THE EXPANDING HISTORIOGRAPHY OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 577-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN GASCOIGNE
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
Interdisciplinary Character ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Globalized World

This historiographical review considers recent developments in the writing of imperial history, paying particular attention to the growing emphasis on cultural history. Such an emphasis reflects a close engagement with issues such as the formation of national identity in an imperial context and the ways in which systems of knowledge – including religion, science, and notions of gender – were linked with structures of empire. The extent to which cultural history intersects with concerns of literary scholars and anthropologists – in its engagement with travel literature, for example – further indicates the increasingly interdisciplinary character of imperial history. In conclusion, the review raises the issue of the limits, as well as the strengths, that flow from the expanding scope of cultural history, as well as offering suggestions as to why imperial history is likely to become increasingly important in a globalized world.

Cinesonidos

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Avila
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Film Music ◽  
Sound Studies ◽  
Mexican Film ◽  
Commercial Medium ◽  
Film Genres

Cinesonidos: Film Music and National Identity During Mexico’s Época de Oro is the first book-length study concerning the function of music in the prominent genres structured by the Mexican film industry. Integrating primary source material with film music studies, sound studies, and Mexican film and cultural history, this project closely examines examples from five significant film genres that developed during the 1930s through 1950s. These genres include the prostitute melodrama, the fictional indigenista film (films on indigenous themes or topics), the cine de añoranza porfiriana (films of Porfirian nostalgia), the revolutionary melodrama, and the comedia ranchera (ranch comedy). The musics in these films helped create and accentuate the tropes and archetypes considered central to Mexican cultural nationalism. Distinct in narrative and structure, each genre exploits specific, at times contradictory, aspects of Mexicanidad—the cultural identity of the Mexican people—and, as such, employs different musics to concretize those constructions. Throughout this turbulent period, these tropes and archetypes mirrored changing perceptions of Mexicanidad manufactured by the state and popular and transnational culture. Several social and political agencies were heavily invested in creating a unified national identity to merge the previously fragmented populace owing to the Mexican Revolution (1910–ca.1920). The commercial medium of film became an important tool in acquainting a diverse urban audience with the nuances of national identity, and music played an essential and persuasive role in the process. In this heterogeneous environment, cinema and its music continuously reshaped the contested, fluctuating space of Mexican identity.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Essentials of Hindutva: A Study of Its Philosophical Elements to Hindu Nationalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-160
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Hindu Nationalism ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Rhetorical Style ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Jawaharlal Nehru ◽  
Extended Essay

In the early twentieth-century, the concepts of Hindutva, Samyavada or Nationalism and national identity, reconstructed amid currents of globalization and neo-colonialism. During this period, the calls for an independent India reached its height. While, Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru believed modern India’s strength depended on incorporating the solidarities of all Indians as they stood on the precipice of the postcolonial age, Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966), an ethnocentric nationalist, held that a strong Hindu nation was the only way to guarantee India’s security against the Muslim other and the British imperialism. Being the philosopher of Hindutva, Savarkar represented the ethno-nationalistic component to Hindu nationalism and looked to cultural motifs in order to unify the “true” people of India. He, therefore, wrote glorified histories of India and its millennia-old cultural traditions in his essays. This article analyzes and historically contextualizes the timing and the rhetorical style of V. D. Savarkar’s infamous extended essay “Essentials of Hindutva”. Received 9th December 2020; Revised 2nd March 2021; Accepted 20th March 2021

scholarly journals Simono Daukanto BUDĄ Senowęs-Letuwiu Kalnienu ĩr Ƶamajtiu (1845) šaltiniai

2020 ◽  
pp. 217-248
Author(s):  
Roma Bončkutė
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Comparative Linguistics ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Regional Historiography

