Arabesques, Unicorns, and Invisible Masters: The Art Historian’s Gaze as Symptomatic Action?

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-232
Author(s):  
Eva-Maria Troelenberg
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Islamic Art ◽  
Methodological Development ◽  
World War ◽  
Taxonomic History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Methods ◽  
Second World

This essay takes two seminal texts of mid-twentieth-century Islamic art history as case studies for the methodological development of the scholarly gaze in the aftermath of the Second World War. Ernst Kühnel’s Die Arabeske (Wiesbaden, 1949) testifies to the continuity of a taxonomic history of styles, rooted in phenomenologist Sachforschung and apparently adaptable to shifting ideological paradigms. Richard Ettinghausen’s The Unicorn (Washington, 1950) stands for a neo-humanist approach. Its negotiation of aesthetic and cultural difference clearly is to be considered against the background of the experience of exile, but also of the rising tide of democratic humanism characteristic for postwar American humanities. Both examples together offer a comparative perspective on the agencies of art historical methods and their ideological and epistemological promises and pitfalls in dealing with aesthetic difference. Consequently, this essay also seeks to contribute exemplary insights into the immediate prehistory of the so-called “Global Turn” in art history. 


Overseas History in the Netherlands after the Second World War. Historical Backgrounds, Modern Developments, Present-Day Situation

Itinerario ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-115
Author(s):  
H.L. Wesseling
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Art History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Spiritual Climate ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Second World ◽  
Or History

Is history science or art? This is a problem which has been on people's minds for more than a century and certainly it is an interesting question. But within the framework of this contribution it is not really important, for, whether one practises art history or history of science, one faces the same problem. On the one hand such a history is first and foremost a history of the work and achievements of individuals. A history of science which does not deal with the work of Copernicus, Newton and Einstein is as useless as a history of art in which Rembrandt, Rubens and Michelangelo do not figure. Art and history are and will remain foremost the work of individuals of genius. On the other hand it is also true that a history of art or science which confines itself exclusively to a series of sketches of individuals and their work is not satisfactory either. Artists and scientists do not work within a vacuum. As one discerns tendencies and trends in art, likewise within the field of science one finds schools and paradigms. In order to understand works of art and science we have to look closely at influences and examples, at the time-spirit, the spiritual climate, et cetera.

scholarly journals THE ROLE OF UKRAINE’S PARTY ARCHIVES IN THE SHAPING OF THE SOVIET MYTH OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR IN THE 60S-80S OF THE 20TH CENTURY (A CASE STUDY OF THE ARCHIVE DEPARTMENT OF KHERSON OBLAST COMMITTEE OF THE CPU)

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Natalia Kuzovova
Keyword(s):  
Historical Memory ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Document Collections ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
History Of ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
Historical Methods ◽  
Second World

The goal of the paper is to study the activity of the party archives of the Communist Party of Ukraine (the CPU) in 1960-1980, aimed at creating sets of documents about the Second World War - the documents of personal origin and thematic collections; to determine the main principles that guided the archival institutions while conducting the selection of fund-forming agents and documents which in their opinion were supposed to adequately reflect the Second World War events; to characterize the directions of search, archeographic and publishing work of Soviet archivists; to analyse the information content, completeness, and reliability of the created sets of documents, the consequences of the party archives' activity for the historical memory of the Second World War events.  Research methodology. In the course of the research, general scientific and specific historical methods of source and archival heuristics, scientific criticism of sources, diplomatic, textual, and hermeneutical analysis were used.  Scientific novelty. The paper introduces the previously unpublished documents on the history of party archives into scientific discourse and reveals the technologies for falsifying the Second World War history at the level of archival institutions during the specified period.Conclusions. In the course of the research, it was found out that the document collections were made in violation of the principles of archival science, which led to the shaping of the Soviet myth of the Great Patriotic War. However, as a result of their activities, the archivists accumulated a lot of interesting historical material, which was not made public due to ideological principles and it creates a certain field for contemporary studies on the history of the Second World War.

Turning Aliens into Socialists

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Jessica Moberg
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Swedish History ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Highly Evolved

Immediately after the Second World War Sweden was struck by a wave of sightings of strange flying objects. In some cases these mass sightings resulted in panic, particularly after authorities failed to identify them. Decades later, these phenomena were interpreted by two members of the Swedish UFO movement, Erland Sandqvist and Gösta Rehn, as alien spaceships, or UFOs. Rehn argued that ‘[t]here is nothing so dramatic in the Swedish history of UFOs as this invasion of alien fly-things’ (Rehn 1969: 50). In this article the interpretation of such sightings proposed by these authors, namely that we are visited by extraterrestrials from outer space, is approached from the perspective of myth theory. According to this mythical theme, not only are we are not alone in the universe, but also the history of humankind has been shaped by encounters with more highly-evolved alien beings. In their modern day form, these kinds of ideas about aliens and UFOs originated in the United States. The reasoning of Sandqvist and Rehn exemplifies the localization process that took place as members of the Swedish UFO movement began to produce their own narratives about aliens and UFOs. The question I will address is: in what ways do these stories change in new contexts? Texts produced by the Swedish UFO movement are analyzed as a case study of this process.

