Introduction: Scottish Colonial Literature, 1603–1707

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Kirsten Sandrock
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Colonial Literature ◽  
Utopian Literature ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Atlantic Literature

This chapter establishes the book's key claim that Scottish colonial literature in the seventeenth century is poised between narratives of possession and dispossession. It introduces the term colonial utopian literature to frame the intricate relationship between colonialism and utopianism in the seventeenth century. The chapter uses the instances of book burnings in Edinburgh and London in 1700 that revolved around Scotland's colonial venture in Darien as a starting point for the discussion to make a case for the centrality of literary texts in the history of Scottish colonialism. In addition, it introduces the historical context of seventeenth-century Scottish colonialism, especially in relation to the emergent British Empire, inner-British power dynamics, and other European imperial projects. On a theoretical level, the chapter enters debates about Scotland's position in colonial and postcolonial studies through its focus on pre-1707 Atlantic literature. It also makes a fresh argument about Atlantic writing contributing to the transformation of utopian literature from a fictional towards a reformist genre.

Scottish Colonial Literature

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Sandrock
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Colonial Literature ◽  
Scottish Literature ◽  
Utopian Literature ◽  
Isthmus Of Panama ◽  
Colonial And Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Atlantic Literature ◽  
The Relationship

Scottish Colonial Literature is a comprehensive study of Scottish colonial writing before 1707. It brings together previously dispersed sources to argue for a tradition of Scottish colonial literature before the Union of Parliaments. It introduces the term colonial utopian literature to frame the intricate relationship between colonialism and utopianism in the seventeenth century. Offering case studies relating to colonial undertakings at Nova Scotia (1620s), East New Jersey (1680s) and at the Isthmus of Panama, then known as Darien (1690s), Scottish Colonial Literature explores how literature and culture shaped Scotland's colonial ventures in the seventeenth century. In addition, it considers works written in the larger context of the Scottish Atlantic so as to illuminate how the Atlantic shaped seventeenth-century Scottish literature and vice versa. One key question running through the book is the relationship between art and ideology. Textual narratives were powerful instruments of empire-building throughout the early modern period. This book focuses on utopianism as a framework that authors used to claim power over the Atlantic. In the Scottish context, the intersections between utopianism and colonialism shed light on the ambiguous narratives of possession and dispossession as well as internal and external colonialism in Scottish colonial writing of the seventeenth century. Scottish Colonial Literature enters debates about Scotland's position in colonial and postcolonial studies through its focus on pre-1707 Atlantic literature.

The Making of a Success Story

2021 ◽  
pp. 18-32
Author(s):  
Stefania Tutino
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
The Social ◽  
Kingdom Of Naples ◽  
High Ranking Official ◽  
Main Protagonist ◽  
Political Economic

This chapter introduces the main protagonist of the book: Carlo Calà Duke of Diano, a jurist and high-ranking official in the viceregal administration. This chapter also sets the historical context of the story of the forgery by describing the main political, economic, social, and religious characteristics of the Kingdom of Naples in the seventeenth century. More specifically, this chapter explains the social, cultural, and intellectual advantages that a noble pedigree conferred to the Neapolitan non-aristocratic elites; explores the main sources of tension between the papacy and the Neapolitan viceroy; sheds light on the power dynamics between the Roman Inquisition and the local ecclesiastical leaders; and introduces the complexities of the liturgical and devotional life of early modern Catholics.

scholarly journals A Parapsychologist, an Anthropologist, and a Vitalist Walk into a Laboratory: Ernesto de Martino, Mircea Eliade, and a Forgotten Chapter in the Disciplinary History of Religious Studies

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 304
Author(s):  
Flavio A. Geisshuesler
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Western World ◽  
Mircea Eliade ◽  
Program Of Study ◽  
Disciplinary History ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Clifford Geertz ◽  
History Of

While the work of the Italian historian of religion, Ernesto de Martino (1908–1965), has frequently been compared to that of Mircea Eliade, Claude Lévi-Strauss, or Clifford Geertz, he has hardly received any attention in anglophone scholarship to date. Taking an all-but-forgotten controversy between de Martino and Eliade at a conference on parapsychology in France in 1956 as its starting point, the article fills part of this lacuna by first reconstructing the philosophical universe underlying the Italian thinker’s program of study. In the process, it introduces the reader to three Weimar scientists, who have never before been inserted within the canon of the study of religion, namely the parapsychologist Albert von Schrenck-Notzing (1862–1929), the anthropologist Leo Frobenius (1873–1938), and the biologist and philosopher Hans Driesch (1867–1941). Contextualizing these thinkers within their historical context, it becomes clear that they were part of a larger scientific crisis that affected the Western world during the first half of the twentieth century. Finally, the article uncovers surprising affinities, particularly the fact that the Romanian thinker had his very own parapsychological phase during his youth.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Early Modern Philosophical Canon

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
LISA SHAPIRO
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philosophical Questions

ABSTRACT:I reflect critically on the early modern philosophical canon in light of the entrenchment and homogeneity of the lineup of seven core figures: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. After distinguishing three elements of a philosophical canon—a causal story, a set of core philosophical questions, and a set of distinctively philosophical works—I argue that recent efforts contextualizing the history of philosophy within the history of science subtly shift the central philosophical questions and allow for a greater range of figures to be philosophically central. However, the history of science is but one context in which to situate philosophical works. Looking at the historical context of seventeenth-century philosophy of mind, one that weaves together questions of consciousness, rationality, and education, does more than shift the central questions—it brings new ones to light. It also shows that a range of genres can be properly philosophical and seamlessly diversifies the central philosophers of the period.

