Slavery and Ransom

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Smiley
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
The State ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Law

This chapter explores captives’ fates after their capture, all along the Ottoman land and maritime frontiers, arguing that this was largely determined by individuals’ value for ransom or sale. First this was a matter of localized customary law; then it became a matter of inter-imperial rules, the “Law of Ransom.” The chapter discusses the nature of slavery in the Ottoman Empire, emphasizing the role of elite households, and the varying prices for captives based on their individual characteristics. It shows that the Ottoman state participated in ransoming, buying, exploiting, and sometimes selling both female and male captives. The state particularly needed young men to row on its galleys, but this changed in the late eighteenth century as the fleet moved from oars to sails. The chapter then turns to ransom, showing that a captive’s ability to be ransomed, and value, depended on a variety of individualized factors.

Geopolitics of Comparison: World Literature Avant la Lettre

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-269
Author(s):  
Waïl S. Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
History Of

Abstract According to a well-known narrative, the concept of Weltliteratur and its academic correlative, the discipline of comparative literature, originated in Germany and France in the early nineteenth century, influenced by the spread of scientism and nationalism. But there is another genesis story that begins in the late eighteenth century in Spain and Italy, countries with histories entangled with the Arab presence in Europe during the medieval period. Emphasizing the role of Arabic in the formation of European literatures, Juan Andrés wrote the first comparative history of “all literature,” before the concepts of Weltliteratur and comparative literature gained currency. The divergence of the two genesis stories is the result of competing geopolitical interests, which determine which literatures enter into the sphere of comparison, on what terms, within which paradigms, and under what ideological and discursive conditions.

Hamann, Johann Georg (1730–88)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Beiser
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Friedrich Schlegel ◽  
Sturm Und Drang ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Mind

Hamann was one of the most important critics of the German Enlightenment or Aufklärung. He attacked the Aufklärung chiefly because it gave reason undue authority over faith. It misunderstood faith, which consists in an immediate personal experience, inaccessible to reason. The main fallacy of the Aufklärung was hypostasis, the reification of ideas, the artificial abstraction of reason from its social and historical context. Hamann stressed the social and historical dimension of reason, that it must be embodied in society, history and language. He also emphasized the pivotal role of language in the development of reason. The instrument and criterion of reason was language, whose only sanction was tradition and use. Hamann was a sharp critic of Kant, whose philosophy exemplified all the sins of the Aufklärung. Hamann attacked the critical philosophy for its purification of reason from experience, language and tradition. He also strongly objected to all its dualisms, which seemed arbitrary and artificial. The task of philosophy was to unify all the various functions of the mind, seeing reason, will and feeling as an indivisible whole. Although he was original and unorthodox, Hamann’s critique of reason should be placed within the tradition of Protestant nominalism. Hamann saw himself as a defender of Luther, whose reputation was on the wane in late eighteenth-century Germany. Hamann was also a founder of the Sturm und Drang, the late eighteenth-century literary movement which celebrated personal freedom and revolt. His aesthetics defended creative genius and the metaphysical powers of art. It marked a sharp break with the rationalism of the classical tradition and the empiricism of late eighteenth-century aesthetics. Hamann was a seminal influence upon Herder, Goethe, Jacobi, Friedrich Schlegel and Kierkegaard.

The Romanesca as a Spiritual Sign in the Operas of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven

2020 ◽  
pp. 163-192
Author(s):  
Olga Sánchez-Kisielewska
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
Spiritual Dimension ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the role of a musical pattern, the Romanesca schema, as a signifier of spiritual meanings in opera. It addresses the relationship between the Romanesca and the hymn topic and argues that the schema, semantically empty in its origins, acquired in the late eighteenth century connotations of ceremony, solemnity, alterity, and even transcendence. Several vignettes from operas by Haydn and Mozart illustrate how composers deployed the pattern in scenes depicting worship, prayers, and ritual actions. Beethoven’s Fidelio occupies the final section, a case study that shows the Romanesca interacting with other elements of the musical structure for expressive purposes. The chapter provides a novel interpretation of certain moments of the opera, suggesting that Beethoven relied on the sacred implications of the Romanesca—arguably available to historical listeners—to intensify the spiritual dimension of the drama.

