scholarly journals Intellectual History as History of Engagement? The French Scholarship

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Massimo Asta
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
English Edition ◽  
Political Morality ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Intellectual Status ◽  
Academic Register ◽  
French Intellectuals

Few intellectual histories of France by non-French authors in recent years have produced the bitter polemic that Tony Judt's Past Imperfect: French intellectuals (1944–1956) elicited. Published in French at the same time as the English edition in 1992, the book was held to account for its questionable historiographical legitimacy, alleged inaccuracy in the treatment of sources, and not-so-hidden partisanship, even if it also received some positive reviews from authoritative specialists in the field in important national newspapers. Nevertheless, the general tone and content of the French academic reviews were largely negative, and in many ways this response was unsurprising: how could a study arguing that a certain dominant (and still alive) Jacobin philosophical tradition was characterized by a “marked absence of a concern with public ethics or political morality” be read otherwise? Further, in an often caustic style, Judt accused the postwar French intellectuals of being seduced by totalitarian tendencies. Such charge, not surprisingly, provoked a pointed defence of the intellectual and historiographical national sensibility, which was not above resorting to Continental stereotypes against the “Anglo-Saxon” cultural model. Nor was the negative reception surprising to Judt, who positioned himself explicitly in the text as an outsider, belonging to a different intellectual tradition. It is useful to remember this uproar today as one considers new books by Gisèle Sapiro and François Dosse, as it illustrates three important issues in a lively academic register: the continuity of a French approach to intellectual history, its difference from Anglo-American traditions, and a possible—although mediated—angle for understanding the nature of this French particularism, through the discussion of the historiographic projection of the idea of intellectual status.

THE INFLUENCE OF GERMAN STATE-THEORY ON THE DESIGN OF THE AUSTRALIAN CONSTITUTION

2010 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 669-699
Author(s):  
Nicholas Aroney
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
State Theory ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
German State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
American Political Scientist ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article draws attention to an important but neglected story about the dissemination of German and Swiss state-theories among English-speaking scholars in the second half of the 19th century and the influence of these ideas on those who designed and drafted the Australian Constitution. In particular, the article focuses upon the theories of federalism developed by the Swiss-born scholar, Johann Caspar Bluntschli, and the Saxon-born Georg Jellinek, and explains their influence, via the British historian, Edward A Freeman, and the American political scientist, John W Burgess, upon the framers of the Australian Constitution. The story is important because it illustrates the way in which constitutional ideas can be transmitted from one social and political context into a very different one, undergoing significant, though often subtle, modifications and adaptations in the process. The story is also important because it sheds light on the way in which the framers of the Australian Constitution came to conceive of the kind of federal system that they wished to see created. The story seems to have been overlooked, however, not only due to a general neglect of the intellectual history of the Australian Constitution, but also due to the assumption that prevailing Australian political and legal ideas were of Anglo-American provenance. While this assumption generally holds true, a closer examination of the intellectual context of Australian federalism reveals a surprisingly significant German influence on the framers of the Australian Constitution.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alys Moody
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
The Body ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Human Potential ◽  
Aesthetic Autonomy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Failure ◽  
A Site

The introduction maps out the broad intellectual history of hunger, modernism, and aesthetic autonomy, sketching the prehistories that led to their convergence in the art of hunger. It sets out two competing definitions of aesthetic autonomy: a sociological definition, deriving from the writing of Pierre Bourdieu; and a philosophical one, deriving from the German philosophical tradition. It argues that the art of hunger represents a crisis in both definitions of aesthetic autonomy. At the same time, the art of hunger reflects a changing understanding of the body more broadly, as it becomes increasingly understood as a limit to human potential in the nineteenth century. The confluence of these failed modes of aesthetic autonomy and the new understanding of the body as a site of human failure and limitation, creates the conditions within which the art of hunger emerges as a modernist trope.

The Project for a New Anglo Century

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Bell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Constituent Elements

This chapter sketches a synoptic intellectual history of the attempt to unify the constituent elements of the “Anglo-world” into a single globe-spanning community, and to harness its purported world-historical potential as an agent of order and justice. Since the late nineteenth century numerous commentators have preached the benefits of unity, though they have often disagreed on the institutional form it should assume. These are projects for the creation of a new Anglo century. The first two sections of the chapter explore overlapping elements of the fin de siècle Anglo-world discourse. The third section traces the echoes of debates over the future relationship between the empire and the United States through the twentieth century, discussing the interlacing articulation of imperial-commonwealth, Anglo-American, democratic unionist, and world federalist projects. The final section discusses contemporary accounts of Anglo-world supremacy.