The protean nature of Stanford University's biological sciences, 1946––1972

2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERIC J. VETTEL
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Biological Research ◽  
World War ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fundamental Research

ABSTRACT: Academic literature has paid scant attention to the biological sciences at Stanford University, an omission all the more conspicuous considering their productivity since World War II. This article draws on previously unused archival material to establish a starting point for further study of the biological sciences at Stanford. It traces the evolution of Stanford's biological sciences through three experimental fields: self-directed developmental and evolutionary studies; fundamental research at the molecular level; and biomedical applications of fundamental knowledge. Taken together, a history of Stanford's biological sciences offers a remarkably fertile example of organizational flexibility in historical context. This essay ends by suggesting that a fourth phase of biological research at Stanford will be governed by commercial interest in biology.

scholarly journals Orientalism and New musicology

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 581-593
Author(s):  
Sanela Nikolić
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Analytical Models ◽  
Music Practice ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Musical Representations ◽  
Aesthetic Enjoyment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Power ◽  
Western European ◽  
European Colonialism

The aim of this paper is to outline the history of the concept of Orientalism in the field of New musicology and to point out that musicological discussions of Orientalism significantly changed disciplinary profile of musicology in the direction of interdisciplinary or contextual musicology. The area of Postcolonial studies has been recognized by New musicology as a possible starting point for theorizing the new issues related to the questions of music, race, ethnic and national otherness, and European colonialism. In 1991, with the publication of Ralph P. Locke’s text “Constructing the Oriental ‘Other’: Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila” in Cambridge Opera Journal, the musicological research of the European professional music tradition from the aspects of postcolonial theories has been institutionalized and the concept of Orientalism has been introduced into the field of research objects of musicology. What is present as the common aspects of all musicological studies that address the issue of musical representations of the Orient are interdisciplinarity and contextuality. Contrary to the reduction of the complex Western European music practices to the idea of an autonomous work of music devoted to an aesthetic enjoyment, postcolonial musicology proposed poststructuralist analytical models of text and discourse and affirm the interest in the context of work of music. In that manner, musicology has been updated as a discipline that autocritically approaches Western European professional music practice by seeing it/ self as only one of the possible historical formations of culture/knowledge in which there are visible clusters, conflicts, and aspirations to present (Western) European capitalist patriarchal politics as a universal economic, political and cultural power.

The Return to Diversity in Eastern Europe

1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
Jens Hohensee
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
New Research ◽  
Annus Mirabilis

The events of 1989, the annus mirabilis, have led to a great demand for new research and a re-thinking of the history of Eastern Europe. Those sources which were kept from us for years are now available, at least in part. As part of this process political scientists and historians of Eastern Europe are now concerned to fill in the gaps in our knowledge and provide the answers to urgent questions. A consequence of this situation has been a veritable flood of publications, of which eight have been chosen for review here. With two exceptions these studies have deepened our understanding of the issues involved. There are clear differences between the historians on the one hand and the political scientists on the other in terms of their starting-point and the questions they ask. Whereas the historians deal descriptively with the origins, trends and structures of the last centuries and place the revolutions of 1989/90 in their historical context, the political scientists proceed analytically and place greater emphasis on social, ethnic and economic factors. This dichotomy is demonstrated in the different problematics of the books under review.

scholarly journals Vox Populi? Vox Humbug! – Rising Tension between the South African Executive and Judiciary Considered in Historical Context – Part One

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
David Hulme ◽  
Stephen Peté
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
South African Government ◽  
The South ◽  
African Government ◽  
James I ◽  
Starting Point

This article takes as its starting point a controversy which has arisen around a proposed assessment by the South African government of the decisions of the Constitutional Court, giving rise to concerns that this will constitute undue interference with the independence of the judiciary. Part One of this article traces and analyses the developing controversy. It then compares the current clash between the South African Executive and Judiciary to a similar clash which took place in seventeenth century England, between King James I and Chief Justice Edward Coke. Such clashes appear to be fairly common, particularly in young democracies in which democratic institutions are yet to be properly consolidated. Although not immediately apparent, the similarities between the situation which existed in seventeenth England at the time of James I and that in present-day South Africa are instructive. In tracing the development of these two clashes between the executive and judiciary, Part One of this article lays the foundation for a more in-depth comparison in Part Two.

Unreliable Witnesses

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Leedham-Green
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Anecdotal Evidence ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Religious Conservatism ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
Biblical Translation

Innovation in print and the dissemination of reformation texts were as central to Protestant reform as biblical translation and the circulation of erudite Protestant scholarship in manuscript. The history of the book is an obvious starting point for understanding reformation reception and overlaps with reception studies by its concern with readership and the historical context of printed matter. This chapter explores the historical contingency of the sources available for quantifying the ownership of continental reformed texts, with particular emphasis on the universities in Britain. Probate inventories, anecdotal evidence, booksellers’ lists, and surviving books present different and often conflicting stories. The discrepancy between Cambridge and Oxford inventories, for instance, may have had more to do with the university appraisers than religious conservatism in Oxford.

A community of grace: the social and theological world of the Puṣṭi Mārga vārtā literature

2006 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHANDIP SAHA
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Central India ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Religious Influence ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Hindi Literature

In the history of Hindi literature, the oldest extant text of medieval Hindi prose is the collection of hagiography known as the as the vārtā literature which, since the seventeenth century, has been central to the religious life of the Hindu devotional community known as the Puṣṭi Mārga. This article argues that a close examination of these texts in their proper social and historical context reveals that the vārtā literature was written and revised during a time when the Puṣṭi Mārga was slowly expanding its sphere of religious influence in Western and Central India. The result was a body of literature whose principal purpose was to shape the religious self-identity of the Puṣṭi Mārga by stressing the community as a close-knit and exclusive fellowship of believers who owed their final allegiance to Kṛṣṇna and the community's religious leaders who were known as mahārājas.

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