SOURCES OF SIMONAS DAUKANTAS’S BUDĄ SENOWĘS-LËTUWIÛ KALNIENÛ ĨR ƵÁMAJTIÛ (1845) The article investigates Simonas Daukantas’s (1793–1864) BUDĄ Senowęs-Lëtuwiû Kalnienû ĩr Ƶámajtiû (The Character of the Lithuanian Highlanders and Samogitians of the Old Times, 1845; hereafter Bd) with regards to genre, origin of the title, and the dominant German sources of the work. It claims that Daukantas conceived Bd because he understood that the future of Lithuania is closely related to its past. A single, united version of Lithuanian history, accepted by the whole nation, was necessary for the development of Lithuanian national identity and collective feeling. The history, which up until then had not been published in Lithuanian, could have helped to create the contours of a new society by presenting the paradigmatic events of the past. The collective awareness of the difference between the present and the past (and future) should have given the Lithuanian community an incentive to move forward. Daukantas wrote Bd quickly, between 1842 and May 28, 1844, because he drew on his previous work ISTORYJE ƵEMAYTYSZKA (History of the Lithuanian Lowlands, ~1831–1834; IƵ). Based on the findings of previous researchers of Daukantas’s works, after studying the dominant sources of Bd and examining their nature, this article comes to the conclusion that the work has features of both cultural history and regional historiography. The graphically highlighted form of the word “BUDĄ” used in the work’s title should be considered the author’s code. Daukantas, influenced by the newest culturological research and comparative linguistics of the 18th–19th centuries, propagated that Lithuanians originate from India and, like many others, found evidence of this in the Lithuanian language and culture. He considered the Budini (Greek Βουδίνοι), who are associated with the followers of Buddha, to be Lithuanian ancestors. He found proof of this claim in the language and chose the word “būdas” (character), which evokes aforementioned associations, to express the idea of the work.

Cuba Through A New Lens

2008 ◽  
Vol 81 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 265-270
Author(s):  
Jean Stubbs
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

[First paragraph]The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered. Samuel Farber. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. x + 212 pp. (Paper US$ 19.95)Cuba: A New History. Ric hard Gott . New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. xii + 384 pp. (Paper US$ 17.00)Havana: The Making of Cuban Culture. Antoni Kapcia. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2005. xx + 236 pp. (Paper US$ 24.95) Richard Gott, Antoni Kapcia, and Samuel Farber each approach Cuba through a new lens. Gott does so by providing a broad-sweep history of Cuba, which is epic in scope, attaches importance to social as much as political and economic history, and blends scholarship with flair. Kapcia homes in on Havana as the locus for Cuban culture, whereby cultural history becomes the trope for exploring not only the city but also Cuban national identity. Farber revisits his own and others’ interpretations of the origins of the Cuban Revolution.

“The museum, cross-dressed as a museum”

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-249
Author(s):  
Michael J. Horswell
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Latin American Countries

This article explicates the discursive strategies deployed by the curator of the Museo travesti de Perú (2008), philosopher, activist, and artist Giuseppe Campuzano (1969–2013), to explore theoretical intersections of national identity and globalization(s) and to appreciate a testimonial, Neo-Baroque, peripheral aesthetic that challenges and “decolonizes” the cultural history of peripheral genders and sexualities in Latin American countries like Peru. Through an analysis of the museum’s visual codes in its works of art and a discursive interpretation of the narratives framing those pieces, this essay demonstrates how the Museo travesti is an exaltation of difference and a critical agent for a citizenship of inclusion — a testimonial agent that activates and circulates works of art in order to not only promote knowledge of reality, but to transform that reality through effects of decolonization from the national periphery.

Authenticity, hybridity, and difference

Focaal ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (45) ◽  
pp. 71-93
Author(s):  
Wil G. Pansters
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Politics ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Authentic Identity ◽  
Recent Developments

This article studies the transformation of the debate about national culture in twentieth-century Mexico by looking at the complex relationship between discourses of authenticity and mestizaje. The article firstly demonstrates how in the first half of the twentieth century, Mexican national identity was constructed out of a state-led program of mestizaje, thereby supposedly giving rise to a new and authentic identity, the mestizo (nation). Secondly, it is argued that the authentication project around mestizaje is riddled with paradoxes that require explanation. Thirdly, the article studies the political dimension of the authenticity discourse and demonstrates how the homogenizing and unifying forces that spring from the process of authentication played an important role in buttressing an authoritarian regime. Fourthly, the article looks at two recent developments: indigenous cultural politics and transnationalism. Here it is shown how discourses of difference, pluralism, and transnationalism are challenging the central tenets of Mexican post-revolutionary national culture and the boundaries of the national Self.

