Hesiod in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Lecznar
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Rural Life ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Personal Connection ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Alternative Vision ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
The One ◽  
Of Greece

This chapter introduces some key moments from Hesiod’s reception during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and offers a starting point for future scholarship in this new field of research. It explores examples of Hesiod’s reception by French, English, and German figures, including Voltaire, John Flaxman, and Friedrich Nietzsche, to demonstrate the European scope of the ancient author’s appeal while also drawing attention to some of the recurring concerns that animated turns to Hesiod during this period. Hesiod offers an alternative vision of Greece to the one that had gained currency during the Enlightenment; his focus on ancient Greek religious belief and rural life provided an important counterpoint to narratives of Greece as the birthplace of modern European civilization, while his poetry offered readers a personal connection with a distant cultural and historical context.

The Return to Diversity in Eastern Europe

1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
Jens Hohensee
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
New Research ◽  
Annus Mirabilis

The events of 1989, the annus mirabilis, have led to a great demand for new research and a re-thinking of the history of Eastern Europe. Those sources which were kept from us for years are now available, at least in part. As part of this process political scientists and historians of Eastern Europe are now concerned to fill in the gaps in our knowledge and provide the answers to urgent questions. A consequence of this situation has been a veritable flood of publications, of which eight have been chosen for review here. With two exceptions these studies have deepened our understanding of the issues involved. There are clear differences between the historians on the one hand and the political scientists on the other in terms of their starting-point and the questions they ask. Whereas the historians deal descriptively with the origins, trends and structures of the last centuries and place the revolutions of 1989/90 in their historical context, the political scientists proceed analytically and place greater emphasis on social, ethnic and economic factors. This dichotomy is demonstrated in the different problematics of the books under review.

scholarly journals THE RISKS OF CURRENT POLITICAL RISK MANAGEMENT

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 170-172
Author(s):  
Luca Bussotti
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Political Risk ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Rational Calculation ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

Political risk is a concept traditionally related, on the one hand, to the rational calculation of risk in economic activities and, on the other, to a particular historical moment in which it has taken on the characteristics of an autonomous research field. Risk calculation and the management of lucrative activities have illustrious precedents. At the beginning of the 20th century, Max Weber pointed out the necessity to forecast all the possible risks that come from non-economic factors (such as bureaucracy, uncertainty of law and administrative procedures, and so on) before carrying out an economic investment leading to profit (Weber, 1968). However, the actual starting point of a science, related to the management of political risk, dates back to the 1960s (Sottilotta, 2013). The historical context in which this shift occurred can be found in the Cold War and the decolonization era.

HISTORICAL REGIONS BETWEEN CONSTRUCTION AND PERCEPTION: VIEWING FRANCE AND POLAND IN THE LATE-EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY-NINETEENTH CENTURIES

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 79-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Struck
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Rural Life ◽  
Rural Culture ◽  
Mental Maps ◽  
Urban Background ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The One ◽  
Eastern And Western Europe

This essay tackles the problem of spatial imaginations, representations, and "mental maps." Its main point of reference is Larry Wolff's thesis that the division of Europe into an Eastern - backward and uncivilized - part, on the one hand, and a Western - modem and civilized - part, on the other, can be traced back to the late-eighteenth century. In the Enlightenment, according to Wolff, philosophers, writers, and above all travelers created this normative and value laden inner-European dichotomy. From the perspective of German travelogues on Poland and France published between roughly 1750 and 1850, Europe and its inner division appears in a completely different light. The perceptions, for instance, of travel infrastructure, rural life, and small provincial towns are widely identical. From the perspective of a bourgeois, educated, mostly Protestant traveier, originating from an urban background, the main dichotomy around 1800 was not the division between Eastern and Western Europe. The cleavages followed the division between urban and rural culture, bourgeois and peasant milieu, or between denominations, such as Protestantism and Catholicism.