ABCs of the Revolution

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-291
Author(s):  
Egor A. Yesyunin
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
Development History ◽  
The People ◽  
Red Army ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Revolution

The article is devoted to the satirical agitation ABCs that appeared during the Civil War, which have never previously been identified by researchers as a separate type of agitation art. The ABCs, which used to have the narrow purpose of teaching children to read and write before, became a form of agitation art in the hands of artists and writers. This was facilitated by the fact that ABCs, in contrast to primers, are less loaded with educational material and, accordingly, they have more space for illustrations. The article presents the development history of the agitation ABCs, focusing in detail on four of them: V.V. Mayakovsky’s “Soviet ABC”, D.S. Moor’s “Red Army Soldier’s ABC”, A.I. Strakhov’s “ABC of the Revolution”, and M.M. Cheremnykh’s “Anti-Religious ABC”. There is also briefly considered “Our ABC”: the “TASS Posters” created by various artists during the Second World War. The article highlights the special significance of V.V. Mayakovsky’s first agitation ABC, which later became a reference point for many artists. The authors of the first satirical ABCs of the Civil War period consciously used the traditional form of popular prints, as well as ditties and sayings, in order to create images close to the people. The article focuses on the iconographic connections between the ABCs and posters in the works of D.S. Moor and M.M. Cheremnykh, who transferred their solutions from the posters to the ABCs.

B'nai B'rith on the European continent after World War Two

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-126
Author(s):  
Hans Levy
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
The State ◽  
Jewish Organization ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
European Continent ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Second World

The focus of this paper is on the oldest international Jewish organization founded in 1843, B’nai B’rith. The paper presents a chronicle of B’nai B’rith in Continental Europe after the Second World War and the history of the organization in Scandinavia. In the 1970's the Order of B'nai B'rith became B'nai B'rith international. B'nai B'rith worked for Jewish unity and was supportive of the state of Israel.

The Nonviolent Struggle for Indian Freedom, 1905-19

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hardiman
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Passive Resistance ◽  
Civil Resistance ◽  
Political Concept ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World ◽  
Moral Stance

Much of the recent surge in writing about the practice of nonviolent forms of resistance has focused on movements that occurred after the end of the Second World War, many of which have been extremely successful. Although the fact that such a method of civil resistance was developed in its modern form by Indians is acknowledged in this writing, there has not until now been an authoritative history of the role of Indians in the evolution of the phenomenon.The book argues that while nonviolence is associated above all with the towering figure of Mahatma Gandhi, 'passive resistance' was already being practiced as a form of civil protest by nationalists in British-ruled India, though there was no principled commitment to nonviolence as such. The emphasis was on efficacy, rather than the ethics of such protest. It was Gandhi, first in South Africa and then in India, who evolved a technique that he called 'satyagraha'. He envisaged this as primarily a moral stance, though it had a highly practical impact. From 1915 onwards, he sought to root his practice in terms of the concept of ahimsa, a Sanskrit term that he translated as ‘nonviolence’. His endeavors saw 'nonviolence' forged as both a new word in the English language, and as a new political concept. This book conveys in vivid detail exactly what such nonviolence entailed, and the formidable difficulties that the pioneers of such resistance encountered in the years 1905-19.

History of the Second World War. B. H. Liddell Hart

1972 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-105
Author(s):  
Gordon A. Craig
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

scholarly journals Limiting the executive power after the Second World War: the invention of administrative science

2021 ◽  
pp. 002085232098559
Author(s):  
Céline Mavrot
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World Order ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
World War ◽  
Administrative Power ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World ◽  
Administrative Science

This article analyses the emergence of administrative science in France in the wake of the Second World War. The birth of this discipline is examined through the history of its founders, a group of comparatist aiming at developing universal administrative principles. The post-war context prompted the creation of checks and balances against administrative power (through oversight of the legality of administrative action) and against the powers of nation states (through human rights and international organizations). Administrative science and comparative law were meant to rebuild international relations. The history of this discipline highlights a legal project to redefine the role and limits of executive power at the dawn of the construction of a new world order. Points for practitioners Looking at long-term developments in the science of administration helps to inform administrative practice by providing a historical and reflective perspective. This article shows how a new understanding of the administrative reality emerged after the fall of the totalitarian regimes of the first half of the 20th century. It highlights the different ways in which administrative power was controlled after the Second World War through greater oversight over administrative legality, the establishment of universal administrative principles and the proclamation of human rights. Questions of administrative legitimacy and the limitation of administrative power are still very much part of the daily practice of executive power, and represent a central aspect of administrative thinking.

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