Melitta Schmideberg: Her Life and Work Encompassing Migration, Psychoanalysis, and War in Britain

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-348
Author(s):  
Michal Shapira
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Melanie Klein ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Prolific Author ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Jewish Refugee ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Intellectual History ◽  
European Jewish

The article deals with the forgotten work of Melitta Schmideberg (1904–83), who was a significant, pioneering female psychoanalyst in the intellectual culture of 1930s and 1940s Britain. If scholars know anything about Schmideberg, it is that she was the troubled daughter of eminent psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. Contributing to the still limited scholarship on this intense period in the development of psychoanalysis in Britain, the article reveals that Schmideberg was a very active early psychologist, an avid public speaker, a founding member of important institutes for the study of crime, and a prolific author on a very wide range of issues that bothered her and others and that were tied to the troubled history of the twentieth century. A Central European Jewish refugee in Britain, she was among the first to psychoanalyse children and criminals. As the focus on women in the scholarship of twentieth-century European intellectual history is hardly sufficient, this article recovers her forgotten work whose significance warrants reclamation from obscurity. It provides the first exploration of her life showing that the issues her experiences raise are central to the history of the time.

European Intellectual History as Contemporary History

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 574-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan-Werner Müller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Third ◽  
German School ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Intellectual History ◽  
Cambridge School

The first part of this essay examines the peculiar role European intellectual history played in coming to terms with the twentieth century as an ‘Age of Extremes’ and the different weight it was given for that task at different times and in different national contexts up to the 1970s. The second part looks at the contemporary history of politically focused intellectual history — and the possible impact of the latter on the writing of contemporary history in general: it will be asked how the three great innovative movements in the history of political thought which emerged in the last fifty years have related to the practice of contemporary history: the German school of conceptual history, the ‘Cambridge School’, and the ‘linguistic turn’. The third part focuses on recent trends to understand processes of liberalization — as opposed to the older search for causes of political extremism. It is also in the third part that the so far rather Euro-centric perspective is left behind, as attempts to create an intellectual history of the more or less new enemies of the West are examined. Finally, the author pleads for a contemporary intellectual history that seeks novel ways of understanding the twentieth century and the ‘newest history’ since 1989 by combining tools from conceptual history and the Cambridge School.

White Southern Memories and the Legacy of “Slave Marriage” in the United States

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 296-324
Author(s):  
Tyler D. Parry
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prolific Author ◽  
Racial Boundaries ◽  
Antebellum Era ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wedding Ceremony

This article intersects various secondary works that analyze regional memories in the US South, slave marital practices, and the intellectual history of slavery in the United States. Following a brief analysis of the “Plantation Myth,” it examines the proslavery framework established by southern apologists in the antebellum era and gauges how postbellum authors built upon these arguments. The next part critically probes memoirists’ usage of descriptive material, scrutinizing their motivations for producing the literature, the tone conveyed through their writing, and how they used the wedding ceremony as a symbol for slavery’s benignity. Following this qualitative data, this study examines a research sample found in the collections of Herman Clarence Nixon, a prolific author in the early twentieth century who interviewed former slave owners for his research on slavery in northern Alabama. Finally, this article reveals how postbellum reminiscences portrayed a myth of gender solidarity that transcended racial boundaries.

Archival Heritage of Russian Post-October Abroad Philosophers in Modern Domestic and Foreign Studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 108-118
Author(s):  
Elena V. Serdyukova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Russian Philosophy ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Russian Philosopher ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Russian

Researching the archives of Russian post-October abroad thinkers is one of the main tasks of modern Russian philosophy. The return of the spiritual wealth of Russian intellectual culture that has begun in the late 1980s with the publication of hard access and works of bibliographic rarity of N.O. Lossky, N.A. Berdyaev, S.L. Frank, S.N. Bulgakov and others, is continuing today. However, at the be­ginning of the XXI century the trajectory of this return changes slightly. The pub­lished works of Russian abroad thinkers require a holistic reading, rethinking and actualization. These problems cannot be effectively solved without plunging into the existential and intellectual history of Russian philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century. That is why modern historians of philosophy turn to the archive, and not so much as an empirical object, collection and repository of documents, but as a cultural, historical, humanitarian phenomenon, thanks to which, through the collective efforts of philosophers and scientists, a holistic portrait of Russian philosophy in its personal dimension is brought together. We can consider the archive of any Russian philosopher of the first half of the twentieth century as an “archive of the era” (T.G. Shchedrina), as a “sphere of conversation” in which the meeting of thinkers of the early twentieth century and modern philosophers is possible. Such a methodological turn affects the content of historical and philosophical research and changes our ideas about the Russian abroad philosophy, about the era as a whole, and also allows us to reconstruct the heritage of Russian philosophers and consistently collect the value-semantic unity of Russian intellectual culture while preserving its “diversity and unity” (M.A. Maslin).