scholarly journals Increasing Motivation and Engagement in Advanced Literature Courses: Visions of Home: Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809; Elective Affinities)

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Wurst
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Project Based Learning ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Language Courses ◽  
Elective Affinities ◽  
The One ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Survey Courses

Goethe’s complex novel, Die Wahlverwandtschaften, with its focus on enhancing the home and its landscape, an activity that ends in chaos and destruction, allows for a problematization of the Enlightenment credo of perfectibility of humanity and its environment. To increase student motivation, I prefer thematic courses instead of relying on survey courses. In particular, I favor topics that lend themselves to comparing and contrasting the students’ contemporary experience with the historical context. Creating a link between the past and the present, thus offering both familiarity and alterity, facilitates access to the respective theme. At the same time, employing typical pedagogies used in the beginning language courses (images, activities beyond questions, worksheets, games) also in the advanced language, literature, and culture courses like the one described here, fosters stronger engagement with the literary text. This fourth-year course, taught in German, meets our “Learning Goals”, emphasizes transferable skills, and contributes to project-based learning.

HISTORICAL REGIONS BETWEEN CONSTRUCTION AND PERCEPTION: VIEWING FRANCE AND POLAND IN THE LATE-EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY-NINETEENTH CENTURIES

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-97
Author(s):  
BERNHARD STRUCK
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Rural Life ◽  
Rural Culture ◽  
Mental Maps ◽  
Urban Background ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The One ◽  
Eastern And Western Europe

Abstract: This essay tackles the problem of spatial imaginations, representations, and "mental maps." Its main point of reference is Larry Wolff's thesis that the division of Europe into an Eastern - backward and uncivilized - part, on the one hand, and a Western - modem and civilized - part, on the other, can be traced back to the late-eighteenth century. In the Enlightenment, according to Wolff, philosophers, writers, and above all travelers created this normative and value laden inner-European dichotomy. From the perspective of German travelogues on Poland and France published between roughly 1750 and 1850, Europe and its inner division appears in a completely different light. The perceptions, for instance, of travel infrastructure, rural life, and small provincial towns are widely identical. From the perspective of a bourgeois, educated, mostly Protestant traveler, originating from an urban background, the main dichotomy around 1800 was not the division between Eastern and Western Europe. The cleavages followed the division between urban and rural culture, bourgeois and peasant milieu, or between denominations, such as Protestantism and Catholicism.

The Devil's Tabernacle

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Ossa-Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Cultural Impact ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Ancient Religion ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Identity ◽  
European Thought ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Huge Variety

This is the first book to examine in depth the intellectual and cultural impact of the oracles of pagan antiquity on modern European thought. The book shows how the study of the oracles influenced, and was influenced by, some of the most significant developments in early modernity, such as the Christian humanist recovery of ancient religion, confessional polemics, Deist and libertine challenges to religion, antiquarianism and early archaeology, Romantic historiography, and spiritualism. The book examines the different views of the oracles since the Renaissance—that they were the work of the devil, or natural causes, or the fraud of priests, or finally an organic element of ancient Greek society. The range of discussion on the subject, as he demonstrates, is considerably more complex than has been realized before: hundreds of scholars, theologians, and critics commented on the oracles, drawing on a huge variety of intellectual contexts to frame their beliefs. A central chapter interrogates the landmark dispute on the oracles between Bernard de Fontenelle and Jean-François Baltus, challenging Whiggish assumptions about the mechanics of debate on the cusp of the Enlightenment. With erudition and an eye for detail, the book argues that, on both sides of the controversy, to speak of the ancient oracles in early modernity was to speak of one's own historical identity as a Christian.

