Showing papers on "Intellectual history published in 2018"

The Sovereign and the Prophets

Abstract: Tracing Old Testament topics recurrent in Grotian and Hobbesian discourses on the church-state relationship, Atsuko Fukuoka recontextualizes Spinoza’s Theologico-political Treatise and clarifies its historical import for Dutch debates on religion, state power, and liberty.

Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume II

Abstract: Anarchism and religion have historically had an uneasy relationship. Indeed, representatives of both sides have regularly insisted on the fundamental incompatibility of anarchist and religious ideas and practices. Yet, ever since the emergence of anarchism as an intellectual and political movement, a considerable number of religious anarchists have insisted that their religious tradition necessarily implies an anarchist political stance. Their stories are finally gaining increasing public and scholarly attention. Reflecting both a rise of interest in anarchist ideas and activism on the one hand, and the revival of religious ideas and movements in the political sphere on the other, this book examines a range of examples of overlaps and contestations between the two from a diverse range of academic perspectives. The first pioneering volume of Essays in Anarchism & Religion comprises eight essays from leading international scholars on topics ranging from the anarchism of the historical Jesus to Zen Buddhism and the philosophies of Max Stirner and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. In a world where political ideas increasingly matter once more, and religion is an increasingly visible aspect of global political life, these essays offer scholarly analysis of overlooked activists, ideas and movements, and as such reveal the possibility of a powerful critique of contemporary global society. "This book series is being funded via a crowdfunding campaign. For more information, or to make a donation for the next volume, please visit the funding page . This scheme ensures that the content will remain fully open access.

The American Academic Profession

Abstract: "This book covers well the issues and problems of the U.S. academic profession in the second half of the twentieth century." -- Contemporary Science The tale of the American academic profession-that large company of men and women, unprecedented in its size and diversity-needs to be written. A large historical literature on America's colleges and universities exists, but much of it is unashamedly hagiographic. On the other hand, more critical works see American universities as being in dire need of massive reform. This charge is not sustained by the contributors to The American Academic Profession, who hope to shatter the code of silence that passes for discretion, by focusing on the forces that have conspired to create the American academic profession. Graubard includes contributions from important scholars around the world: "How the Academic Profession is Changing" by Arthur Levine; "Small Worlds, Different Worlds: The Uniqueness and Troubles of American Academic Professions" by Burton R. Clark; "The Elusive Academic Profession: Complexity and Change" by Francis Oakley; "Uncertainties in the Changing Academic Profession" by Walter E. Massey; "Stewards of Opportunity: America's Public Community Colleges" by Patrick M. Callan; "Public Universities as Academic Workplaces" by Patricia J. Gumport; "Survival of the Fittest? Postgraduate Education and the Professoriate at the Fin de Sicle" by R. M. Douglas; "Reflections on the Culture Wars" by Eugene Goodheart; "A Blow Is Like an Instrument" by Charles Bernstein; "The Science Wars and the Future of the American Academic Profession" by Jay A. Labinger; "The Scientist as Academic" by Cheryl B. Leggon; "The 'Place' of Knowledge in the American Academic Profession" by Sheldon Rothblatt; "Border Crossings: Organizational Boundaries and Challenges to the American Professoriate" by Theodore R. Mitchell; "The Development of Information Technology in American Higher Education" by Martin Trow; and "An International Academic Crisis? The American Professoriate in Comparative Perspective" by Philip G. Altbach. The American Academic Profession is not sanguine about what is currently happening in higher education, or what it imagines the future portends. It simply asks the question: Can a society truly understand its universities and colleges when it has moved too quickly from uncritical admiration to uniformed and ungenerous complaint? This volume intends to dispel some long-persistent myths in favor of objective truth. It is a must for anyone interested in academic problems, for those who work in higher education, and for everyone interested in American ideas, traditions, and social and intellectual history. Stephen R. Graubard is editor of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and its journal, Daedalus, and professor of history emeritus at Brown University.

