Comparative Global Humanities After Man: Alternatives to the Coloniality of Knowledge

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 23-48
Author(s):  
Lisa Lowe ◽  
Kris Manjapra
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Art History ◽  
Core Concept ◽  
Disciplinary Knowledge ◽  
The Core ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of

The core concept of ‘the human’ that anchors so many humanities disciplines – history, literature, art history, philosophy, religion, anthropology, political theory, and others – issues from a very particular modern European definition of Man ‘over-represented’ as the human. The history of modernity and of modern disciplinary knowledge formations are, in this sense, a history of modern European forms monopolizing the definition of the human and placing other variations at a distance from the human. This article is an interdisciplinary research that decenters Man-as-human as the subject/object of inquiry, and proposes a relational analytic that reframes established orthodoxies of area, geography, history and temporality. It also involves new readings of traditional archives, finding alternative repositories and practices of knowledge and collection to radically redistribute our ways of understanding the meaning of the human.

What is Religion?

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 246-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bergunder
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Common Definition ◽  
Historical Reconstructions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of

Religious studies cannot agree on a common definition of its subject matter. To break the impasse, important insights from recent discussions about post-foundational political theory might be of some help. However, they can only be of benefit in conversations about “religion” when the previous debate on the subject matter of religious studies is framed slightly differently. This is done in the first part of the article. It is, then, shown on closer inspection of past discussions on “religion” that a consensus-capable, contemporary, everyday understanding of “religion,” here called Religion 2, is assumed, though it remains unexplained and unreflected upon. The second part of the article shows how Religion 2 can be newly conceptualized through the lens of Ernesto Laclau’s political theory, combined with concepts from Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, and how Religion 2 can be established as the historical subject matter of religious studies. Though concrete historical reconstructions of Religion 2 always remain contested, I argue that this does not prevent it from being generally accepted as the subject matter of religious studies. The third part discusses the previous findings in the light of postcolonial concerns about potential Eurocentrism in the concept of “religion.” It is argued that Religion 2 has to be understood in a fully global perspective, and, as a consequence, more research on the global religious history of the 19th and 20th centuries is urgently needed.

Light and Sensitivity: Love in the Time of the Daguerreotype

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Czeczot
Keyword(s):  
Male Gaze ◽  
History Of Photography ◽  
Sensitive Material ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Passive Object

The article deals with the love of Zygmunt Krasiński to Delfina Potocka. The point of departure is the poet's definition of love as looking and reads Krasiński's relationship with his beloved in the context of two phenomena that fascinated him at the time: daguerreotype and magnetism. The invention of the daguerreotype in which the history of photography and spiritism comes together becomes a pretext for the formulation of a new concept of love and the loving subject. In the era of painting the woman was treated as a passive object of the male gaze; photography reverses this scheme of power. Love ceases to be a static relationship of the subject in love and the passive object – the beloved. The philosophy of developing photographs (and invoking phantoms) allows Krasiński - the writing subject to become like a light-sensitive material that reveals the image of the beloved.

„Zurück zu Schleiermacher! und von Schleiermacher aus vorwärts!“

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent A. R. Hege
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
Psychological Method ◽  
Dialectical Theology ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractAs dialectical theology rose to prominence in the years following World War I, the new theologians sought to distance themselves from liberalism in a number of ways, an important one being a rejection of Schleiermacher’s methods and conclusions. In reading the history of Weimar-era theology as it has been written in the twentieth century one would be forgiven for assuming that Schleiermacher found no defenders during this time, as liberal theology quietly faded into the twilight. However, a closer examination of this period reveals a different story. The last generation of liberal theologians consistently appealed to Schleiermacher for support and inspiration, perhaps none more so than Georg Wobbermin, whom B. A. Gerrish has called a “captain of the liberal rearguard.” Wobbermin sought to construct a religio-psychological method on the basis of Schleiermacher’s definition of religion and on his “Copernican turn” toward the subject and resolutely defended such a method against the new dialectical theology long after liberal theology’s supposed demise. A consideration of Wobbermin’s appeals to Schleiermacher in his defense of the liberal program reveals a more complex picture of the state of theology in the Weimar period and of Schleiermacher’s legacy in German Protestant thought.

scholarly journals Scarred souls, weary warriors, and military intervention: the emergence of the subject in the just war writings of Jean Bethke Elshtain

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER LEE
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Military Force ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Just War Tradition ◽  
A Site

AbstractOver the past three decades Jean Bethke Elshtain has used her critique and application of just war as a means of engaging with multiple overlapping aspects of identity. Though Elshtain ostensibly writes about war and the justice, or lack of justice, therein, she also uses just war a site of analysis within which different strands of subjectivity are investigated and articulated as part of her broader political theory. This article explores the proposition that Elshtain's most important contribution to the just war tradition is not be found in her provision of codes or her analysis of ad bellum or in bello criteria, conformity to which adjudges war or military intervention to be just or otherwise. Rather, that she enriches just war debate because of the unique and sometimes provocative perspective she brings as political theorist and International Relations scholar who adopts, adapts, and deploys familiar but, for some, uncomfortable discursive artefacts from the history of the Christian West: suffused with her own Christian faith and theology. In so doing she continually reminds us that human lives, with all their attendant political, social, and religious complexities, should be the focus when military force is used, or even proposed, for political ends.

