Toward a Global Intellectual History of “Minority”

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-324
Author(s):  
Roy Bar Sadeh ◽  
Lotte Houwink ten Cate
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Minority Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

Abstract The term minority is today applied to describe beleaguered, persecuted, and exiled people whose subordination is preserved or merely “tolerated” by majoritarian politics inherent to modern states. As this introduction indicates, however, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries minority politics became a rubric for sociopolitical emancipation, providing a framework for intellectuals in colonized Asia and Africa to question European powers' treatment of marginalized communities. Bar Sadeh and Houwink ten Cate contend that “minority” has unique value as an instrument for historical analysis that is restricted neither solely to minority-majority relations nor to debates about (political) representation. Instead, the authors propose a global intellectual history of “minority” as a concept and experience, which is explored in the essays compiled in this special section, “Minority Questions.” By examining the diverse genealogies of the concept of minority, the essays that follow provide a valuable contribution to efforts to redress historical wrongs, even as they offer a range of explanations for the enduring legacy and power of this multifaceted concept.

International Legal Thought

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kleinlein
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

This contribution reflects on the role of tradition-building in international law, the implications of the recent ‘turn to history’ and the ‘presentisms’ discernible in the history of international legal thought. It first analyses how international legal thought created its own tradition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These projects of establishing a tradition implied a considerable amount of what historians would reject as ‘presentism’. Remarkably, critical scholars of our day and age who unsettled celebratory histories of international law and unveiled ‘colonial origins’ of international law were also criticized for committing the ‘sin of anachronism’. This contribution therefore examines the basis of this critique and defends ‘presentism’ in international legal thought. However, the ‘paradox of instrumentalism’ remains: The ‘better’ historical analysis becomes, the more it loses its critical potential for current international law. At best, the turn to history activates a potential of disciplinary self-reflection.

Luther's Word on Man's Will: A Case Study in Comparative Intellectual History

1984 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-667
Author(s):  
Mark Migotti
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
Thematic Unity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Single Set

It is commonplace to observe that the history of thought reveals certain recurring patterns whose mode of expression changes according to context. It is equally apparent that to chart the salient characteristics of an influential way of thinking – to give concrete, clearly defined shape to the usually tangled fundamental impulses informing a cast of mind – is a complex, difficult task which calls for attention from (at least) the historian, the psychologist, the philosopher and, in the case of religious figures and movements, the theologian alike. With regard to the manner of thinking embodied in the theological doctrines of Martin Luther such a task is fraught with more than the usual number of pitfalls. In the first place, following recent Luther scholarship, we must be wary of assuming that the great Reformer held fast to a single set of theological opinions throughout his long career. We shall not, therefore, attempt to reach conclusions applicable to Luther's thought as a whole, but rather shall focus exclusively on a number of key early expositions of the Theologia Crucis. Here, between about 1514 and 1520, we find, according to our argument, enough thematic unity to warrant the search for underlying principles. A second, less easily disposed of difficulty is the lack of a working consensus as to how and with what aims in mind one should even begin an historical analysis of Luther's texts. For example, to the believer who regards Luther's basic tenets as in a straightforward sense divinely inspired, the attempt to extract from his writings the ingredients of a certain thoroughly human way of thinking will seem doomed to inadequacy from the start. Likewise, for different reasons, many of today's.

The State of the Political

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The State ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Political Criticism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Franz Neumann

This book offers a broad-ranging re-interpretation of the understanding of politics and the state in the writings of three major German thinkers, Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Franz Neumann. It rejects the typical separation of these writers on the basis of their allegedly incompatible ideological positions, and suggests instead that once properly located in their historical context, the tendentious character of these interpretative boundaries becomes clear. The book interprets the conceptions of politics and the state in the writings of these three thinkers by means of an investigation of their adaptation and modification of particular German traditions of thinking about the state, or Staatsrechtslehre. Indeed, when the theoretical considerations of this state-legal theory are combined with their contemporary political criticism, a richer and more deeply textured account of the issues that engaged the attention of Weber, Schmitt and Neumann is possible. Thus, the broad range of subjects discussed in this book include parliamentarism and democracy in Germany, academic freedom and political economy, political representation, cultural criticism and patriotism, and the relationship between rationality, law, sovereignty and the constitution. The study attempts to restore a sense of proportion to the discussion of the three authors' writings, focusing on the extensive ideas that they shared rather than insisting on their necessary ideological separation. It is a detailed re-appraisal of a crucial moment in modern intellectual history, and highlights the profound importance of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt and Franz Neumann for the history of European ideas.