The Myth of Universality: The UNESCO “Philosophers’ Committee” and the Making of Human Rights

Abstract: This article reexamines one of the most enduring questions in the history of human rights: the question of human rights universality. By the end of the first decade after the end of the Cold War, debates around the legitimacy and origins of human rights took on new urgency, as human rights emerged as an increasingly influential rubric in international law, transnational development policy, social activism, and ethical discourse. At stake in these debates was the fundamental status of human rights. Based in part on new archival research, this article offers an alternative interpretation of the rediscovery by scholars in the late 1990s of a 1947 UNESCO survey that purported to demonstrate the universality of human rights through empirical evidence. The article argues that this contested intellectual history reflects the enduring importance of the “myth of universality”—a key cultural narrative that we continue to use to find meaning across the long, dark night of history.

Collaborative drawing on Captain Cook's Endeavour voyage, 1768-1771: an intellectual history of artistic practice

Abstract: This thesis investigates what can be learned from the drawn gesture on paper by locating it in the historical context in which it was made. This ‘contextualist’ approach to drawing analysis is derived from the methodologies used for text analysis in intellectual history. Intellectual historians recapture the meaning a text conveyed to its original readers by reconstructing the ‘language game’ of the author. The game has two dimensions in this approach: the concepts and practices that define the cultural norms of the author’s society and intellectual community, and might be described as the ‘rules of the game’, and the creative ‘moves’ made by individuals within these parameters as participants in a discourse with the author that constitute the game’s ‘play’. This thesis proposes to expand the field of intellectual history by incorporating the dimension of gesture into the moves of the language game to allow drawing and writing to be studied together. This gestural dimension of the linguistic move constitutes artistic practice in the terms of this thesis. The ramifications of its incorporation into the play of discourse are illustrated in a case study of the first part of Captain Cook’s Endeavour voyage of Pacific exploration from 1768 to 1771, the voyage to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus. Part One, ‘Intellectual Parameters,’ constructs a model of Georgian civil society that provides the foundation for the linguistic context in which the expedition’s manuscripts of texts and drawings will be read in the chapters of the thesis. Part Two, ‘Drawing Practices,’ applies this model to develop a detailed picture of the expedition’s working community by reconstructing the artists’ drawing sessions in the Atlantic. Part Three, ‘Discourse,’ interprets the drawings of Tupaia, the man who joined Cook’s voyage to travel to England, and his discourse through the bridging languages of navigation and cartography with several members of the expedition, to produce a new reading of the Endeavour’s purpose of discovery in the South Pacific and Cook’s claims to possession.

Concussion: A History of Science and Medicine, 1870-2005.

Abstract: Objective To review the intellectual history of concussion from the mid-19th century to the opening decade of the 21st century. Background Head injuries (HI) and their acute and long-term effects have been investigated for centuries, with major reviews of the topic appearing by 1870. Thus, while it has long been acknowledged that chronic traumatic encephalopathy was first described by Harrison Martland in 1928, an examination of the history of concussion research up to Martland's seminal report places his studies in a deeper historical context. This history makes clear that Martland's findings were one among many such studies showcasing the lasting dangers of blows to the head. In the years after Martland published his study, his paper was frequently cited in other papers that made clear that blows to the head, of all ranges of severity, were dangerous injuries with potentially life-changing consequences. Methods The author has engaged in an historical analysis of the development and elaboration of concussion research in clinical medicine, neurology, neurosurgery, and those scientific disciplines related to clinical medicine. The author has found numerous primary sources from the history of medicine and science that describe the acute and chronic effects of single and repeated sub-concussive and concussive blows to the head. Results This study makes clear that evidence-based methodologies inevitably short-change the knowledge of past clinicians and scientists by holding these figures to normative standards of recent invention. What criticism of this kind fails to recognize is that past investigators, many of them pioneers in their fields, published their work in ways that matched the highest normative standards of their day for the presentation of evidence. Conclusions It has been recognized for a long time that concussions are dangerous injuries with potentially life-changing consequences, ranging from permanent symptoms to degenerative neurological states. The intellectual history of medicine and science from 1870 to the recent past shows both a continuity of clinical observations about HI and a steady, incremental accumulation of knowledge refining our understanding of those observations from a remarkably wide sphere of scientific disciplines.

