime into those of a modern state in both the Old World and the New. Drawing on archival research undertaken in Spain, Cuba, Chile, and Argentina, this book makes an important contribution to the histories of Spain, Latin America, and the Atlantic World.
TL;DR: In 2002, the Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Bodhgaya was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site as discussed by the authors, which set in motion a series of development proposals and heritage policies that seek to rehabilitate and recreate this centre of world Buddhism.
Abstract: In 2002 the Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Bodhgaya was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. As the alleged site of Buddha's enlightenment it is one of the most revered and sanctified places for Buddhists around the world. This international designation has also set in motion a series of development proposals and heritage policies that seek to rehabilitate and recreate this centre of world Buddhism that provides glimpses of the land of enlightenment as it used to be in the times of the Buddha. Central to these initiatives are plans on behalf of the Bihar state tourism department to promote Brand Buddhism and spiritual tourism through the establishment of an 18 hole golf course and five-star hotels. These development proposals along with the recent UNESCO World Heritage designation have brought to the foreground the multiplicity of stakeholders in competition over the site's spiritual capital today. This paper will explore some of the contradictions and entanglements over Bodhgaya's present and uncertain future.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors take as their point of departure the way in which the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer has recently been adopted by philosophers such as Richard Rorty, John McDowell, and Robert Brandom.
Abstract: The essay takes as its point of departure the way in which the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer has recently been adopted by philosophers such as Richard Rorty, John McDowell, and Robert Brandom. While appreciating the way in which Truth and Method has gained new relevance within an Anglo-American context, I ask whether sufficient attention has been paid to Gadamer’s romantic heritage. In particular I question the way in which his notion of tradition and historical truth, designed as it is to overcome the ramifications of Descartes and the Kantian enlightenment, is modeled on the example of art and aesthetic experience.
Book•
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: The Making of British Culture: Reading Identities in the Social History of Ideas Notes Bibliography Index Index as mentioned in this paper, Section 5.1.1, Section 6.2, Section 7.2.
Abstract: Abbreviations Acknowledgments PART I: PROBLEMS Chapter 1: A Question of Perspective: Scotland and England in the British Enlightenment PART II: CONTEXTS Chapter 2: "The Self-Impannelled Jury of the English Court of Criticism": Taste and the Making of the Canon Chapter 3: "For Learning and For Arms Renown'd": Scotland in the Public Mind Chapter 4: "An Ample Fund of Amusement and Improvement": Institutional Frameworks for Reading and Reception Chapter 5: Readers and Their Books: Why, Where and How Did Reading Happen? PART III: CONTINGENCIES Chapter 6: "One Longs to Say Something": English Readers, Scottish Authors and the Contested Text Chapter 7: "Many Sketches & Scraps of Sentiments": Commonplacing and the Art of Reading Chapter 8: Copying and Co-opting: Owning the Text PART IV: CONSTRUCTIONS Chapter 9: Reading and Meaning: History, Travel and Political Economy Chapter 10: Mis-reading and Misunderstanding: Encountering Natural Religion and Hume PART V: CONSEQUENCES Chapter 11: The Making of British Culture: Reading Identities in the Social History of Ideas Notes Bibliography Index
Book•
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: Shank as discussed by the authors examined the historical changes that brought Newtonian science and modernity together in eighteenth-century time and space and found that each of these outcomes was a contingent event produced by the particular historical developments of the early eighteenth century.
Abstract: Nothing is considered more natural than the connection between Isaac Newton's science and the modernity that came into being during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Terms like "Newtonianism" are routinely taken as synonyms for "Enlightenment" and "modern" thought, yet the particular conjunction of these terms has a history full of accidents and contingencies. Modern physics, for example, was not the determined result of the rational unfolding of Newton's scientific work in the eighteenth century, nor was the Enlightenment the natural and inevitable consequence of Newton's eighteenth-century reception. Each of these outcomes, in fact, was a contingent event produced by the particular historical developments of the early eighteenth century.A comprehensive study of public culture, "The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment" digs below the surface of the commonplace narratives that link Newton with Enlightenment thought to examine the actual historical changes that brought them together in eighteenth-century time and space. Drawing on the full range of early modern scientific sources, from studied scientific treatises and academic papers to book reviews, commentaries, and private correspondence, J. B. Shank challenges the widely accepted claim that Isaac Newton's solitary genius is the reason for his iconic status as the father of modern physics and the philosophe movement.