Europe and the British Geographical Imagination, 1760-1830

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Stock
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Geographical Imagination ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Difference ◽  
Commercial Network ◽  
British Culture ◽  
British People

Europe and the British Geographical Imagination, 1760–1830 seeks to establish what literate British people understood by the word ‘Europe’ in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It achieves this objective through detailed analysis of nearly 350 geographical reference works, textbooks, dictionaries, and encyclopaedias. Largely neglected by historians, these materials were widely read by contemporaries and can reveal the formative ideas about Europe circulating in Britain. The book therefore traces the history of ideas in non-elite contexts; it moves away from an approach to intellectual history concerned predominantly with prominent thinkers. The opening two chapters outline the characteristics and popularity of geography books and explain how they structure geographical knowledge. The remaining chapters explore eight themes which frame how Europe is understood in British culture. A chapter each is devoted to religion; the natural environment; race and other theories of human difference; the state; borders; the identification of the ‘centre’ and ‘edges’ of Europe; commerce and empire; and ideas about the past, progress, and historical change. Each chapter shows how geographical texts use these intricate concepts to communicate and construct widely understood ideas about the European continent. Is Europe unified by shared religious heritage? Where are the edges of Europe? Is Europe primarily a commercial network or are there common political practices too? Is Britain itself a European country? By showing how these and other questions were discussed in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British culture, the book provides a thorough and much-needed historical analysis of Britain’s enduringly complex intellectual relationship with Europe.

Introduction

Urban History ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-31
Author(s):  
MARKIAN PROKOPOVYCH
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Europe ◽  
South East Europe ◽  
History Of

Eastern Europe has recently received much attention from scholars irrespective of diverse focus and specialization, and the special section of this distinguished journal is yet another proof that the region remains an extraordinarily interesting place for research and analysis. Scholarly interests have, however, often been related to the emergence, establishment and eventual demise of state socialism in this heterogeneous place, the horrors of World War II and the profound transformations that swept through its many old-new countries during recent decades. The predominance of political, social and intellectual history, as well as sociology and political science, and scholarly interpretations of the condition of modernity in Eastern Europe come therefore as little surprise. This methodological apparatus at hand, significant aspects of the region's development during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have sometimes been overlooked, while others appeared teleological. Within the traditions of both Western and Eastern European academia, the region has until recently been perceived as having followed a very distinct, special path to modernity characterized in a variety of ways as arrested development, Sonderweg and backwardness. At the same time, the profound change that occurred in these diverse territories as part of a European and in fact global process of modernization during the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries has often not been given its true significance in relation to its later historical development. An array of recent post-colonialist responses that have fundamentally reshaped the history of the modern ‘Third World’ have touched Eastern Europe only in passing, Hence, an occasional intellectual indecisiveness as to how to analyse the region's development in a greater historical context, as is immediately evident in the diversity of names ascribed to its supposedly different geographical areas – Eastern Europe, East Central Europe, Central Europe, Mitteleuropa and South-East Europe, to name but a few – each with their own political and ideological bias.

scholarly journals Rohingya Refugees in South Asia: An Exploration of Social Borders and the Margins

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
Rachel Irene D'Silva
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Border Studies ◽  
International Studies ◽  
State Legislation ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Postcolonial State ◽  
History Of

By reviewing the case of the Rohingya, a marginalized community in the postcolonial state of Myanmar, this article (as part of a special section on South Asian border studies) explores the perspective of Rohingya refugees and conceptualizes social borders from the voices of the refugees. Juxtaposing postcolonial borders with narrations of Rohingya in India brings out the politics of the marginalized communities in the country’s borderlands. The article shows how borderscapes are shaped for refugees that articulate ideas of social justice and recognition. Building on international studies of the Rohingya, I conducted fieldwork into the situation of the Rohingya in India. The resulting interviews add to our understanding of Rohingya refugees and address a scarcity of literature on the Rohingya in border studies. Through the analysis, I discover the history of the Rohingya identity in Myanmar, which contextualizes their statelessness. Social borders and state legislation reinforce barriers to citizenship and sharpen the exclusion of migrants, refugees, and other stateless peoples in South Asia.  Keywords: South Asia, Refugees, Rohingya, post-colonial states, boundaries, borders, margins, Southeast Asia, marginal communities.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald R. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
South Asian Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Literature History ◽  
Constant Source

