Of History and Biography

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Neguin Yavari
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Specific Role ◽  
Global History ◽  
New Model ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

Is there an essentially “Islamic” tradition of biographical writing? To put this to the test, the chapter focuses on the roughly contemporaneous medieval biographies, by Einhard (d. 840) and Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam (d. 829)—both secular firsts—of two non-contemporary rulers: Charlemagne (r. 768-814) and ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (r. 717-20). Accounting for similarities or differences in both style and content of biographical writings in different historical milieus induces a new understanding of the relationship between text and context, and offers new modes of reading. A more complex ancillary of this revision is a fresh look at exchange, transmission or crosspollination to explain instances of convergence between alien texts. The distant objective is a new model for global history that has the conceptual arsenal to explain what specific role representations play in the history of the social order.

George Hoggart Toulmin: politics and geology

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-481
Author(s):  
ROY PORTER
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Great Distance ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Christian View ◽  
The Social ◽  
French Enlightenment ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
History Of

The physician George Hoggart Toulmin (1754–1817) propounded his theory of the Earth in a number of works beginning with The antiquity and duration of the world (1780) and ending with his The eternity of the universe (1789). It bore many resemblances to James Hutton's "Theory of the Earth" (1788) in stressing the uniformity of Nature, the gradual destruction and recreation of the continents and the unfathomable age of the Earth. In Toulmin's view, the progress of the proper theory of the Earth and of political advancement were inseparable from each other. For he analysed the commonly accepted geological ideas of his day (which postulated that the Earth had been created at no great distance of time by God; that God had intervened in Earth history on occasions like the Deluge to punish man; and that all Nature had been fabricated by God to serve man) and argued they were symptomatic of a society trapped in ignorance and superstition, and held down by priestcraft and political tyranny. In this respect he shared the outlook of the more radical figures of the French Enlightenment such as Helvétius and the Baron d'Holbach. He believed that the advance of freedom and knowledge would bring about improved understanding of the history and nature of the Earth, as a consequence of which Man would better understand the terms of his own existence, and learn to live in peace, harmony and civilization. Yet Toulmin's hopes were tempered by his naturalistic view of the history of the Earth and of Man. For Time destroyed everything — continents and civilizations. The fundamental law of things was cyclicality not progress. This latent political conservatism and pessimism became explicit in Toulmin's volume of verse, Illustration of affection, published posthumously in 1819. In those poems he signalled his disapproval of the French Revolution and of Napoleonic imperialism. He now argued that all was for the best in the social order, and he abandoned his own earlier atheistic religious radicalism, now subscribing to a more Christian view of God. Toulmin's earlier geological views had run into considerable opposition from orthodox religious elements. They were largely ignored by the geological community in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain, but were revived and reprinted by lower class radicals such as Richard Carlile. This paper is to be published in the American journal, The Journal for the History of Ideas in 1978 (in press).

Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition

1990 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-90
Author(s):  
Dennis Michael Warren
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Medical Tradition ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The late Dr. Fazlur Rahman, Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Islamic Thought at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, has written this book as number seven in the series on Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions. This series has been sponsored as an interfaith program by The Park Ridge Center, an Institute for the study of health, faith, and ethics. Professor Rahman has stated that his study is "an attempt to portray the relationship of Islam as a system of faith and as a tradition to human health and health care: What value does Islam attach to human well-being-spiritual, mental, and physical-and what inspiration has it given Muslims to realize that value?" (xiii). Although he makes it quite clear that he has not attempted to write a history of medicine in Islam, readers will find considerable depth in his treatment of the historical development of medicine under the influence of Islamic traditions. The book begins with a general historical introduction to Islam, meant primarily for readers with limited background and understanding of Islam. Following the introduction are six chapters devoted to the concepts of wellness and illness in Islamic thought, the religious valuation of medicine in Islam, an overview of Prophetic Medicine, Islamic approaches to medical care and medical ethics, and the relationship of the concepts of birth, contraception, abortion, sexuality, and death to well-being in Islamic culture. The basis for Dr. Rahman's study rests on the explication of the concepts of well-being, illness, suffering, and destiny in the Islamic worldview. He describes Islam as a system of faith with strong traditions linking that faith with concepts of human health and systems for providing health care. He explains the value which Islam attaches to human spiritual, mental, and physical well-being. Aspects of spiritual medicine in the Islamic tradition are explained. The dietary Jaws and other orthodox restrictions are described as part of Prophetic Medicine. The religious valuation of medicine based on the Hadith is compared and contrasted with that found in the scientific medical tradition. The history of institutionalized medical care in the Islamic World is traced to awqaf, pious endowments used to support health services, hospices, mosques, and educational institutions. Dr. Rahman then describes the ...