TL;DR: Peirce's philosophy can be interpreted as an integration of mysticism and science as mentioned in this paper, and it seems that Peirce had a mystical view on reality with a transcendental Godhead.
Abstract: Peirce’s philosophy can be interpreted as an integration of mysticism and science. In Peirce’s philosophy mind is feeling on the inside and on the outside, spontaneity, chance and chaos with a tendency to take habits. Peirce’s philosophy has an emptiness beyond the three worlds of reality (his Categories), which is the source from where the categories spring. He emphasizes that God cannot be conscious in the way humans are, because there is no content in his “mind.” Since there is a transcendental3 nothingness behind and before the categories, it seems that Peirce had a mystical view on reality with a transcendental Godhead. Thus Peirce seems to be a panentheist.4 It seems fair to characterize him as a mystic whose path to enlightenment is science as a social activity.
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a list of illustrators and illustrators of artworks in the area of knowledge-based belief propagation, and discuss their work in the following areas:
Abstract: .................................................................................................................................. I LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ...................................................................................................... V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................... V
Book•
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: This book discusses Comparative Approaches to Political Thought, Metaphor and Political Language in Late Medieval Europe and Tokugawa Japan, and the Ebb and Flow of Peoples, Ideas and Innovations in the River of Intercivilizational Relations.
Abstract: 1 Contents Chapter 2 Introduction Part 3 I. Comparative Approaches to Political Thought Chapter 4 1. Comparative Political Theory: What Is It Good For? Chapter 5 2. Toward a Global History of Political Thought Part 6 II. Western Conversations with Asia Chapter 7 3. Varieties of Dialogue: Dialogical Models of Intercultural Communication in Medieval Inter-religious Writings Chapter 8 4. Asia and the Moral Geography of European Enlightenment Political Thought c. 1600-1800 Chapter 9 5. The Ebb and Flow of Peoples, Ideas and Innovations in the River of Intercivilizational Relations: Toward a Global History of Political Thought Chapter 10 6. Viewing Islam through Enlightenment Eyes Chapter 11 7. Dealing with Inequality: A Conversation with Islamic Economics Part 12 III. Asian Dialogues with the West Chapter 13 8. Islamic Responses to Europe at the Dawn of Colonialism Chapter 14 9. From Political Thought in India to Indian Political Thought Chapter 15 10. Indian Alternations: Aurobindo, Ambedkar and After Chapter 16 11. Chinese Conceptions of the State during the Late Qing Dynasty (1860-1911) Chapter 17 12. Is There a Confucian Perspective on Social Justice? Chapter 18 13. Imagining the Body Politic: Metaphor and Political Language in Late Medieval Europe and Tokugawa Japan Chapter 19 14. Meiji Intelligentsia's Riposte 20 Further Readings 21 About the Contributors 22 Index
TL;DR: In this paper, a close analysis of the Hans Sloane's approach to collecting and John Locke's empirical philosophy is used to question whether it is possible to locate touch as part of the Enlightenment rational project.
Abstract: Like many other museums, the Enlightenment Gallery at the British Museum provides handling objects for visitors. As Enlightenment notions of science and rational thought have all been predicated upon a shift away from multisensory experience towards objective vision, the introduction of these tactile objects could be read as a premodern anachronism. In contrast, this paper uses a close analysis of the Hans Sloane's approach to collecting and John Locke's empirical philosophy to ask whether it is possible to locate touch as part of the Enlightenment rational project. If so, then how do our conceptions of empiricism, museums and visitors change?I argue that for Sloane and Locke touch functions in rational terms, indeed it may be the basis of rational thought. At the same time, a careful reading of Locke and of Condillac's work on Locke shows that touch simultaneously opens up other, imaginative, speculative and emotional ways of knowing material objects. Crucially, these forms of knowing are not in ...
Book•
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: In this paper, the Voltaire effect was used to bring out the dead, belatedly, from the ruins of the French Revolution, in order to remember the Enlightenment and its events.