South Africa, philosophy in

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter Duvenage
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
African Philosophy ◽  
The South ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
British Idealism

Although it is incorrect to refer to an independent South African philosophical tradition, South Africa is nevertheless the location of an interesting history of philosophical institutionalization. This institutionalization is closely intertwined with the colonial and postcolonial history of Western expansion (Dutch and English) and the reactions it unleashed within the South African context. It is especially interesting to trace the influence and the application of Anglo-American and continental origins in South Africa. Even in contemporary South Africa, philosophers who are working in fields such as postmodernism, postcolonialism, feminism and analytical philosophy do so mostly under the influence of contexts beyond South Africa’s borders. After the early Dutch influence in South Africa (1652–1806) a British colonial educational system emerged during the nineteenth century. From the first institutions of higher education (the South African College in Cape Town, and the University of the Cape of Good Hope) the first tertiary institutions emerged in the early part of the twentieth century at Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) and Pretoria. Although other universities were subsequently instituted, these four can be considered the four founding residential universities in South Africa. It is also at these universities (and at Colleges in Grahamstown, Bloemfontein, Durban and Pietermaritzburg) that British idealism had a major influence on the early stages of South African philosophy (1873–1940). Against this background figures such as Fremantle (Cape Town), Walker (Stellenbosch), Hoernlé (Johannesburg), Lord (Grahamstown) and Macfadyen (Pretoria) were instrumental. From the 1930s the hegemony of British idealism was challenged by analytical philosophy (mainly at English-speaking South African universities) and continental traditions (mainly at Afrikaans-speaking universities). Since the political transformation of South Africa (1994) African philosophy has also emerged as a major philosophical tradition. The challenge for philosophy in contemporary South Africa is to explore those intellectual traditions that have shaped philosophy in South Africa, to know where they are coming from and to understand how they were transformed under (post)colonial conditions. Such a (genealogical) perspective provides a historical and material corrective to arguments that might otherwise strive to reconcile cultural values and ideas in an apolitical and ahistorical manner.

CommentsA Robust History of Arbitration in Early America: Commentary on The New Federal Arbitration Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 207-211
Author(s):  
Carli N. Conklin
Keyword(s):  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Radical Innovation ◽  
Early America ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early American ◽  
American Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Rich History

Julius Henry Cohen and Kenneth Dayton’s 1926 article, The New Federal Arbitration Law, is primarily an apologetic in favor of the Federal Arbitration Act, which Congress passed in 1925. Cohen and Dayton drafted their article as a response to real or anticipated criticisms that the new Federal Arbitration Act was “a radical innovation.” What makes their article a formative article in the field of dispute resolution is not their argument that, instead of being “a radical innovation,” arbitration had a long-standing history in American law. In fact, their explicit claims on this point seem, at first glance, to be fairly anemic, with only passing references to arbitration’s Anglo-Saxon roots or its robust presence in more recent English and American legal history. The historical richness of this article is found not in what Cohen and Dayton explicitly assert, but in what they assume in their assertions. In other words, Cohen and Dayton could make seemingly anemic claims regarding the robust history of arbitration in the Anglo-American legal tradition convincing to their readers only if they were speaking to an audience whose understanding of that history was as rich as their own. In that context, each historic claim serves as a shorthand reference to a rich history of arbitration that Cohen and Dayton could fairly assume was common knowledge among their readers—including early twentieth-century arbitrators, lawyers, judges, and legal scholars—whose vantage point for understanding the history of early American arbitration was nearly a century closer in time than our own....

scholarly journals Catholic Intellectuals and the Invention of Pluralism in France

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
H. S. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Important Influence ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Christian Democracy ◽  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American

AbstractThis article traces the invention of pluralist political language in France to a very specific ideological source: Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Mounier, and the progressive Catholic circles that gathered around the journalEspritin the 1930s. It shows that the dialogue with the émigré Russian Jewish sociologist Georges Gurvitch was an important influence on theEspritcircle, but also that it was Maritain rather than Gurvitch who did most to disseminate the language of pluralism. The paper thus builds on recent work according Maritain and Christian democracy a central place in the intellectual history of twentieth-century politics. It also contests the Anglo-American bias that has dominated histories of pluralism, and instead places France at the centre.

scholarly journals The Thesaurus Approach to Shakespearean Studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 13-24
Author(s):  
Н.В. Захаров
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Renaissance Period ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Late Renaissance ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