Cheshire Cat and Mickey Mouse: analysis, interpretation and the art of the La Tène Iron Age

1970 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 261-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. V. S. Megaw
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Art History ◽  
Mickey Mouse ◽  
Classical Archaeology ◽  
Italian Physician ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
Prehistoric Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Wilhelm Worringer

Nearly seventy years ago Wilhelm Worringer first wrote that ‘ultimately all our definitions of art are definitions of classical art’ (Worringer, 1953, 132). Today, the study of Western European art history, old or modern, the products of peasant craft-centres or urban ‘schools’, has in the course of time developed its own methodology and, almost, mystique. In contrast, the study of many branches of prehistoric art in Europe and elsewhere is all too often seen as a mere extension of the skilled but subjective approaches of classical archaeology without considering the suitability of the latter's application. The use of the classical art-historian's intuitive methods built up not just from visual exprience but a detailed background of literary, historical and philosophical studies must in fact be almost entirely denied the student of prehistoric or primitive art. It is perhaps only natural that principles of classical art history should be applied to later European prehistory, though it is often difficult to arrive at a precise definition of these principles. It was Johann Joachim Winckelmann who made the first systematic application of categories of style to the history of art (Gombrich, 1968, 319). Sir John Beazley, the greatest of all modern classical art historians followed in this tradition basing attributions ‘on the grounds of tell-tale traits of individual mannerisms’ (Carpenter, 1963, 115 ff.) a scheme first applied to painting less than a century ago by the Italian physician Giovanni Morelli (Gombrich, 1968, 309 ff.) and followed at the turn of the nineteenth century in the study of Italian painting (Lermolieff, 1892–3). With Beazley it is, however, difficult to follow step by step his methods of work.

Book Symposium: Hobbes and Political Theory Introduction: Hobbes, Language and Liberty

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-170
Author(s):  
Richard Bourke
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
International Symposium ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Book Symposium

AbstractHobbes's place in the history of political philosophy is a highly controversial one. An international symposium held at Queen Mary, University of London in February 2009 was devoted to debating his significance and legacy. The event focussed on recent books on Hobbes by Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, and was organised around four commentaries on these new works by distinguished scholars. This paper is designed to introduce the subject of the symposium together with the commentaries and subsequent responses from Petit and Skinner. It examines the themes of language and liberty in the philosophy of Hobbes and concludes by highlighting some of the ways in which further research into Hobbes's debt to Aristotle's Politics will prove fruitful and illuminating.

scholarly journals Utjecaj interpretacija pojma periferijske umjetnosti Ljube Karamana i Miroslava Krleže na dalmatinsku povijesti umjetnosti

2021 ◽  
pp. 498-510
Author(s):  
Ivana Prijatelj Pavičić
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
Art History ◽  
Central European ◽  
Cultural Paradigm ◽  
Miroslav Krleza ◽  
History Of ◽  
Artistic Styles ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
True Center ◽  
External Forces

Although the so-called „Vienna school“ practised an universalist approach to history of arts, their prominent acters like Alois Riegel and Max Dvořák influenced the nationalist ideas among the Central European art historians in the interwar period. An evident example of such an influence is Croatian art historian Ljubo Karaman (1886‒1971) ‒ a Vienna student who studied the art relations between center and periphery from early 1930s on. His thoughts on this topic were collected in his 1963 book Problemi periferijske umjetnosti. O djelovanju domaće sredine u umjetnosti hrvatskih krajeva (Problems of Peripheral Art. On Influence of Local Surrounding on the Art of the Croatian Areas). Colonial character of the Karaman’s definition of the center/periphery relation is clear in his notion that the dissemination and assimilation of the artistic styles is always one-way: from developed center to the province. His definition of „peripheral art“ appeared as a reaction to the works of famous „Vienna school“ scholars from early 20th century (particularly Polish-Austrian art historian Strzygowski). It is based on the idea of external, political and artistic influences in Dalmatia as external forces of artistic exchange. A prominent writer and encyclopaedist Miroslav Krleža turned upside-down the idea of the artistic transfer from the advanced West toward underdeveloped East/Balkans as a periphery at the edge of civilisation. In his discussion on the Second Congress of writers in Zagreb he promoted the idea of the periphery as a true center. During 1950s, Krleža strongly influenced the formation of a new cultural paradigm, and forging of the new scientific paradigm within art history in Croatia. In her paper, the author explores how texts of the Croatian art-history scholars regarding ancient Dalmatian art were influenced by Karaman’s and Krleža’s ideas and concepts on peripheral, provincial, and border-line art.

