Evading History

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-96
Author(s):  
Ross Kane
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Theological Method ◽  
The Third ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Material History

This chapter provides an intellectual history of syncretism in Christian theology during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It engages three prominent instances of writing on syncretism that represent wider theological trends during this time. The first two perspectives are those of theologians Adolf von Harnack and Hendrik Kraemer, writing in the early to mid-twentieth century. The third perspective on syncretism is more contemporary. Rather than a single writer, it is a grouping of synonymous terms that have become stand-ins for positive syncretism—“inculturation,” “indigenization,” and “contextualization.” Each of these perspectives, in differing ways, exhibits a theological method that sidesteps difficult questions of syncretism and material history, which inadvertently defers to existing Western white forms of Christianity.

European Intellectual History as Contemporary History

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 574-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan-Werner Müller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Third ◽  
German School ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Intellectual History ◽  
Cambridge School

The first part of this essay examines the peculiar role European intellectual history played in coming to terms with the twentieth century as an ‘Age of Extremes’ and the different weight it was given for that task at different times and in different national contexts up to the 1970s. The second part looks at the contemporary history of politically focused intellectual history — and the possible impact of the latter on the writing of contemporary history in general: it will be asked how the three great innovative movements in the history of political thought which emerged in the last fifty years have related to the practice of contemporary history: the German school of conceptual history, the ‘Cambridge School’, and the ‘linguistic turn’. The third part focuses on recent trends to understand processes of liberalization — as opposed to the older search for causes of political extremism. It is also in the third part that the so far rather Euro-centric perspective is left behind, as attempts to create an intellectual history of the more or less new enemies of the West are examined. Finally, the author pleads for a contemporary intellectual history that seeks novel ways of understanding the twentieth century and the ‘newest history’ since 1989 by combining tools from conceptual history and the Cambridge School.

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.

Syncretism and Christian Tradition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Kane
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
History Of ◽  
Material History

Studying the history of syncretism’s use indicates wider interpretative problems in religious studies and theology regarding race and revelation. It also indicates the importance of seeing “tradition” as adaptive and amalgamating rather than static. In theology and religious studies alike, discourses of syncretism are positioned within racialized perceptions which construct a center and periphery based upon white European knowledge. In Christian theology more specifically, syncretism’s use also shows ways that theologians try to protect the category of divine revelation from human interference, leading to interpretative problems that sidestep material history. The book makes this case through an intellectual history of the word syncretism, tracking its changing associations and especially its pejorative turn in Christianity in the early twentieth century. After diagnosing challenges related to syncretism, the book makes two constructive arguments. First, it defends the concept of “tradition”—for religious studies and theology alike—as a means of understanding cultural continuity amid the perpetual flux of syncretism. Second, in Christian theology specifically, it offers a constructive response to syncretism drawing from theologians Jean-Marc Éla and Rowan Williams. The Holy Spirit, through tradition, builds knowledge of the divine Logos across history often by way of contested religious mixtures with culture. The book concludes by examining positive examples of syncretism in Christianity like the incorporation of ancestor reverencing.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Television Film ◽  
Popular Image

The introductory chapter discusses the popular image of the ‘Romantic mad poet’ in television, film, theatre, fiction, the history of literary criticism, and the intellectual history of the twentieth century and its countercultures, including anti-psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Existing literary-historical work on related topics is assessed, before the introduction goes on to suggest why some problems or difficulties in writing about this subject might be productive for further cultural history. The introduction also considers at length the legacy of Michel Foucault’s Folie et Déraison (1961), and the continued viability of Foucauldian methods and concepts for examining literary-cultural representations of madness after the half-century of critiques and controversies following that book’s publication. Methodological discussion both draws on and critiques the models of historical sociology used by George Becker and Sander L. Gilman to discuss genius, madness, deviance, and stereotype in the nineteenth century. A note on terminology concludes the introduction.

Music in the British Workplace: From Voice to a Technique of Control?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Korczynski
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Social History ◽  
Singing Voice ◽  
Industrial Noise ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines music in the British workplace. It considers whether it is appropriate to see the history of music in the workplace as involving a journey from the organic singing voice (both literal and metaphorical) of workers to broadcast music appropriated by the powerful to become a technique of social control. The chapter charts four key stages in the social history of music in British workplaces. First, it highlights the existence of widespread cultures of singing at work prior to industrialization, and outlines the important meanings these cultures had for workers. Next, it outlines the silencing of the singing voice within the workplace further to industrialization—either from direct employer bans on singing, or from the roar of the industrial noise. The third key stage involves the carefully controlled employer- and state-led reintroduction of music in the workplace in the mid-twentieth century—through the centralized relaying of specific forms of music via broadcast systems in workplaces. The chapter ends with an examination of contemporary musicking in relation to (often worker-led) radio music played in workplaces.

On History in Southwest Archaeology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Severin Fowles ◽  
Barbara Mills
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Southwest Archaeology ◽  
American Military ◽  
Archaeological Practice ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
History Of

As an introduction to the Handbook, this chapter examines the question of history in Southwest archaeology in two senses. First, it traces the intellectual history of research in the region: from the nineteenth-century inauguration of Southwest archaeology as an extension of American military conquest, to the museum-oriented expeditions of the turn of the century, to the scientific advances and the growth of culture resource management during the twentieth century, to the impacts of Indigenous critiques and the development of collaborative approaches most recently. Second, the chapter explores the shifting status of “history” as a central goal of archaeological practice. How have archaeologists constructed—or resisted—narratives to account for the contingent unfolding of Indigenous and colonial societies in the region? What bodies of method and theory have guided these efforts? In addressing these questions, the chapter marks and participates in a growing historical turn in Southwest archaeology.

Invisible Bodies

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 33-68
Author(s):  
Lan A. Li
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
English Language ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Material Characteristics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Close Study ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis essay explores the ways in which Lu Gwei-djen (1904–91) served as a gatekeeper for interpreting medicine in China in the second half of the twentieth century. After retiring from science in 1956, Lu set out to write one of the first comprehensive English-language histories of medicine in China. Through a close study of Lu’s work notes and marginalia from later in her life, this essay examines how she carefully articulated the material characteristics of a “Chinese” medicine that gave rise to jingluo, or therapeutic paths often known as “meridians.” I argue that at the heart of this uneasy comparison was the difficult process of translating across multiple expressions of physiology. By placing Lu Gwei-djen at the center of a feminist intellectual history of medicine, this essay further shows how Lu’s translations were influenced by the social hierarchies in which she was embedded, including cultural, gender, and temporal dualities.

Landino and Maximus of Tyre

1960 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 289-294
Author(s):  
Eugene M. Waith
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Highest Good ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Allegorical Interpretation ◽  
Contemplative Life ◽  
Maximus Of Tyre

The Disputationes Camaldulenses of Cristoforo Landino constitute an important document. Composed in the manner of Ciceronian dialogues, they present us with a group of speakers famous in the history of Florentine thought: among others, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Alberti, and Ficino of the ‘Platonic Academy’ at Careggi to which Landino belonged; Alamanno Rinuccini, the Acciaiuoli, and Marco Parenti of the other ‘academy', presided over by Argyropoulos. The first dialogue deals with the relative merits of the active and contemplative life, the second with the problem of the highest good—two topics dear to the Renaissance. The third and fourth give an allegorical interpretation of the Aeneid. It would be hard to find personages or themes more central to quattrocento intellectual history. Inevitably one looks to the Disputationes for the light they throw on these Florentine scholars and on their interests.

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