Time Bandits, Historians, and Concepts of Bad Times

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Jan Ifversen
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual History ◽  
Temporal Concepts ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Concepts

Within the history of concepts, the conceptualization of time is central. Historical actors rely on their experiences for orientation in the present, and they produce expectations about the future. To imagine their horizons of expectation they need concepts about the future. When the future becomes difficult to conceive of for a variety of reasons, they take refuge in concepts describing unruly and uncertain times such as crisis or chaos. Times when the future is completely out of reach because the present seems unbearable might be termed catastrophic. Also, historians in general make use of temporal concepts to narrate their histories. They are like time bandits that manipulate time. Following last year’s conference organized by the History of Concepts Group on key concepts in times of crisis, this article takes issue with the discussion of concepts describing bad times within conceptual history.

Ambiguous Play

2016 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Nathan Hulsey
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Task ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Concepts ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Cultural Shifts ◽  
Cultural Turn

This chapter is a critical-conceptual introduction to the topic of gamification from the standpoint of game studies (the study of games) and ludology (the study of play). A secondary task is to move the definition and conceptual history of gamification away from essentialist notions of play and games and towards a more nuanced understanding of gamification as a philosophy of design with situational outcomes. By examining the controversy surrounding gamification as a complex history of concepts, the chapter aims to give the reader an overview of how gamification aligns with or deviates from various definitions of games and play. Gamification can be controversial when using traditional ludological concepts largely because traditional ludology is pre-digital, and does not account for the current technological and cultural shifts driving gaming and gamification. Finally, the chapter ends with the suggestion that the current cultural turn in game studies provides a way to analyze gamification as an example of the “gaming of culture.”

Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe Reloaded?

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann ◽  
Kathrin Kollmeier ◽  
Willibald Steinmetz ◽  
Philipp Sarasin ◽  
Alf Lüdtke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Concepts ◽  
Basic Concepts

Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe Reloaded? Writing the Conceptual History of the Twentieth Century Guest editors: Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann and Kathrin KollmeierIntroduction Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann and Kathrin KollmeierSome Thoughts on the History of Twentieth-Century German Basic Concepts Willibald SteinmetzIs a “History of Basic Concepts of the Twentieth Century“ Possible? A Polemic Philipp SarasinHistory of Concepts, New Edition: Suitable for a Better Understanding of Modern Times? Alf LüdtkeReply Christian Geulen

scholarly journals Towards a conceptual history of the present: Democracy, rights, and freedom in the recent Catalan conflict

2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 588-615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Wagner
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Concepts ◽  
Current Context ◽  
The One ◽  
The 19Th Century

Reinhart Koselleck showed that the decades around 1800 witnessed a major transformation of political language. Around 1800, the horizon of expectations gained distance from the space of the experiences that human beings were making, and thus possibilities for the future opened up widely. In particular, the future would be the time during which ‘peoples’ would gain their capacity for self-determination, called popular sovereignty. This would occur in two particular versions that crystallized in the course of the 19th century, namely as ‘nations’ that would unify or liberate themselves from monarchical and/or imperial domination to form the polities proper to them, or as a ‘class’ that embodied the universal interest of humankind and would assert itself in a second revolution, following up on the French Revolution. Political concepts acquired during that period the meaning that they still had in the late 20th century, i.e. the time when Koselleck developed his approach to the history of concepts, but they may be challenged in the present time, and with them the entire self-understanding of modern polities. The recent Catalan conflict serves to better understand this challenge. ‘People’ and ‘nation’ are there used in ways that are reminiscent of this politico-conceptual tradition, but in a highly ambiguous way. On the one hand, they are employed in exactly their historical meaning: the Catalan people and nation are seen to be finally fulfilling their historical role of reaching political self-determination. On the other hand, these concepts are re-deployed to place them in the current context of existing democratic commitments and institutions as well as high interdependence between polities, all the while claiming that Catalan independence opens up a new normative horizon of democracy, rights, and freedom. This article will try to show that this undeclared ambiguity is characteristic of our current situation in general. This is a situation in which the historically created political concepts have sedimented in institutions, and thus appear to have ‘consolidated’ and moved beyond their historicity. At the same time, they remain impregnated with particular historical experiences that can be re-interpreted to be mobilized in political struggles of the present. To assess the validity and acceptability of any such re-interpretation requires explicit reflection about the persistence of historicity in political concepts.

scholarly journals The Birth of International Conceptual History

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Jan Ifversen
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Concepts

In March 2020, Melvin Richter, one of the founders of international, conceptual history passed away. This sad occasion makes it timely in our journal to reflect on the process that turned national projects within conceptual and intellectual history into an international and transnational enterprise. The text that follows—published in two parts, here and in the next issue—takes a closer look at the intellectual processes that led up to the founding meeting of the association behind our journal, the History of Concepts Group. It follows in the footsteps of Melvin Richter to examine the different encounters, debates and protagonists in the story of international, conceptual history. The text traces the different approaches that were brought to the fore and particularly looks at Melvin Richter’s efforts to bridge between an Anglophone tradition of intellectual history and a German tradition of Begriffsgeschichte.