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Television Film ◽  
Popular Image

The introductory chapter discusses the popular image of the ‘Romantic mad poet’ in television, film, theatre, fiction, the history of literary criticism, and the intellectual history of the twentieth century and its countercultures, including anti-psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Existing literary-historical work on related topics is assessed, before the introduction goes on to suggest why some problems or difficulties in writing about this subject might be productive for further cultural history. The introduction also considers at length the legacy of Michel Foucault’s Folie et Déraison (1961), and the continued viability of Foucauldian methods and concepts for examining literary-cultural representations of madness after the half-century of critiques and controversies following that book’s publication. Methodological discussion both draws on and critiques the models of historical sociology used by George Becker and Sander L. Gilman to discuss genius, madness, deviance, and stereotype in the nineteenth century. A note on terminology concludes the introduction.

scholarly journals Messianism, rationalism and inter-Asian connections: The Majalis-i Jahangiri (1608–11) and the socio-intellectual history of the Mughal ‘ulama

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinne Lefèvre
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
State Building ◽  
Specific Role ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Muslim Intellectuals ◽  
Shed Light

Relying on the Majalis-i Jahangiri (1608–11) by ʿAbd al-Sattar b. Qasim Lahauri, this essay explores some of the discussions the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–27) conducted with a wide range of scholars, from Brahmans and ʿulama to Jesuit padres and Jewish savants. By far the most numerous, the debates bearing on Islam and involving Muslim intellectuals are especially significant on several accounts. First, because they illuminate how, following in the steps of his father Akbar (r. 1556–605), Jahangir was able to conciliate his messianic claims with a strong engagement with reason and to turn this combination into a formidable instrument for confession and state building. These conversations also provide promising avenues to think afresh the socio-intellectual history of the Mughal ʿulama inasmuch as they capture the challenges and adjustments attendant on imperial patronage, depict the jockeying for influence and positions among intellectuals (particularly between Indo-Muslim and Iranian lettrés), and shed light on relatively little known figures or on unexplored facets of more prominent individuals. In addition, the specific role played by scholars hailing from Iran—and, to a lesser extent, from Central Asia—in the juridical-religious disputes of the Indian court shows how crucial inter-Asian connections and networks were in the fashioning of Mughal ideology but also the ways in which the ongoing flow of émigré ʿulama was disciplined before being incorporated into the empire.

On History in Southwest Archaeology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Severin Fowles ◽  
Barbara Mills
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Southwest Archaeology ◽  
American Military ◽  
Archaeological Practice ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
History Of

As an introduction to the Handbook, this chapter examines the question of history in Southwest archaeology in two senses. First, it traces the intellectual history of research in the region: from the nineteenth-century inauguration of Southwest archaeology as an extension of American military conquest, to the museum-oriented expeditions of the turn of the century, to the scientific advances and the growth of culture resource management during the twentieth century, to the impacts of Indigenous critiques and the development of collaborative approaches most recently. Second, the chapter explores the shifting status of “history” as a central goal of archaeological practice. How have archaeologists constructed—or resisted—narratives to account for the contingent unfolding of Indigenous and colonial societies in the region? What bodies of method and theory have guided these efforts? In addressing these questions, the chapter marks and participates in a growing historical turn in Southwest archaeology.

Invisible Bodies

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 33-68
Author(s):  
Lan A. Li
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
English Language ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Material Characteristics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Close Study ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis essay explores the ways in which Lu Gwei-djen (1904–91) served as a gatekeeper for interpreting medicine in China in the second half of the twentieth century. After retiring from science in 1956, Lu set out to write one of the first comprehensive English-language histories of medicine in China. Through a close study of Lu’s work notes and marginalia from later in her life, this essay examines how she carefully articulated the material characteristics of a “Chinese” medicine that gave rise to jingluo, or therapeutic paths often known as “meridians.” I argue that at the heart of this uneasy comparison was the difficult process of translating across multiple expressions of physiology. By placing Lu Gwei-djen at the center of a feminist intellectual history of medicine, this essay further shows how Lu’s translations were influenced by the social hierarchies in which she was embedded, including cultural, gender, and temporal dualities.

Reformation, Resistance, and Reason of State (1517-1625)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Mortimer
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Reason Of State ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Ideas

The period 1517–1625 was crucial for the development of political thought. During this time of expanding empires, religious upheaval, and social change, new ideas about the organization and purpose of human communities began to be debated. In particular, there was a concern to understand the political or civil community as bounded, limited in geographical terms and with its own particular structures, characteristics, and history. There was also a growing focus, in the wake of the Reformation, on civil or political authority as distinct from the church or religious authority. To explain these new ideas about political power, the concept of sovereignty began to be used, alongside a new language of reason of state. Yet political theories based upon religion still maintained significant traction, particularly claims for the divine right of kings. In the midst of these developments, the language of natural law became increasingly important as a means of legitimizing political power; natural law provided a rationale for earthly authority that was separate from Christianity and its use enabled new arguments for religious toleration. This book offers a new reading of early modern political thought, drawing on a wide range of sources from Europe and beyond. It makes connections between Christian Europe and the Muslim societies that lay to its south and east, showing the extent to which concerns about the legitimacy of political power were shared. It demonstrates that the history of political thought can both benefit from, and remain distinctive within, the wider field of intellectual history.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document