A History of Scholarship

Abstract: Th is chapter presents the origins and development of distance education scholarship. It is organized by seven principal topics: (1) pioneer research; (2) research centers; (3) trends in the late 20th century; (4) professional development of distance educators; (5) professional associations; (6) lectures, seminars, symposia, workshops, and conferences; (7) publications and other media.

Constantin Frantz and the intellectual history of Bonapartism and Caesarism: a reassessment

Abstract: The conservative German publicist and political theorist, Constantin Frantz (1817–1891), occupies an ambiguous place in German intellectual history. Some, such as Friedrich Meinecke, located him wi...

The Fabric of Transnational Political Activism: “Révolution Afrique” and West African Radical Militants in France in the 1970s

Abstract: This article locates itself at the intersection of the social history of postcolonial migrations and the intellectual history of leftism and Third-Worldism in the aftermath of May ’68. It is the first study of the radical political group Revolution Afrique. From 1972 until its ban by the French government in 1977, this organization forged by African and French activists mobilized against neocolonial ideologies and policies on both sides of the Mediterranean. By tracing the rise and fall of the organization through extensive archival research and in-depth interviews, the article explores the changing meanings of transnational activism by weaving together the biographical paths of the activists, the institutional and political constraints they faced, and the ideological framework within which they operated. During this short time frame, the transnational agenda that made sense among African workers and students in the early 1970s became irrelevant. The increasing repression of political dissent in Africa and France, the suspension of migratory flows, and the French government’s implementation of return policies in the late 1970s forced the group’s African activists to adopt a more national approach to their actions, or simply withdraw from high-risk activism. Despite the dissolution of Revolution Afrique, this collective endeavor appears to have been a unique experience of political education for African activists, transcending distinct social and national boundaries that until now have been left unexamined by social scientists specialized in the complex history of the relationships between France and Africa.

Humboldt and the modern German university: An intellectual history

Abstract: This book is about the idea of the university in modern Germany. Its primary focus is how the transformation of the Humboldtian tradition gave direction to debates around higher education. By combining approaches from intellectual history, conceptual history and the history of knowledge, the study investigates the ways in which Humboldt’s ideas have been appropriated for various purposes in different historical contexts and epochs. Ultimately, it shows that Humboldt’s ideals are not timeless – they are historical phenomena and have always been determined by the predicaments and issues of the day. Nevertheless, many of the key concepts and fundamental ideas have endured throughout the twentieth century, though they have been interpreted in different ways. (Less)

Philosophy and Political Economy

Abstract: This volume is one of the most remarkable works in the history of economic thought. First published in 1893, its principal significance rests in its argument that economic theory, however technical or pragmatic, is necessarily formed by and derives its meaning from larger moral and philosophical systems and assumptions. Bonar traces the inexorable presence of this moral and philosophical element in a vast, though highly nuanced, survey of the economic aspect of major thinkers from Plato to Darwin and demonstrates how modern economic thought, in turn, grew out of one or another branch of philosophy. Bonar begins with a consideration of Plato and Aristotle, examining their conceptions of wealth, production and distribution, and civil society. Discussions of the Stoics, Epicurians, and early Christianity explore complications introduced by these bodies of thought. His analysis of the classical and medieval world is followed by an extensive treatment of the concept of natural law, from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, describing its influence and its relation to ideas of natural rights. The book's later sections concentrate on the dominant modes of ninteenth-cen-tury thought: utilitarianism, idealism, and materialism. Bonar identifies and explores the philosophical topics on which the conduct of technical economic analysis makes assumptions: human nature and human wants, the nature and role of the state, the relation of the individual to society, the nature and origin of property, and the role of ideals in socioeconomic life. He concludes by examining the implications for economics of the theory of evolution arising from the work of Darwin and others. The continuing interest of this volume for economists, philosophers, and sociologists lies in Bonar's contention that at the heart of the relationship of philosophy to economics is the problem of order: the ongoing need to reconcile conflicts between freedom and control, continuity and change, hierarchy and equality. In his reading, the fundamental question to which philosophy and economics are both brought to bear is that of changing the structure of power and opportunity in the social economy. This is, in short, a classic in the history of economics as well as the economic element in intellectual history.