scholarly journals The Authoritarian Dynamic During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Effects on Nationalism and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment

2021 ◽  
pp. 194855062097802
Author(s):  
Todd K. Hartman ◽  
Thomas V. A. Stocks ◽  
Ryan McKay ◽  
Jilly Gibson-Miller ◽  
Liat Levita ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Right Wing Authoritarianism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Outcomes ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Relationship

Research has demonstrated that situational factors such as perceived threats to the social order activate latent authoritarianism. The deadly COVID-19 pandemic presents a rare opportunity to test whether existential threat stemming from an indiscriminate virus moderates the relationship between authoritarianism and political attitudes toward the nation and out-groups. Using data from two large nationally representative samples of adults in the United Kingdom ( N = 2,025) and Republic of Ireland ( N = 1,041) collected during the initial phases of strict lockdown measures in both countries, we find that the associations between right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and (1) nationalism and (2) anti-immigrant attitudes are conditional on levels of perceived threat. As anxiety about the COVID-19 pandemic increases, so too does the effect of RWA on those political outcomes. Thus, it appears that existential threats to humanity from the COVID-19 pandemic moderate expressions of authoritarianism in society.

The Stabilisation of the Capitalist Order and Liberal Value Orientations in Serbia

Südosteuropa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-407
Author(s):  
Mladen Lazić ◽  
Jelena Pešić
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Value Orientations ◽  
Economic Liberalism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Value Changes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Normative Value ◽  
Value Dissonance

AbstractBased on research data from 2003, 2012, and 2018, the authors examine the extent to which capitalist social relations in Serbia have determined liberal value orientations. The change of the social order in Serbia after 1990 brought about a radical change of the basis upon which values are constituted. To interpret the relationship between structural and value changes, the authors employ the theory of normative-value dissonance. Special attention in the analysis is paid to the interpretation of value changes based on the distinction between intra- and inter-systemic normative-value dissonance. In the first part of their study, the authors examine changes in the acceptance of liberal values over the period of consolidation of capitalism in Serbia, while in the second part they focus on the 2018 data and specific predictors of political and economic liberalism.

What Makes a Hero? Theorising the Social Structuring of Heroism

Sociology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Frisk
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Social Structuring ◽  
The Relationship

The article discusses four dominant perspectives in the sociology of heroism: the study of great men; hero stories; heroic actions; and hero institutions. The discussion ties together heroism and fundamental sociological debates about the relationship between the individual and the social order; it elucidates the socio-psychological, cultural/ideational and socio-political structuring of heroism, which challenges the tendency to understand people, actions and events as naturally, or intrinsically, heroic; and it points to a theoretical trajectory within the literature, which has moved from very exclusive to more inclusive conceptualisations of a hero. After this discussion, the article examines three problematic areas in the sociology of heroism: the underlying masculine character of heroism; the presumed disappearance of the hero with modernisation; and the principal idea of heroism as a pro-social phenomenon. The article calls for a more self-conscious engagement with this legacy, which could stimulate dialogue across different areas of sociological research.

scholarly journals Literatura policial y policía: reflexiones a partir de dos intervenciones críticas (José Pablo Feinmann y Carlos Gamerro)

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (17) ◽  
pp. 197-225
Author(s):  
Hernán Maltz
Keyword(s):  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
The Political ◽  
Specific Interest ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Novela Negra ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

I propose a close reading on two critical interventions about crime fiction in Argentina: “Estado policial y novela negra argentina” (1991) by José Pablo Feinmann and “Para una reformulación del género policial argentino” (2006) by Carlos Gamerro. Beyond the time difference between the two, I observe aspects in common. Both texts elaborate a corpus of writers and fictions; propose an interpretative guide between the literary and the political-social series; maintain a specific interest in the relationship between crime fiction and police; and elaborate figures of enunciators who serve both as theorists of the genre and as writers of fiction. Among these four dimensions, the one that particularly interests me here is the third, since it allows me to investigate the link that is assumed between “detective fiction” and “police institution”. My conclusion is twofold: on the one hand, in both essays predominates a reductionist vision of the genre, since a kind of necessity is emphasized in the representation of the social order; on the other, its main objective seems to lie in intervening directly on the definitions of the detective fiction in Argentina (and, on this point, both texts acquire an undoubtedly prescriptive nuance).