Abstract: 1. Producing Enlightenment history 2. The event of Enlightenment: beginnings 3. The subject of Enlightenment: constructing philosophers, writing intellectuals 4. Designing the past: thinking history through Montesquieu 5. Literature and the making of Revolutionary history 6. Inventing a literary past 7. Commemorating Enlightenment: bringing out the dead, belatedly 8. The Voltaire effect 9. Reading among the ruins 10. Epilogue Bibliography.
TL;DR: The first historians of China were representatives of the great Western empires at the end of the 19th century and their work perceives China from epistemological positions that clearly form part of the Orientalist and colonial thought that was characteristic of the period as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The West's perception of China as a historical entity has evolved over the centuries. China has gone from a country of miracles and marvels in the medieval world and a refined and erudite culture in early modern Europe, to become a nation without history or progress since the Enlightenment of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The first historians of China were, in fact, representatives of the great Western empires at the end of the 19th century and their work perceives China from epistemological positions that clearly form part of the Orientalist and colonial thought that was characteristic of the period. History written throughout the 20th century, despite the efforts made to overcome the prejudices of the past, was unable to distance itself completely from some of the resources used in representation or the stereotypes that the Western world had come to accept about China and East Asia since the Enlightenment. Only in recent decades has a critical historiography appeared to denounce the problems inherent in the discourse produced on China, and even this has failed to address them fully.
TL;DR: In this paper, a discussion of socio-spatial and cognitive linguistic theories of categorisation, containment and boundary-making is followed by several case studies in which territories and boundaries are explored with reference to the relationship between "religion" and "magic" in medieval Europe, the Enlightenment construction of'religion','religions' and 'non-religion' and briefly, the disciplinary engagement of religious studies and theology.
Abstract: Insider/outsider issues are of central importance for the definitions of religion and for the identity of religious groups, for the subjectivity and relationships of their adherents, for methodological issues within the study of religions and for the relationship between non-theological and thological studies of religion. Conceptions of 'inside', 'outside' and 'boundary', the emotions surrounding them, their origins in the social relations of body, family and strangers, and the metaphors used to depict and manage them all provide important insights for thinking about religions, how they are studies and by whom. A discussion of socio-spatial and cognitive linguistic theories of categorisation, containment and boundary-making is followed by several case studies in which territories and boundaries are explored with reference to the relationship between 'religion' and 'magic' in medieval Europe, the Enlightenment construction of 'religion', 'religions' and 'non-religion', and briefly, the disciplinary engagement of religious studies and theology. The application of the concept of the 'sacred' to these boundaries and the spaces they produce is considered.
Book•
12 Nov 2008
TL;DR: Socio-cultural anthropology emerged a century earlier than has previously been assumed as mentioned in this paper, and was developed in academic centers in Gottingen and Vienna during the eighteenth century, where German-speaking historians such as Gerhard Friedrich Muller, August Ludwig Schlozer, Johann Christoph Gatterer and Adam Franz Kollar invented and practiced a science of peoples designated as Volker-Beschreibung (1740), ethnographia (1767-71), Volkerkunde (1771-75) and ethnologia(1781-83).
Abstract: Socio-cultural anthropology emerged a century earlier than has previously been assumed. It originated in the field in Siberia and was developed in academic centers in Gottingen and Vienna during the eighteenth century. German-speaking historians such as Gerhard Friedrich Muller, August Ludwig Schlozer, Johann Christoph Gatterer and Adam Franz Kollar invented and practiced a science of peoples designated as Volker-Beschreibung (1740), ethnographia (1767-71), Volkerkunde (1771-75) and ethnologia (1781-83). With these concepts, they took part in an ethnological discourse, a way of thinking and communicating about peoples and nations. Ethnology was developed alongside (physical or philosophical) Anthropologie, partly in oppostion and partly in dialogue. Ethnology originated from history under the influence of historical linguistics and was developed as a complement to (physical and social) geography, social philosophy and (physical or philosophical) anthropology. These Germ an-speaking scholars systematized the ethnological way of thinking in the multicultural Russian, German, and Austrian Empires. The German tradition influenced scholars in Russia, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, and Bohemia, as well as in France, the United States, and Great Britain. Historiography has largely ignored these developments. To correct this omission, the early actors are introduced and their work is placed in a historical, academic, and political context.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The Place of Enchantment: British occultism and the culture of the modern as mentioned in this paper is a good starting point for a critical study of the British occult tradition and its relationship with modernism.