Critical International Theory: An Intellectual History

Abstract: Whether inspired by the Frankfurt School or Antonio Gramsci, the impact of critical theory on the study of international relations has grown considerably since its advent in the early 1980s. This book offers the first intellectual history of critical international theory. Richard Devetak approaches this history by locating its emergence in the rising prestige of theory and the theoretical persona. As theory's prestige rose in the discipline of international relations it opened the way for normative and metatheoretical reconsiderations of the discipline and the world. The book traces the lines of intellectual inheritance through the Frankfurt School to the Enlightenment, German idealism, and historical materialism, to reveal the construction of a particular kind of intellectual persona: the critical international theorist who has mastered reflexive, dialectical forms of social philosophy. In addition to the extensive treatment of critical theory's reception and development in international relations, the book recovers a rival form of theory that originates outside the usual inheritance of critical international theory in Renaissance humanism and the civil Enlightenment. This historical mode of theorising was intended to combat metaphysical encroachments on politics and international relations and to prioritise the mundane demands of civil government over the self-reflective demands of dialectical social philosophies. By proposing contextualist intellectual history as a form of critical theory, Critical International Theory: An Intellectual History defends a mode of historical critique that refuses the normative temptations to project present conceptions onto an alien past, and to abstract from the offices of civil government.

The Remnants of the Rechtsstaat: An Ethnography of Nazi Law

Abstract: This book is an intellectual history of Ernst Fraenkel's The Dual State (1941, reissued 2017), one of the most erudite books on the theory of dictatorship ever written. Fraenkel's was the first comprehensive analysis of the rise and nature of Nazism, and the only such analysis written from within Hitler's Germany. His sophisticated-not to mention courageous-analysis amounted to an ethnography of Nazi law. As a result of its clandestine origins, The Dual State has been hailed as the ultimate piece of intellectual resistance to the Nazi regime. In this book, Jens Meierhenrich revives Fraenkel's innovative concept of "the dual state," restoring it to its rightful place in the annals of public law scholarship. Blending insights from legal theory and legal history, he tells in an accessible manner the remarkable gestation of Fraenkel's ethnography of law from inside the belly of the behemoth. In addition to questioning the conventional wisdom about the law of the Third Reich, Meierhenrich explores the legal origins of dictatorship elsewhere, then and now. The book sets the parameters for a theory of the "authoritarian rule of law," a cutting edge topic in law and society scholarship with immediate policy implications.

Introduction: approaching space in intellectual history

Abstract: This article serves as an introduction to the special issue on Conceptions of Space in Intellectual History. It opens with a brief inquiry into the place of ‘space’, both as a topic and as an analy...

A civic alternative to Stoicism: the ethics of Hellenistic honorary decrees

Abstract: This article is a case study of the ways in which the public inscriptions of Greek poleis can serve as strong and revealing evidence for Greek ethical thinking and ideas, including wider Greek debates about questions of central importance for Greek ethical philosophers The article examines, and seeks to explain, the ethical rhetoric and ideas contained in honorary decrees passed by Hellenistic poleis for leading home citizens, one of the principal forms of public expression used by Hellenistic poleis It compares that rhetoric and those ideas with the ethical language and doctrines of different ancient philosophical schools Whereas some scholars have identified ethical views comparable to Stoic ideas in Hellenistic decrees, this article argues that there are more significant overlaps with mainstream fourth-century ethical philosophy, especially Aristotle’s, and its Hellenistic continuators As an institution, the honorary decree for a home citizen embodied principles central to Aristotle’s thought Moreover, in some of the particularly rhetorical long honorary decrees which emerged in the period after c 150 BC, drafters articulated traditional ideals about virtue and the polis in newly elaborate ways, using distinctive language and ideas similar to those of Plato and especially Aristotle and the Peripatetics The article also seeks to explain this ethical outlook of decrees, in terms of political, social and intellectual history Relevant honorific rhetoric can be interpreted as a product of bargaining between leading citizen benefactors and their fellow citizens, but also of collaborative development of a vision of just, sustainable civic order Decree-drafters had a wide intellectual and cultural range on which to draw in developing their rhetoric, probably including high philosophy The combined evidence of Hellenistic philosophy and epigraphy shows that, in the same way as the Greek polis continued to flourish after Chaironeia, critical reflection about the ethical foundations of civic life also remained vibrant, especially among Peripatetic philosophers and active citizens of poleis All ancient dates are BC, unless otherwise stated