scholarly journals How “Muslim” are Central Asian Muslims? A Historical and Comparative Enquiry

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-269
Author(s):  
Galina M. Yemelianova
Keyword(s):  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
The Common ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
High Level ◽  
Soviet Central Asia

The article analyzes the social, political, and symbolic functions of Islam in contemporary Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. Over many centuries, Central Asians developed a particular form of Islam based on a productive and fluid synergy among Islam per se, their tribal legal and customary norms, and Tengrian and Zoroastrian beliefs and practices. It is characterized by a high level of doctrinal and functional adaptability to shifting political and cultural environments, the prevalence of mystical Islam (Sufism) and oral, rather than book-based, Islamic tradition. These qualities have defined distinctive Islamic trajectories in post-Soviet Central Asia, which differ significantly from those in other Muslim-majority countries and in Muslim communities in the West. At the same time, the common Eurasian space and lengthy shared political history of Central Asians and other peoples of Muslim Eurasia are also reflected in the considerable similarities in their Islamic trajectories.

The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) leadership’s trial in 1938.

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-82
Author(s):  
Tatiana Melnichenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Political History ◽  
State Archive ◽  
Black Spots ◽  
Russian State ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic

This article is devoted to one of the most tragic topics in the history of this party and the history of the Spanish Republic as a whole, namely, the trial of the leaders of the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification. The following unpublished documents stored in the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History were used for the analysis (F. 495. Op. 183): letters, personal files, protocols of interrogations after May Days, lists and reports on the “connection” between Trotskyi and the POUM, reports on the preparation and course of the trial of the POUM. Members of the POUM were accused of participating in a “rebellion”, moving to change the social order of the Republic. The accusation of the POUM connections with Franco did not seem convincing, either in Spain or abroad. The international public’s attention was focused on the trial of the POUM. Despite the fact that Spain failed to organize a show trial in the style of the “Moscow trials” and the “conspiracy between Trotskyi and Fascists” was not confirmed, the verdict had a negative impact on the POUM reputation. Thus, the trial of the POUM remained in history as one of the “black spots” in the interaction between the Spanish Republic and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. However, the prisoners of the POUM resisted pressure, they were supported morally by participants of the campaign of solidarity in Spain and abroad. The struggle for a kind of rehabilitation of the party continued in emigration.

The cycle of the new left in the recent history of Argentina

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-279
Author(s):  
Maria Cristina Tortti ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
New Left ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multiple Actors

This paper aims at outlining the main processes that, in Argentina’s recent past, may enable us to understand the emergence, development and eventual defeat of the social protest movement and the political radicalization of the period 1960-70s.Here, as in previous papers, we resort to the concept of new left toname the movement that, though heterogeneous and lacking a unified direction, became a major unit in deeds, for multiple actors coming the most diverse angles coincided in opposing the vicious political regime and the social order it supported. Consequently, we shall try to reinstate the presence of such wide range of actors: their projects, objectives and speeches. Some critical circumstances shall be detailed and processes through which protests gradually amalgamated will be shown. Such extended politicization provided the frame for quite radical moves ranging from contracultural initiatives and the classism in the workers’ movement to the actual action of guerrilla groups. Through the dynamics of the events themselves we shall locate the peak moments as well as those which paved the way for their closure and eventual defeat in 1976.

The Right of Philosophy and the Facts of History: Foucault, Derrida, Descartes

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Rockhill
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter proposes a counter-history of a seminal debate in the transition from structuralism to post-structuralism. It calls into question the widespread assumption that Derrida rejects Foucault’s structuralist stranglehold by demonstrating that the meaning of a text always remains open. Through a meticulous examination of their respective historical paradigms, methodological orientations and hermeneutic parameters, it argues that Derrida’s critique of his former professor is, at the level of theoretical practice, a call to return to order. The ultimate conclusion is that the Foucault-Derrida debate has much less to do with Descartes’ text per se, than with the relationship between the traditional tasks of philosophy and the meta-theoretical reconfiguration of philosophic practice via the methods of the social sciences.

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