Abstract: The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern. By Alex Owen. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Pp. xiv + 356, acknowledgments, introduction, photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $30.00 cloth, $22.50 paper) At the beginning of his classic Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton tells the story of an imagined English yachtsman who, having made a slight error of navigation, lands upon England's shores believing it to be some undiscovered island in the South Seas. "What could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with coming home again?" he asks (1990 [1908]: 10). Likewise, early in The Everlasting Man, he writes that it might aid the Christian to imagine Christianity "as a remote Asiatic cult; the mitres of its bishops as the towering head-dresses of mysterious bronzes; its pastoral staffs as the sticks twisted like serpents carried in some Asiatic procession" (1993 [1925]:11). The point is that much of our own culture is so familiar to us that we cannot really appreciate it, let alone carry out any critical study of it. It is the air we breathe, the water we drink. It might be best, sometimes, to try to render it in alien terms that we might see it anew. Alex Owen's The Place of Enchantment comprises one such attempt. Owen travels the well-trod ground of studies in modernism, but she does so through the lens of fin de siecle British occultism, examining how the development of, for example, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn both reflected and informed the emergence of the modern spirit, "locat[ing] the 'new' occultism in relation to major secular developments in the understanding of mind and consciousness, developments that were themselves positing a dynamic relationship between the rational and irrational" (13). Owen challenges our identification of the modern with a stricdy secular or scientific outlook, for she makes clear that many occult groups exercised a devotion to Enlightenment principles even as diey contested a worldview based strictly upon rationalism. The Place of Enchantment will appeal to students of both turn-of-the-century British occultism and contemporary religious and philosophical movements that draw upon it and maintain its worldview. As Sarah M. Pike notes in New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, not only does the modern New Age movement trace its lineage in large part back to these occult beginnings, but it "borrows the language of science and works to bring itself into alignment with scientific theories just as it tries to fit scientific theories into its own philosophical framework," exactly as did its occult ancestors (2004:49); likewise, within new religious movements, there remains the tension between rationality and the subjective experience. Owen's book provides a fine foundation for such studies. Owen begins by drawing distinctions between the mid-nineteenthcentury spiritualist craze and the fin de siecle "mystical revival." During the later period The Theosophical Society, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis proposed to study the arcane secrets of existence, but their adherents were not intent upon retreating from the world; many were involved with emerging feminism and other social issues of the day: "Occultism was itself bound up with a spiritualized vision of social change that called upon those ideals of regeneration and self-fulfillment that were deeply attractive to feminists of the period, and offered a 'new' religiosity capable of outstripping the conventional Victorian association of femininity with a domesticated spirituality" (87). …
01 Sep 2008
TL;DR: In describing Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman ), Tannhauser, and Lohengrin as romantic operas, Wagner fell back on a term that he had first used for Die Feen ( The Fairies) in 1833-34, but the taxonomical similarity conceals an ideological difference that we can best understand only by briefly examining the conceptual background to these works as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In describing Der fliegende Hollander ( The Flying Dutchman ), Tannhauser , and Lohengrin as “Romantic operas,” Wagner fell back on a term that he had first used for Die Feen ( The Fairies ) in 1833–34, but the taxonomical similarity conceals an ideological difference that we can best understand only by briefly examining the conceptual background to these works. As a literary movement, Romanticism had emerged at the end of the eighteenth century as a protest against the utilitarian, skeptical spirit of the Enlightenment. If Kant had lamented the limits of the powers of reason, Fichte now proceeded to glorify the potentialities of the imagination, opening the floodgates of subjectivity and the irrational, often expressed in the language of Catholic mysticism. At first the movement was apolitical, but the sense of inadequacy induced by the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and by the Wars of Liberation of 1813–15 led to a desire to escape from the sordid, reactionary present into a past in which Germany had once been united and strong. One of the leading apologists of the Romantic movement, August Wilhelm Schlegel, summed up the aims of his fellow poets with reference to this feeling of nostalgia: “The poetry of the ancients was that of possession, ours is that of longing.” Sehnsucht , or longing, became a leading motif of Romantic poetry, specifically a longing to re-create the world of the Middle Ages.