Emancipatory Empiricism: The Rural Sociology of W.E.B. Du Bois

Abstract: In this article, the authors discuss W.E.B. Du Bois’ contributions to rural sociology, focusing specifically on his discussions of rural communities and the structure of agriculture. The authors fr...

The Apogee of Soviet Political Romanticism: Projects for Moral Renewal in Early Perestroika (1985–1989)

Abstract: This article analyses the early reforms of perestroika (1985–1989) that aimed to overcome the perceived moral crisis of Soviet society. A close study of the public debates of that time reveals three conflicting perspectives on morality. By situating these debates in the wider context of Soviet and Western intellectual history, this article argues that the Soviet liberal project was part of a broader phenomenon, namely, the apogee of political Romanticism in the USSR. This conclusion, in turn, sheds light on the specificities of the Soviet liberal moral project, which inspired Gorbachev’s reform strategy from 1987 onwards.

Qing Travelers to the Far West: Diplomacy and the Information Order in Late Imperial China

Abstract: Prior to the nineteenth century, the West occupied an anomalous space in the Chinese imagination, populated by untamable barbarians and unearthly immortals. First-hand accounts and correspondence from Qing envoys and diplomats to Europe unraveled that perception. In this path-breaking study, Jenny Huangfu Day interweaves the history of Qing legation-building with the personal stories of China's first official travelers, envoys and diplomats to Europe. She explores how diplomat-travelers navigated the conceptual and physical space of a land virtually unmapped in the Chinese intellectual tradition and created a new information order. This study reveals the fluidity, heterogeneity, and ambivalence of their experience, and the layers of tension between thinking, writing, and publishing about the West. By integrating diplomatic and intellectual history with literary analysis and communication studies, Day offers a fundamentally new interpretation of the Qing's engagement with the West.

The New Sincerity in American Literature

Abstract: The New Sincerity is a provocative mode of literary interpretation that focuses intensely on coherent connections that texts can build with readers who are primed to seek out narratives and literary works that rest on clear and stable relationships between dialectics of interior/exterior, self/others, and meaning/expression. Studies on The New Sincerity so far have focused on how it should be situated against dominant literary movements such as postmodernism. My dissertation aims for a more positive definition, unfolding the most essential details of The New Sincerity in three parts: by exploring the intellectual history of the term “sincerity” and related ideas (such as authenticity); by establishing the historical context that created the conditions that led to The New Sincerity’s genesis in the 1990s; and by tracing the different forms reading with The New Sincerity can take by analyzing a diverse body of literary texts. The works of literature I examine come from a very brief span in the final decade of the twentieth century, but there are innumerable avenues for future research and study that can expand the study of The New Sincerity.

A brief intellectual history of geopolitical thought and its relevance to the Baltic Sea region

Abstract: This article outlines a general history of the intellectual origins and development of geopolitical thought. It provides categories for assessing contemporary expressions of this phenomenon, and th ...

An untold story in biology: the historical continuity of evolutionary ideas of Muslim scholars from the 8th century to Darwin’s time

Abstract: Textbooks on the history of biology and evolutionary thought do not mention the evolutionary ideas of Muslim scholars before Darwin’s time. This is part of a trend in the West to minimise the contr...