Roundtable: Imperial History by the Book: A Roundtable on John Darwin's The Empire Project. Reply

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 993-997
Author(s):  
John Darwin
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
The World

AbstractIn an age when both the traditional book form and the world that the British Empire made are arguably in crisis, it is remarkable that big books on British imperialism abound. Contributors to this roundtable assess scale and genre as well as content in their discussion of the claims and impact of John Darwin's tome, The Empire Project. John Darwin's response is also included.

A New Shahrazad

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-386
Author(s):  
Andrew Amstutz
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Middle East ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
British India ◽  
World War ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Autobiographical Writing ◽  
History Of

Abstract In 1945, Mahmooda Rizvia, a prominent Urdu author from Sindh, published a travel account of her journey across the Arabian Sea from British India to Iraq during World War II. In her travel account, Rizvia conceptualized the declining British Empire as a dynamic space for Muslim renewal that connected India to the Middle East. Moreover, she fashioned a singular autobiographical persona as an Urdu literary pioneer and woman traveler in the Muslim lands of the British Empire. In her writings, Rizvia focused on her distinctive observations of the ocean, the history of the Ottoman Empire, and her home province of Sindh's location as a historical nexus between South Asia and the Middle East. In contrast to the expectations of modesty and de-emphasis on the self in many Muslim women's autobiographical narratives in the colonial era, Rizvia fashioned a pious, yet unapologetically self-promotional, autobiographical persona. In conversation with recent scholarship on Muslim cosmopolitanism, women's autobiographical writing, and travel literature, this article points to the development of an influential project of Muslim cosmopolitanism in late colonial Sindh that blurred the lines between British imperialism, pan-Islamic ambitions, and nationalism during the closing days of World War II.

scholarly journals Editorial Introduction: War Veterans and Fascism

Fascism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Kristian Mennen ◽  
Wim van Meurs
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Research Area ◽  
World War ◽  
War Veterans ◽  
General Direction ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of

This special issue of the journal Fascism draws its inspiration from recent developments in the research areas of war studies, cultural history of the First World War, research on political culture and on (international) civil society in historical perspective. It aims to review the approaches and considerations of recent studies about World War veterans and their veterans’ organisations for selected European countries in the interwar period. The articles in this themed issue will contribute to an improved insight into the history of fascism and the backgrounds of fascist movements. This introduction will present the general direction of the themed issue and a broad outline of the dominant questions and concerns. It presents recent developments across a broad range of new approaches and perspectives on the history of the interwar period, before outlining the research area of veterans’ organisations and the general questions and problems which this themed issue will be considering.

scholarly journals Confluence of Identity and Politics in Today’s Globalized World: A Perspective from Political Psychology

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Hamd Ejaz ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Political Psychology ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
First Century ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
Ethnic Origins

The subject of identity and it’s bearing on politics; largely in the form of political behavior has been either neglected wholly or delegated in part to other social sciences’. Identity, as confirmed by psychology, sociology and anthropology is at the heart of politics in the twenty-first century. The issue of identity warrants a renewed research since today in the globalized world, identity has become fragmented. Gone are the days when identity was almost always equated to national identity; the scope of identity has become much more individualistic and therefore complex. Identity means different things to different individuals, some may choose to identify themselves on the basis of religion while others may seek to highlight their ethnic origins over their national identity. This variance in self-identification goes on to show that the outdated and over-simplistic explanations of identity and how it dictates politics need to be over-hauled and replaced. The article establishes the primacy of identity in demarcating social and political behavior and then discusses the various types of identities in today’s globalized world. This article contributes in the debate between identity and politics by integrating theoretical perspectives from political psychology: a sub-discipline of political science, and how these theoretical perspectives trump the existing body of work on the subject. In the end, the article will conclude by identifying limitations in its approach towards the subject.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document