Conclusion: From national to global

2021 ◽  
pp. 163-168
Author(s):  
Eva Moreda Rodríguez

The conclusion sums up how the cultural history of the phonograph in Spain can prompt a re-examination of the global history of early recording technologies, and lists four areas in which this re-examination might be particularly necessary. Firstly, the role of Edison, his companies, and other recording multinationals in crafting and spreading the idea of the recording as a concept and setting the foundations of the recording industry might need to be further re-evaluated and contextualized. Secondly, increased attention needs to be paid to the national and local characteristics that impinged discourses around modernity in the period at hand. Thirdly, the early history of recording technologies needs to be read as a history of possibilities, shaped by national, regional, and local cultural specificities. Fourthly, greater awareness should develop of how indigenous repertoires contributed to shaping recording practices and ontologies of recording technologies in particular ways, rather than recording technologies being used to passively record what was already there.

Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov

The concluding chapter highlights how the cultural history of graphic signs of authority in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages encapsulated the profound transformation of political culture in the Mediterranean and Europe from approximately the fourth to ninth centuries. It also reflects on the transcendent sources of authority in these historical periods, and the role of graphic signs in highlighting this connection. Finally, it warns that, despite the apparent dominant role of the sign of the cross and cruciform graphic devices in providing access to transcendent protection and support in ninth-century Western Europe, some people could still employ alternative graphic signs deriving from older occult traditions in their recourse to transcendent powers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-250
Author(s):  
Sjang L. ten Hagen

ArgumentThis article contributes to a global history of relativity, by exploring how Einstein’s theory was appropriated in Belgium. This may sound like a contradiction in terms, yet the early-twentieth-century Belgian context, because of its cultural diversity and reflectiveness of global conditions (the principal example being the First World War), proves well-suited to expose transnational flows and patterns in the global history of relativity. The attempts of Belgian physicist Théophile de Donder to contribute to relativity physics during the 1910s and 1920s illustrate the role of the war in shaping the transnational networks through which relativity circulated. The local attitudes of conservative Belgian Catholic scientists and philosophers, who denied that relativity was philosophically significant, exemplify a global pattern: while critics of relativity feared to become marginalized by the scientific, political, and cultural revolutions that Einstein and his theory were taken to represent, supporters sympathized with these revolutions.


Author(s):  
R. S. Porter

This paper examines forecasts made by writers, medical and non-medical alike, as to the nature of medicine in a future society. In particular, starting from Plato and Sir Thomas More, it explores what place (if any) has been envisaged for medicine in a future Utopian society. By way of an explanatory device, predictions concerning medicine are compared and contrasted to expectations as to the role of the sciences, natural and social. Investigation of the corpus of social prognostications in fact reveals a dearth of glorious expectations as to the future of medicine as such, although certain writings have held out great hopes for biologistic disciplines, such as eugenics. It is often in ‘golden age’ fantasies about the early history of mankind that the most glowing descriptions of complete health are painted. Similarly, perfect health is something often viewed not in social but in individualistic terms. Explanations are offered of these perhaps slightly surprising facts.


2021 ◽  

A Cultural History of Sport in the Age of Industry covers the period 1800 to 1920. Over this period, sport become increasingly global, some sports were radically altered, sports clubs proliferated, and new team games - such as baseball, basketball, and the various forms of football - were created, codified, commercialized, and professionalized. Yet this was also an age of cultural and political tensions, when issues around the role of women, social class, ethnicity and race, imperial relationships, nation-building, and amateur and professional approaches were all shaping sport. At the same time, increasing urbanization, population, real wages, and leisure time drove demand for sport ever higher, and the institutionalization and regulation of sport accelerated. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Sport presents the first comprehensive history from classical antiquity to today, covering all forms and aspects of sport and its ever-changing social, cultural, political, and economic context and impact. The themes covered in each volume are the purpose of sport; sporting time and sporting space; products, training, and technology; rules and order; conflict and accommodation; inclusion, exclusion, and segregation; minds, bodies, and identities; representation.


2019 ◽  
pp. 167-190
Author(s):  
Mary Wills

This chapter examines officers’ contributions to the metropolitan discourses about slavery and abolition taking place in Britain in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Furthering the theme of naval officers playing an important part in the social and cultural history of the West African campaign, it uncovers connections between the Royal Navy and domestic anti-slavery networks, and the extent to which abolitionist societies and interest groups operating in Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century forged relationships with naval officers in the field. Officers contributed to this ever-evolving anti-slavery culture: through support of societies and by providing key testimonies and evidence about the unrelenting transatlantic slave trade. Their representations of the slave trade were used to champion the abolitionist cause, as well as the role of the Royal Navy, in parliament, the press and other public arenas.


2018 ◽  
pp. 126-150
Author(s):  
Sarah Wood

This chapter locates the figure of Félix Éboué in the cultural politics of commemoration in Guyane. It offers a cultural history of the production of memorials to Éboué in Guyane (his birthplace) and beyond, assessing the role of these markers of national power in the local landscape. The chapter focuses first on the monument located in central Cayenne, produced at the instigation of a local committee and inaugurated in 1957, towards the end of the Fourth Republic. It then addresses the revival of 'memory' of Éboué and the renewal of his presence in Guyane which occurred during the 2000s. Instigated in part by Christiane Taubira, this culminated in the renaming of the only international airport in the Département — the key point of arrival and departure between Paris and Cayenne. The chapter concludes by asking how the vision of Guyane asserted in the act of ‘remembering’ Éboué has changed or been adapted in the twenty-first century.


Author(s):  
John Tarpley ◽  
Margaret Tarpley

The influence of religion and spirituality (R/S) on surgeons dates back to the early history of modern surgery and continues into the 21st century. Research topics include intercessory prayer (IP), social cohesion, coping strategies, the role of chaplains and other clergy or faith leaders, and communal activities such as worship. While evidence for benefits of practices such as IP are inconclusive, patients involved in R/S activities or who hold R/S beliefs appear to have improved coping skills and quality of life (QOL). Although R/S has proven value for patients and surgeons, lack of R/S training is a barrier to surgeon involvement in addressing R/S issues such as operative procedures, treatment plans, organ donation, and end-of-life (EOL) situations. Increased training at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate medical levels concerning R/S would provide surgeons and physician colleagues with skills and greater comfort in discussing these issues with patients and families. .


Author(s):  
Nalini Bhushan ◽  
Jay L. Garfield

This is an intellectual and cultural history of India during the period of British occupation. It demonstrates that this was a period of renaissance in India in which philosophy—both in the public sphere and in the Indian universities—played a central role in the emergence of a distinctively Indian modernity. This is also a history of Indian philosophy. It demonstrates how the development of a secular philosophical voice facilitated the construction of modern Indian society and the consolidation of the nationalist movement. We explore the complex role of the English language in philosophical and nationalist discourse, demonstrating both the anxieties that surrounded English, and the processes that normalized it as an Indian vernacular and academic language. We attend both to Hindu and Muslim philosophers, to public and academic intellectuals, to artists and art critics, and to national identity and nation-builidng. We also explore the complex interactions between Indian and European thought during this period, including the role of missionary teachers and study at foreign universities in the evolution of Indian philosophy. We show that this pattern of interaction, although often disparaged as “inauthentic” is continuous with the cosmopolitanism that has always characterized the intellectual life of India, and that the philosophy articulated during this period is a worthy continuation of the Indian philosophical tradition.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document