Изучение творчества Шекспира в парадигме междисциплинарности является актуальной задачей. Тезаурусный подход исследований Шекспира и его современников позволяет сосредоточиться на междисциплинарном изучении шекспировского творчества. В статье анализируются основные направления шекспировских исследований, которые давно вышли за пределы англоязычной культуры. Во многих университетах мира изучают не только литературу позднего Ренессанса, эволюцию шекспировской поэтики, шекспировские реминисценции в национальных литературах, но и другие, казалось бы далеко стоящие от художественной литературы явления. Важными в научной и преподавательской деятельности стали исследования, ориентированные на философское прочтение творчества великого драматурга. Новые возможности открывают Интернет и цифровые технологии. Тезаурусный подход в современной гуманитаристике должен трансформироваться и стать методом анализа концептов и концептосфер, которые образуют тезаурусы. Как инструмент познания, метод способствует формированию полноты и глубины знания в междисциплинарных исследованиях. Каждый их сегмент открывает шекспировскую семантику культурных констант, объединяющих человечество и расширяющих тезаурус мировой культуры, не только национальный, но и мировой тезаурус творчества Шекспира. The background for Shakespearean studies gains importance in an interdisciplinary context. The thesaurus approach of studying Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and the daily life of his epoch helps to concentrate on the aspect of interdisciplinary studies of Shakespeare's creative works. Following this task, the author of the article researches the key areas of Shakespearean studies. Today, Shakespeare is not only the genius of Anglo-Saxon literature, but also one of the pillars of Anglo-American educational system both at school and at university. Shakespearean studies have long gone beyond the framework of the English-speaking cultures. Turning to Shakespeare, researchers of the largest educational centers of the world study not only the literature of the late Renaissance period, the evolution of Shakespearean poetics in the context of world culture, Shakespearean allusions in national literatures, not only the development of dramaturgy, the history of the theatre, music, the cinema, but also other disciplines seemingly unconnected to the world artistic culture. The research oriented at philosophical understanding of the great playwright's work has gained special significance for scientific and teaching activity. Studying Shakespeare's work in the 21st Century is closely connected to the Internet and information technologies. In a sense, the thesaurus approach in modern humanities should be transformed and become a method of analyzing the concepts and conceptospheres that form thesauri.

Moving Beyond Law: Interdisciplinarity and the Study of Evidence

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM TWINING
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Integrated Science ◽  
Interdisciplinary Work ◽  
General Field ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Formed Part

This chapter examines critically both the idea of ‘a multidisciplinary field’ or ‘an integrated science’ of evidence, and scepticism about and resistance to this idea from the standpoint of a jurist who has been involved with interdisciplinary work on evidence in law for many years. The chapter is organized as follows. Part I presents an overview of the intellectual history of the academic study of evidence in law in the Anglo‐American tradition and shows how important aspects of the field came to be recognised as inherently multidisciplinary. Part II identifies some limitations of legal perspectives on evidence, especially when the focus is on contested trials. It recounts the story of attempts to move beyond law in the direction of constructing a general field of evidence that formed part of the background of the UCL programme. Part III examines some of the reasons for suspicion of and resistance to the idea of ‘an integrated science of evidence’. Part IV restates the case for recognition and institutionalisation of evidence as a special focus of attention at the present time and puts forward a personal agenda of general questions that still need to be tackled.

PROVINCIALIZING AMERICA: NEW AND NOT SO NEW INTELLECTUAL HISTORIES OF WEIMAR GERMANY

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 541-554
Author(s):  
RÜDIGER GRAF
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
German History ◽  
Canadian Universities ◽  
Weimar Germany ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Academic Exchange ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Academia ◽  
Anglo American

Together the two volumes under review contain over forty essays on the intellectual history of Weimar Germany and its legacy today. The wide interdisciplinary field of authors, historians, philosophers, theologians, and literary, legal, and religious scholars, as well as social and political scientists, testifies to the continuing fascination of this era of thought in Anglo-American academia. With the exceptions of Mitchell G. Ash, Michael Krois, and Klaus Tanner, the authors teach at American, British or Canadian universities and represent major tendencies of the anglophone engagement with Weimar's intellectual history. Despite the fact that intellectual history of the Weimar Republic has been a flourishing field of research in Germany over the last decades, the volumes contain no contributions by German historians. This observation is by no means negligible in an age of transnational academic exchange, as may be exemplified by the recentOxford Handbook of Modern German History, which contains contributions by German, American, and British experts in their fields.

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