Why International Lawyers Measure Time with a Telescope: Grotian Moments & Richard Falk’s Histories of the Future

Grotiana ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-228
Author(s):  
Edward Jones Corredera
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

Abstract This article contextualises the origins of the term Grotian Moment, coined and frequently redefined by Richard Falk. By generating a conceptual history of the idea and its uses, the article draws attention to the ways that Falk’s sustained interest in the question of temporality and the nature of change in international law can inform present legal debates. The recovery of Falk’s efforts to engage with critics, geopolitical changes, and new legal ideas by reinterpreting and reimagining the meaning of a Grotian Moment sheds light on its relationship to questions of free trade, Eurocentrism, and revolutions in international law. By considering the methodological parallels with the work of Reinhart Koselleck, this article emphasises the importance of both historiographical and historical debates for the study of change in legal history, the analysis of the global legacies of Hugo Grotius, and the generation of expectations of the future in international law.

Virtual Try-On With Generative Adversarial Networks

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-100
Author(s):  
Andrew Jong ◽  
Melody Moh ◽  
Teng-Sheng Moh
Keyword(s):  
Generative Adversarial Networks ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Adversarial Networks ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Future ◽  
Comprehensive Survey ◽  
History Of ◽  
Solid Foundation

This chapter elaborates on using generative adversarial networks (GAN) for virtual try-on applications. It presents the first comprehensive survey on this topic. Virtual try-on represents a practical application of GANs and pixel translation, which improves on the techniques of virtual try-on prior to these new discoveries. This survey details the importance of virtual try-on systems and the history of virtual try-on; shows how GANs, pixel translation, and perceptual losses have influenced the field; and summarizes the latest research in creating virtual try-on systems. Additionally, the authors present the future directions of research to improve virtual try-on systems by making them usable, faster, more effective. By walking through the steps of virtual try-on from start to finish, the chapter aims to expose readers to key concepts shared by many GAN applications and to give readers a solid foundation to pursue further topics in GANs.

scholarly journals A Step Forward

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
João Feres Júnior
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Graphic Design ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Concepts ◽  
Paper Format

Contributions to the History of Concepts has now completed two years of existence. Its history has been closely tied to the annual meetings of the History of Political and Social Concepts Group (HPSCG). Talks about evolving from the HPSCG’s Newsletter to an academic periodical publication began in Bilbao, in 2003. The following year, at the 7th International Conference on the History of Concepts, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, we designed a plan to create a new journal that would serve as a conduit for researchers working with conceptual history, as well as for scholars interested in other related fields, such as intellectual history, the history of political thought, the history of ideas, etc. After a great deal of ground work, the journal was finally launched in 2005, both in digital and paper format, with an elegant graphic design and a host of excellent texts by distinguished scholars in the fields of conceptual history, intellectual history, and the history of political thought, such as Quentin Skinner, Melvin Richter, Kari Palonen, and Robert Darnton. The response from the international academic community was immediate and very encouraging. Since then positive feedback from a growing audience worldwide has been constantly on the rise.

scholarly journals Introduction

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Pasi Ihalainen
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
The State ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Figures Of Speech ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Thematic Section ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Concepts ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Significant Figures

This thematic section of Contributions to the History of Concepts takes up the necessity – and at the same time the problematic nature – of studying metaphors as a part of conceptual history. As Frank Beck Lassen argues in his article, “Regular, Dependable, Mechanical: J.F. Struensee on the State of Denmark,” not only concepts but also metaphors must be considered by historians of political thought as politically significant figures of speech. Metaphors may constitute condensed political arguments, the applications of which play an important role in the continuous semantic struggle over the definition of political reality.

Temporal Layering in the Long Conceptual History of Sexual Medicine: Reading Koselleck with Foucault

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Alison M. Downham Moore
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Sexual Medicine ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Concepts

AbstractThis paper reflects on the challenges of writing long conceptual histories of sexual medicine, drawing on the approaches of Michel Foucault and of Reinhart Koselleck. Foucault’s statements about nineteenth-century rupture considered alongside his later-life emphasis on long conceptual continuities implied something similar to Koselleck’s own accommodation of different kinds of historical inheritances expressed as multiple ‘temporal layers.’ The layering model in the history of concepts may be useful for complicating the historical periodizations commonly invoked by historians of sexuality, overcoming historiographic temptations to reduce complex cultural and intellectual phenomena to a unified Zeitgeist. The paper also shows that a haunting reference to ‘concepts’ among scholars of the long history of sexual medicine indicates the emergence of a de facto methodology of conceptual history, albeit one in need of further refinement. It is proposed that reading Koselleck alongside Foucault provides a useful starting-point for precisely this kind of theoretical development.

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