Between 1930 and 1962, the eminent Sanskritist and lawyer Pandurang Vaman Kane (pronounced KAH-nay) produced a five-volume monograph entitled History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law), published by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune, India. This work of over 6,500 pages provides much more than a narrow focus on law or the special genre of Sanskrit literature devoted to religious and legal duties, the Dharmaśāstra. It contains rather something close to an intellectual history of Hinduism, from its origins in the Vedic texts to contemporary debates about the “reform” of Hinduism in nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Kane understood his task as presenting the broadest possible survey of the role legal, religious, and ethical thought in the history of Hinduism, with regular incursions into other religious traditions as well. A modern scholar of Dharmaśāstra, Richard Lariviere, is fond of saying, “We all make our living from Kane’s footnotes.” Indeed, Kane’s work has become a constant source of reference and orientation in South Asian studies of law, religion, ritual, literature, history, and more. It is a work that has perhaps literally launched a thousand dissertations because it is so easy to refer a student or a colleague to the appropriate section of Kane as a way to get their bearings in relation to hundreds of topics in the fields of Hindu studies or Indian social and intellectual history....

Between Two Worlds: American Social Thought After the Civil War

Prospects ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 411-431
Author(s):  
Rush Welter
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Renaissance ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
History Of

In recent years American scholars have made significant progress in rethinking the history of the United States after the Civil War. Although much of their effort has come to a focus on Reconstruction, new questions and new techniques of historical analysis have combined to revitalize examination of the era as a whole. Yet-certain specialized studies notwithstanding – relatively little has been done to reconceive the intellectual history of the period. In part, this situation probably reflects the disappointing character of most of postbellum thought, which boasts few such luminaries as the era of the American Revolution or that of the so-called American Renaissance. In part, it may also reflect the fact that study of the period revived at a time when intellectual history no longer seemed to represent the cutting edge of historical inquiry. In any case, the opinions and beliefs of late Victorian America have remained a stepchild of historical research while their adopted family has flourished.

scholarly journals Comparative and Historical Analysis of Early Donghak: Cross-Religious Dialogue between Confucianism and Catholicism in 19th-Century Korea

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 608
Author(s):  
Byeongdae Bae
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Late Stage ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Middle Stage ◽  
New Religions ◽  
Religious Dialogue ◽  
History Of ◽  
Catholic Tradition

The purpose of this study was to characterize early Donghak thought as the fusion of two horizons, one Confucian and the other Catholic. In particular, the study divided the Donghak founder Su-un Choe Je-u’s view of divinity into three stages, and showed how the evolution of his thought through these stages can be explained as the product of a dialogue between the Confucian monist tradition based on qi or vital energy and the Catholic dualist tradition based on Thomistic scholasticism. The study adopted a comparative and historical methodology, whereby comparison was limited to similarities and differences between Su-un’s works and sources in the Confucian or Catholic tradition that we can reasonably assume to have been available to Su-un. It was found that Su-un’s thought in the early stage was marked by theistic features similar to the scholastic view of God, and that in the middle stage Su-un sought to accommodate this theism within a pantheistic framework based on the Confucian monist tradition. For convenience’ sake, this theism-within-pantheism can be referred to as Su-un’s “panentheism”. It is suggested that the creative tension within this panentheism motivated Su-un to introduce innovations in his thought. First, in the middle stage, Su-un rejected the monism of li or pattern that was prevalent in the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy of his day, reverting to the older tradition of qi-monism. Second, in the late stage of his thought, he appears to have rehabilitated li as intelligent pattern that is the source of all signs of intelligence in the natural and moral order. As for the value of the approach adopted in this study, it enables us to make better sense of obscure details in Su-un’s works by placing them in their proper historical context, as evinced by the reading of Su-un’s late stage work “Buryeon Giyeon” presented herein. It is hoped that this approach will be applied more rigorously in future studies to deepen our understanding of the intellectual history of Donghak and Cheondogyo, along with various other new religions that emerged in Korea’s modern history.

Historical Analysis of Law

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Dirk Dubber
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

Kenneth Ledford's and Michael Meranze's insightful comments raise important questions about the nature of legal history in general, and of the history of punishment in particular. According to Ledford and Meranze, modern legal history is social history, to be distinguished from “old-style intellectual history.” A product of the latter “historical method no longer in favor,” “The Right to Be Punished” draws Ledford's and Meranze's criticism for its insufficient “root[s]… in the soil of social history” and for its inadequate “account of the … social basis of the modern will to punish” and “the social embeddedness of punishment.”

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