A Handbook of Modern Arabic Historical Scholarship on the Ancient and Medieval Periods

2021 ◽  

This book is devoted to the life and academic legacy of Mustafa Badawi who transformed the study of modern Arabic literature in the second half of the twentieth century. Prior to the 1960s the study of Arabic literature, both classical and modern, had barely been emancipated from the academic approaches of orientalism. The appointment of Badawi as Oxford University's first lecturer in modern Arabic literature changed the face of this subject as Badawi showed, through his teaching and research, that Arabic literature was making vibrant contributions to global culture and thought. Part biography, part collection of critical essays, this book celebrates Badawi's immense contribution to the field and explores his role as a public intellectual in the Arab world and the west.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-24
Author(s):  
Edward A. Alpers

In this article I examine two of Michael Pearson’s most important contributions to our understanding of Indian Ocean history: the concept of the littoral, which he first articulated in his seminal article on “Littoral society: the case for the coast” in The Great Circle 7, no. 1 (1985): 1-8, and his comment in The Indian Ocean (London and New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 9) that “I want it to have a whiff of ozone.” Accordingly, I review Pearson’s publications to see how he has written about these two notions and how they have influenced historical scholarship about the Indian Ocean.


Author(s):  
C. Oliver O'Donnell

The ramified legacy of Bernard Berenson’s writings within 20th century art historiography is both celebrated and maligned. In an effort to help reconcile this situation, this essay argues for the partial validity of Berenson’s peculiar version of art historical formalism by detailing its historical connections to the Pragmatist philosophy and psychology of William James and by analytically correlating Berenson’s arguments with recent work in aesthetics and the philosophy of perception. The essay examines the specific example of Berenson’s analysis of Giotto’s paintings and leverages a Pragmatist interpretation of Berenson’s writings to frame Berenson’s known connections with other writers: including Adolf Hildebrand, Giovanni Morelli, and Walter Pater. In conclusion, the failure, potential, reception, and legacy of Berenson’s art historical scholarship are assessed in relation to Pragmatist ideas. Der vielfältige Einfluss von Bernard Berensons Schriften auf die Kunstgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts wird ebenso geschätzt wie verachtet. In dem Bestreben, diese Divergenzen zu berichtigen, versucht dieser Beitrag den Nachweis für die bedingte Gültigkeit von Berensons eigentümlicher Variante eines kunsthistorischen Formalismus zu erbringen, indem er einerseits seine historischen Verbindungen zur pragmatischen Philosophie und Psychologie von William James aufzeigt und indem er andererseits Berensons Argumentation ins Verhältnis zu aktuellen Debatten der wahrnehmungstheoretischen Ästhetik und Philosophie setzt. Am Beispiel von Berensons Interpretation der Gemälde Giottos führt dieser Essay eine pragmatische Analyse von Berensons Schriften durch und stellt diese ins Umfeld seiner Kontakte zu anderen Autoren: darunter Adolf Hildebrand, Giovanni Morelli und Walter Pater. Schließlich soll das Scheitern, das Potenzial, die Rezeption und das Erbe von Berensons kunsthistorischen Studien unter pragmatischen Gesichtspunkten bewertet werden.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
WAED ATHAMNEH
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Chris Callow

One of the hallmarks of the honorand’s research has been its breadth, its active attempts to compare how different medieval societies worked, and its awareness of how different academic communities think about their subjects. In different places Iceland has figured as a frame of reference. This chapter aims to consider briefly how Iceland serves as a comparator now, some thirty years after a growth in anglophone scholarship helped develop interest in the country. In that period Icelandic archaeology has developed significantly and international scholarly trends have influenced the literary and historical scholarship related to Iceland. It briefly considers ways in which Iceland’s socio-political structures might be considered differently to how they were thirty years ago, and how recent views of other medieval Western societies suggest some new similarities and differences between Iceland and elsewhere.


Author(s):  
Georgy Kantor

Roman concept of dominium has been fundamental in the formation of concepts of ownership in European legal tradition. It is, however, often considered outside the context of Roman imperial rule and of the multiplicity of legal regimes governing property relations in Roman provinces outside Italy. This chapter starts from the classic passage in the Institutes of Gaius, claiming that the right of dominium did not exist in provincial land, where it belonged to the Roman state. Gaius’ statement is often dismissed in modern historical scholarship as a ‘conveyancer’s fantasy’ (A.H.M. Jones). It is argued here that, on the contrary, this passage and other similar statements in Roman juristic literature and technical literature on land-measurement, show an important facet of Roman ideas of ownership as a socially contingent right, dependent on civic status of the owner, status of the territory within the empire, and Roman recognition of local property regimes.


Author(s):  
Talbot C. Imlay

In examining the practice of socialist internationalism, this book has sought to combine three fields of historical scholarship (socialism, internationalism, and international politics) in the aim of contributing to each one. The contribution to the first area, socialism, is perhaps the most obvious. Contrary to numerous claims, socialist internationalism did not die in August 1914 but survived the outbreak of war and afterwards even flourished at times. Indeed, during the two post-war periods, European socialists worked closely together on a variety of pressing issues, endowing the policymaking of the British, French, and German parties with an important international dimension. This international dimension was never all-important: it rarely, if ever, trumped the domestic political and intra-party dimensions of policymaking. But its existence means that the international policies of any one socialist party cannot be fully understood in isolation from the policies of other parties. The practice of socialist internationalism was rarely easy: contention was present and sometimes rife. Equally pertinent, idealism could be in short supply. Often enough, European socialists instrumentalized internationalism for their own ends, whether it was Ramsay MacDonald with the Geneva Protocol during the 1920s or Guy Mollet, who hoped to discredit internal party critics of his Algerian policy during the 1950s. Nevertheless, the attempts to instrumentalize socialist internationalism underscore the latter’s significance. After all, such attempts would be inconceivable unless socialist internationalism meant something to European socialists....


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