Enlightenment

About: Enlightenment is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 6845 publications have been published within this topic receiving 116832 citations.

A. B. Marx, Berlin Concert Life, and German National Identity

Abstract: Why does one go to a symphony concert? Not so long ago, the answer seemed self-evident: to listen to the music on the program But as a number of recent writers have argued, listening to music for its own sake is anything but "natural"' Indeed, as an expectation of "normal" concert behavior it crystallized only about two centuries ago, as a corollary to what Carl Dahlhaus has called "the idea of absolute music" This modest historical observation, however, leads to numerous complex ramifications Historians-particularly German literary historians-have recently been tracing the emergence of autonomous art with increasing attention to its so ial, political, and economic implications2 The emerging view, in brief, is this: at the end of the eighteenth century, new ideas were put forward about art-above all in Kant's Critique of Judgment-that described the aesthetic object as purposeless and the subject (the viewer, the reader, the listener) as disinterested This "functionless" role for art was in large part a negative reaction to the immediately preceding efforts of Enlightenment thinkers to implement art as an instrument for the social good These new aesthetic theorists, most prominently Karl 19th-Century Music XVIII/2 (Fall 1994) o by The Regents of the University of California

French Architects and Engineers in the Age of Enlightenment

Abstract: List of Figures Acknowledgements 1. General Remarks 2. The classical tradition 3. The impact of the Enlightenment on architecture 4. 'Towards a classical architecture' Jacques-Francois Blondel and the 'Cours d'architecture' 5. The engineers' 'system' 6. The principles of training and the economy of knowledge 7. Stability and construction 8. Pierre Patte and the concept of the rational town 9. A productive countryside 10. From the revolutionary 'Genius' to Neo-classicism Conclusion Appendix Biographical Notes.

The fabrication of ancient Greece, 1785-1985

Abstract: Classical civilisation, Martin Bernal argues, has deep roots in Afro-Asiatic cultures. But these Afro-Asiatic influences have been systematically ignored, denied, or suppressed since the eighteenth century - chiefly for racist reasons. The popular view is that Greek civilisation was the result of the conquest of a sophisticated but weak native population by vigorous Indo-European speakers--or Aryans--from the North. But the Classical Greeks, Bernal argues, knew nothing of this "Aryan model." They did not see their political institutions, science, philosophy, or religion as original, but rather as derived from the East in general, and Egypt in particular. Black Athena is a three-volume work. Volume 1 concentrates on the crucial period between 1785 and 1850, which saw the Romantic and racist reaction to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and the consolidation of Northern expansion into other continents. In an unprecedented tour de force, Bernal makes meaningful links between a wide range of areas and disciplines--drama poetry, myth, theological controversy, esoteric religion, philosophy, biography, language, historical narrative, and the emergence of "modern scholarship."

Anthropology and the Dialectic of Enlightenment: A Discourse on the Definition and Ideals of a Threatened Discipline

Abstract: The knowledge practices of social and cultural anthropology can be conceived as undergoing constant methodological reconsideration or reformulation as a consequence of internal critique and of institutional change effected in the larger educational and political environment. Neo-liberal shifts affecting the institutional context may have influenced a deepening of the crisis in anthropology where the nature of its project has become less certain or has threatened a reconfiguration of such proportion that anthropology may be losing sight of its direction. This essay explores some of the Enlightenment roots of social and cultural anthropology. It is presented as very much an idea that embodies and reflects what Adorno and Horkheimer discussed as the dialectic of Enlightenment. The argument presented is less pessimistic claiming that the distinction of anthropology is in its pursuit of Enlightenment ideals that it has maintained and rehoned as a consequence of its own routine internal critique. The vital implication of the discussion is that anthropology is in a situation of serious threat in largely a post-Enlightenment world. In such a context, the methodological ideals that emerged as integral to the spirit of anthropology are well worth maintaining rather than abandoning. The ideals that are addressed are conceived to be integral to the importance of anthropology as critique and as a knowledge practice capable of sustaining a profound contribution to the understanding of the potential that is human being.