scholarly journals Self-Abdication and Otherness in Philip Roth’s The Human Stain (2000)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assia Mohdeb ◽  
Sofiane Mammeri
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Racial Passing ◽  
The Core ◽  
Class Discrimination ◽  
The Subject ◽  
American Society ◽  
Definition Of

Identity, in one of its understanding, signifies a set of characteristics that make up a person’s ethical faithfulness to, identification with, and pride of one’s origin, tradition, and culture. Remaining true to one’s identity and being faithful to the core values of one’s culture is a complicated matter when it comes to a black living in white society like America, where color and racial identity are rudimentary prerequisites in self-definition and naming. Philip Roth’s novel entitled The Human Stain (2000) shows how some black figures undress their black identity to wear the prestigious white one to go onward with life as full selves, to have access to all the privileges the whites enjoy, and, above all, to live without the specter of race and the decisiveness of epidermal signs. The novel calls into question and revision such essentialist notions as other, class,andrace by describing the crises the subject or self undergoes in the light of racial prejudices, center-periphery relations, and class stereotypes. The present paper, then, addresses the act of self-abdication the protagonist, Silk Coleman, carries out to overstep the feeling of otherness and to dodge racial discrimination. The paper looks into the notions of selfhood and Otherness by negotiating the definition of the self and the distortion it undergoes in its encounter with the Other . The study aims at revealing, primarily, the effects of Black racial-passing, a common phenomenon in American society of the first half of the twentieth century, on familial relationships and cultural heritage. It also reveals the weight of gender and class discrimination in the individual’s identity formation and well-being.

scholarly journals Degrees of Freedom at the Start of the Second 100 Years: A Pedagogical Treatise

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 396-405
Author(s):  
Joseph Lee Rodgers
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Models ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Introductory Statistics ◽  
Core Concept ◽  
Traditional Treatment ◽  
The Core ◽  
History Of ◽  
Data Points

Degrees of freedom is a critical core concept within the field of statistics. Virtually every introductory statistics class treats the topic, though textbooks and the statistical literature show mostly superficial treatment, weak pedagogy, and substantial confusion. Fisher first defined degrees of freedom in 1915, and Walker provided technical treatment of the concept in 1940. In this article, the history of degrees of freedom is reviewed, and the pedagogical challenges are discussed. The core of the article is a simple reconceptualization of the degrees-of-freedom concept that is easier to teach and to learn than the traditional treatment. This reconceptualization defines a statistical bank, into which are deposited data points. These data points are used to estimate statistical models; some data are used up in estimating a model, and some data remain in the bank. The several types of degrees of freedom define an accounting process that simply counts the flow of data from the statistical bank into the model. The overall reconceptualization is based on basic economic principles, including treating data as statistical capital and data exchangeability (fungibility). The goal is to stimulate discussion of degrees of freedom that will improve its use and understanding in pedagogical and applied settings.

scholarly journals Mutable Form and Materiality: Toward a Critical History of New Tapestry Networks

ARTMargins ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-29
Author(s):  
Jessica Gerschultz
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Institutional Support ◽  
Fiber Art ◽  
The Core ◽  
Critical History ◽  
State Patronage ◽  
History Of ◽  
Aesthetic Formalism ◽  
The 1960S

This article raises two concerns underpinning the need for a critical history of fiber art in the 20th century. The first is a critique of aesthetic formalism predominant in the Lausanne Biennale during the 1960s and 70s, which overlooks artistic, ideological, and political milieus that drew together textile artists from localities formerly treated as peripheral in art history. The second holds to account Euro-American institutions and related historiographies for their curatorial exclusion of Arab and African fiber artists. Such inclusion, I argue, would have conjured tapestry's deeper incongruities, which emanated from unresolved questions at the core of modernism: the assigning and appropriating of artistic identities, the evaded issue of state patronage, and the persistent ideological and aesthetic problem of craft and its framing within economies. By comparing three artists: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jagoda Buic, and Safia Farhat, I reassess New Tapestry networks, myths, and systems of state and institutional support. The circulation of Abakanowicz, Buic, and Farhat around a conflux of dimensions signals a new pathway for recovering and writing a history of fiber art, and perhaps a reflection on modernism at large.

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