Émigré scientists and the global turn in the history of science: A commentary on the special issue “New Perspectives on Forced Migration in the History of Twentieth-Century Neuroscience”

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-368
Author(s):  
Delia Gavrus
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
History Of

Reframing the Sciences of the Long Eighteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Giuliano Pancaldi
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Science Policy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Past Half

Here I survey a sample of the essays and reviews on the sciences of the long eighteenth century published in this journal since it was founded in 1969. The connecting thread is some historiographic reflections on the role that disciplines—in both the sciences we study and the fields we practice—have played in the development of the history of science over the past half century. I argue that, as far as disciplines are concerned, we now find ourselves a bit closer to a situation described in our studies of the long eighteenth century than we were fifty years ago. This should both favor our understanding of that period and, hopefully, make the historical studies that explore it more relevant to present-day developments and science policy. This essay is part of a special issue entitled “Looking Backward, Looking Forward: HSNS at 50,” edited by Erika Lorraine Milam.

scholarly journals Linguistics Then and Now: Some Personal Reflections

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Chomsky
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Online Publication ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Theory Of Computation ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Explanatory Depth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Reflections

By mid-twentieth century, a working consensus had been reached in the linguistics community, based on the great achievements of preceding years. Synchronic linguistics had been established as a science, a “taxonomic” science, with sophisticated procedures of analysis of data. Taxonomic science has limits. It does not ask “why?” The time was ripe to seek explanatory theories, using insights provided by the theory of computation and studies of explanatory depth. That effort became the generative enterprise within the biolinguistics framework. Tensions quickly arose: The elements of explanatory theories (generative grammars) were far beyond the reach of taxonomic procedures. The structuralist principle that language is a matter of training and habit, extended by analogy, was unsustainable. More generally, the mood of “virtually everything is known” became “almost nothing is understood,” a familiar phenomenon in the history of science, opening a new and exciting era for a flourishing discipline. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 7 is January 14, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

On fragile democracy: Contemporary and historical perspectives—Introduction

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 422-431
Author(s):  
Martin Conway
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
History Of ◽  
Long Term Trends

The concept of fragility provides an alternative means of approaching the history of democracy, which has often been seen as the ineluctable consequence of Europe’s social and political modernisation. This is especially so in Scandinavia, as well as in Finland, where the emergence of a particular Nordic model of democracy from the early decades of the twentieth century onwards has often been explained with reference to embedded traditions of local self-government and long-term trends towards social egalitarianism. In contrast, this article emphasises the tensions present within the practices and understandings of democracy in the principal states of Scandinavia during the twentieth century. In doing so, it provides an introduction to the articles that compose this Special Issue, as well as contributing to the wider literature on the fragility of present-day structures of democracy.

scholarly journals Looted Art and Restitution in the Twentieth Century – Towards a Global Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-518
Author(s):  
Bianca Gaudenzi ◽  
Astrid Swenson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Global History ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
World War ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

Introducing the Journal of Contemporary History Special Issue ‘The Restitution of Looted Art in the 20th Century’, this article proposes a framework for writing the history of looting and restitution in transnational and global perspective. By comparing and contextualizing instances of looting and restitution in different geographical and temporal contexts, it aims to overcome existing historiographical fragmentations and move past the overwhelming focus on the specificities of Nazi looting through an extended timeframe that inserts the Second World War into a longer perspective from the nineteenth century up to present day restitution practices. Particular emphasis is put on the interlinked histories of denazification and decolonization. Problematizing existing analytical, chronological and geographical frameworks, the article suggests how a combination of comparative, entangled and global history approaches can open up promising new avenues of research. It draws out similarities, differences and connections between processes of looting and restitution in order to discuss the extent to which looting and restitution were shaped by – and shaped – changing global networks.

Introduction

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Margo S. Gewurtz
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Medical Practices ◽  
Missionary Work ◽  
Intercultural Encounters ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Populous Country

During most of the modern history of the expansion of Western Christendom, China, as the world’s most populous country, was the great prize. Although the results were disappointing, as the numbers of converts both Protestant and Catholic remained relatively small throughout the height of China missions in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, the promise of China missions never diminished. Despite the pre-eminence of China in overall mission history, very little attention has been given to the role and influence of China missions beyond the borders of China proper either to the Chinese diaspora or to the wider mission community. This special issue is a first attempt to explore the impact of “China” in missions beyond China’s borders. For our purposes, China becomes both a place where tactics and vocabulary could be invented and tried, a sort of laboratory for mission methodology, and a place of the imagination where “muscular” Christianity could be displayed and tested, or where medical practices were adapted with global implications. In more recent times, China missions, not allowed on the mainland after 1950, have once again as they did in the nineteenth century, addressed the needs of the Chinese diaspora in Europe and America. The essays in this collection challenge scholars to reflect more broadly on the variety of intercultural encounters enabled by missionary work, and ask us to think of this history trans-nationally by going beyond the borders of single nations or mission fields to embrace a global perspective.

Gender and the historiography of science

1993 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludmilla Jordanova
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
Logical Reason ◽  
Big Picture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Issues ◽  
Intellectual Maturity

The production of big pictures is arguably the most significant sign of the intellectual maturity of a field. It suggests both that the field's broad contours, refined over several generations of scholarship, enjoy the approval of practitioners, and that audiences exist with an interest in or need for overviews. The situation is somewhat more complicated in the history of science, since the existence of big historical pictures precedes that of a well-defined scholarly field by about two centuries. Broadly conceived histories of science and medicine were being written in the eighteenth century, when such an all-encompassing vision was central to the claims about the progress of knowledge upon which Enlightenment ideologues set such store. The Plato to Nato style histories, characteristic of the earlier twentieth century, were written largely by isolated pioneers, and while these were used in teaching as the field was becoming professionalized, recent scholars have preferred to concentrate on a monographic style of research. Despite the existence of the series started by Wiley, and now published by Cambridge University Press, it is only in the last ten years or so that more conscious attempts have been made to generate a big-picture literature informed by new scholarship. It is noteworthy that most of this is addressed to students and general readers, although there is no logical reason why it should not tackle major theoretical issues of concern to scholars. My point about maturity still holds, then, since as a designated discipline the history of science is rather new; it is still feeling out its relationship with cognate disciplines. Big-picture histories have an important role to play in these explorations since they make findings and ideas widely available and thereby offer material through which ambitious interpretations can be debated, modified and transformed.

Introduction: have we ever been ‘transnational’? Towards a history of science across and beyond borders

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIMONE TURCHETTI ◽  
NÉSTOR HERRAN ◽  
SORAYA BOUDIA
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Transnational History ◽  
Transnational Networks ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Global Perspectives ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

AbstractIn recent years, historians have debated the prospect of offering new ‘transnational’ or ‘global’ perspectives in their studies. This paper introduces the reader to this special issue by analysing characteristics, merits and flaws of these approaches. It then considers how historians of science have practised transnational history without, however, paying sufficient attention to the theoretical foundations of this approach. Its final part illustrates what benefits may derive from the application of transnational history in the field. In particular, we suggest looking at the construction of transnational networks in science, and discuss some of the methodological consequences of adopting this approach.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document