A view from the Greek side

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-50
Author(s):  
Gunnel Ekroth
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Religion ◽  
Bone Material ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
Animal Bone ◽  
Animal Bones ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Integrated Study ◽  
Written Sources

This paper addresses the animal bone material from ancient Qumran, from the comparative perspective of zooarchaeological evidence recovered in ancient Greek cult contexts. The article offers an overview of the paramount importance of animal bones for the understanding of ancient Greek religion and sacrificial practices in particular, followed by a review of the Qumran material, taking as its starting point the zooarchaeological evidence and the archaeological find contexts. The methodological complications of letting the written sources guide the interpretation of the archaeological material are explored, and it is suggested that the Qumran bones are to be interpreted as remains of ritual meals following animal sacrifices, as proposed by Jodi Magness. The presence of calcined bones additionally supports the proposal that there was once an altar in area L130, and it is argued that the absence of preserved altar installations in many ancient sanctuaries cannot be used as an argument against their ever having been present. Finally, the similarities between Israelite and Greek sacrificial practices are touched upon, arguing for the advantages of a continued and integrated study of these two sacrificial systems based on the zooarchaeological evidence.

Stasis Anxiety

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew van der Vlies
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Black Writers ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Individual Subject ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Contemporary Writing

Two recent debut novels, Songeziwe Mahlangu’s Penumbra (2013) and Masande Ntshanga’s The Reactive (2014), reflect the experience of impasse, stasis, and arrested development experienced by many in South Africa. This chapter uses these novels as the starting point for a discussion of writing by young black writers in general, and as representative examples of the treatment of ‘waithood’ in contemporary writing. It considers (spatial and temporal) theorisations of anxiety, discerns recursive investments in past experiences of hope (invoking Jennifer Wenzel’s work to consider the afterlives of anti-colonial prophecy), assesses the usefulness of Giorgio Agamben’s elaboration of the ancient Greek understanding of stasis as civil war, and asks how these works’ elaboration of stasis might be understood in relation to Wendy Brown’s discussion of the eclipsing of the individual subject of political rights by the neoliberal subject whose very life is framed by its potential to be understood as capital.

Maximus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Byers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Action ◽  
American Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
The One

This concluding chapter charts the continuing significance of the early postwar moment in Olson’s later work, particularly The Maximus Poems. The philosophical and political concerns of the American avant-garde between 1946 and 1951 play out across The Maximus Poems just as they inform later American art practices. The search of the early postwar American independent left for a source of political action rooted in the embodied individual is seen, on the one hand, to have been personified in the figure of Maximus. At the same time, Maximus’s radical ‘practice of the self’ charts a sophisticated alternative to the Enlightenment humanist subject widely critiqued in the United States in the immediate postwar period.

Monotheism in Isaiah

2020 ◽  
pp. 218-248
Author(s):  
Matthias Albani
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
Crisis Situation ◽  
Catalytic Function ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Future ◽  
The One ◽  
Religious Crisis

The monotheistic confession in Isa 40–48 is best understood against the historical context of Israel’s political and religious crisis situation in the final years of Neo-Babylonian rule. According to Deutero-Isaiah, Yhwh is unique and incomparable because he alone truly predicts the “future” (Isa 41:22–29)—currently the triumph of Cyrus—which will lead to Israel’s liberation from Babylonian captivity (Isa 45). This prediction is directed against the Babylonian deities’ claim to possess the power of destiny and the future, predominantly against Bel-Marduk, to whom both Nabonidus and his opponents appeal in their various political assertions regarding Cyrus. According to the Babylonian conviction, Bel-Marduk has the universal divine power, who, on the one hand, directs the course of the stars and thus determines the astral omens and, on the other hand, directs the course of history (cf. Cyrus Cylinder). As an antithesis, however, Deutero-Isaiah proclaims Yhwh as the sovereign divine creator and leader of the courses of the stars in heaven as well as the course of history on earth (Isa 45:12–13). Moreover, the conflict between Nabonidus and the Marduk priesthood over the question of the highest divine power (Sîn versus Marduk) may have had a kind of “catalytic” function in Deutero-Isaiah’s formulation of the monotheistic confession.

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