Carl Schmitt's Vattel and the 'Law of Nations' between Enlightenment and Revolution

Grotiana ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Nakhimovsky
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Total War ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Law ◽  
History Of International Law

AbstractThis article questions the status of Vattel's Law of Nations as an exemplary illustration of eighteenth-century developments in the history of international law. Recent discussions of the relation between eighteenth-century thinking about the law of nations and the French Revolution have revived Carl Schmitt's contention about the nexus between just war theory and the emergence of total war. This evaluative framework has been used to identify Vattel as a moral critic of absolutism who helped undermine the barriers against total war, as well as an architect and defender of those very barriers. Neither of these opposing readings is corroborated by late-eighteenth-century commentators on Vattel's treatise. To its late-eighteenth-century critics and defenders alike, Vattel's Law of Nations was distinguished by the weakness of its derivation of the law of nations from principles of natural law. Insofar as these readers did link Vattel to justifications of relatively unrestrained forms of warfare, they did so in connection with the perceived weakness of Vattel's moral position rather than with its strength. This late-eighteenth-century consensus on the defining features of Vattel's approach to the law of nations sits uncomfortably with Schmitt's evaluative framework, and indeed with other assessments of Vattel that limit themselves to orienting his treatise along fault lines in the historiography of international law.

scholarly journals Public Military Music and the Promotion of Patriotism in the British Provinces, c. 1780-c. 1850

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-444
Author(s):  
Trevor Herbert
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The State ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The People ◽  
Home Based ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Military Units

The role and importance of military musicians changed and intensified in the late eighteenth century through two important processes. The first was the culture of display that took root in both the home-based army and units in the colonies. The second was the result of successive militia acts which effectively ensured that military units with bands would be systematically placed in every corner of the British Isles.It became evident that music as a component of military display served an important diplomatic purpose. Music performed in public spaces was heard by a population deeply sceptical of the army and with an essentially local sense of identity. The experience of the sight and sound of military music raised entirely new perceptions of nation and of the state as a benign power.Two important and related themes emerge here. The first is the historical process that led, almost accidentally, to a realization that music as part of military display had potential to influence populations across the country and in the colonies. The second, more challenging, theme concerns the nature of the evidence for this idea and how it is to be treated. It is an idea that is totally convincing if the experience of hearing and seeing military spectacle by the mass of the people can be shown to have had impact. What is the evidence of listening to music by those people at whom it was targeted, how robust is it and what can be made of it?

Enforcement In Apprenticeship Contracts: Were Runaways a Serious Problem? Evidence from Montreal

1995 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 551-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Cast Doubt

Historians argue that in late eighteenth-century North Aerica, apprentices often ran away form their masters. Masters’ inability to write enforceable contracts, the argument goes, sparked the decline of traditional apprenticeships. This article addresses the issue of enforcement. I analyze an apprentice’s incentive to run away and the role of enforcement with detailed archival evidence form Montreal. These data cast doubt on the claim that masters were unable to construct enforceable contracts and call into question the severity of a runaway problem.

‘THE FAMOUS VIDAL’: NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE AND WORKS OF A GUITARIST IN LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-149
Author(s):  
DAMIÁN MARTÍN GIL
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Extensive Study ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Multiple References ◽  
Musical Activities

ABSTRACTDuring the second half of the eighteenth century the Spanish guitar reached a level of popularity in France not equalled elsewhere. Among the various composers who contributed to the vogue for the instrument in this country, sources of the period refer to a certain Mr Vidal, a guitarist of Spanish origins who was regarded as one of the most important masters of the guitar in Europe. Despite multiple references to his musical activities no extensive study has yet been made, which leaves this figure only partially studied. In order to address this lacuna, this article reconstructs the life of this guitarist, placing his music in the environment in which he lived in order to obtain a clearer picture of the situation of the guitar and the role of Vidal as a composer, guitarist, publisher and teacher.

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