scholarly journals Listening to the Silence: Huxley, Arnold, and Wells' Scientific Humanity

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-93
Author(s):  
Jan Vanvelk

H. G. Wells' writings from the first few years of the twentieth century inherit a discourse on literature and science that can be traced back to the Victorian debate between Thomas Henry Huxley and Matthew Arnold. The legacy of this dispute that permeates Wells' texts here under investigation lies in the biological metaphors that are deployed to imagine the human as a partaker of humanity in general. The scientific education propagated by Wells crucially engages with the language of the beautiful, the politics of civilisation projects, and the role of fictional and non-fictional texts as devices of social action. Recognising the strong sense in these texts that they could serve as tools for the formation of humanity as the prime agent of science, this article seeks to examine ‘humanity’ as a term denoting both the audience for and the achievement of the public intellectual's prophetic vision for the future.

Author(s):  
Megan Eaton Robb

This chapter delves into the role of space and time in the formation of the public. Statements in Madīnah linked Bijnor’s physical isolation to a temporal distance, a spatial-temporal rift that allowed it to define a segment of the Urdu public that stood at odds with the “Westernized city,” and from this position also to reach out and connect with a broader Muslim qaum. This chapter explores the power of alternate temporalities, enabled by nostalgia, as a mechanism of power. Statements about the passage of time were irruptive, enabling the construction of an alternative qasbah timescape, and with this alternative timescape, an alternative public. While the qasbah has more recently been tied to an idealized past, close analysis of the discourse of Madīnah newspaper reveals an early twentieth-century voice that saw the present, past, and future as productively intertwined in the qasbah.


Author(s):  
Jason Phillips

This conclusion explains how American temporalities changed after the war and sketches how expectations and anticipations of the future have alternated as the dominant view in American culture through the twentieth century to today. This chapter also shows how the short war myth, the story that Civil War Americans expected a short, glorious war at the outset, gained currency with the public and consensus among scholars during the postwar period. It contrasts the wartime expectations of individuals with their postwar memories of the war’s beginning to show how the short war myth worked as a tool for sectional reconciliation and a narrative device that dramatized the war by creating an innocent antebellum era or golden age before the cataclysm. It considers why historians still accept the myth and showcases three postwar voices that challenged it.


2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 671-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Drayton

The contemporary historian, as she or he speaks to the public about the origins and meanings of the present, has important ethical responsibilities. ‘Imperial’ historians, in particular, shape how politicians and the public imagine the future of the world. This article examines how British imperial history, as it emerged as an academic subject since about 1900, often lent ideological support to imperialism, while more generally it suppressed or avoided the role of violence and terror in the making and keeping of the Empire. It suggests that after 2001, and during the Iraq War, in particular, a new Whig historiography sought to retail a flattering narrative of the British Empire’s past, and concludes with a call for a post-patriotic imperial history which is sceptical of power and speaks for those on the underside of global processes.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 410
Author(s):  
Ian A. Morrison

Towards the end of the twentieth century, religion re-emerged as a topic of pressing concern in a number of the most self-consciously secularized states of the global north. From disputes over the wearing of headscarves in schools to debates over accommodations for religious practices in the public sphere, religion, particularly the ‘foreign’ religiosity of migrants and other minority religious subjects, appeared on the scene as a phenomenon whose proper place and role in society required both urgent and careful deliberation. This article argues that in order to account for the affective potency produced by the immanence of the figure of the ‘foreign’ religious subject, it is necessary to understand secularization as fantasy. It is within the fantasy of secularization that the secular emerges as an object of desire—as something that, if attained, appears as a solution to the problem of ‘foreign’ religiosity—and figures of inassimilable religiosity assume the role of scapegoats for the failure to resolve these concerns. In this sense, within this fantasy scene, the secular promises to provide ‘us’ with something that we are lacking. However, this promise has been undermined by the apparent persistence of religious difference. As such, as a result of their continued religiosity, ‘they’ appear to be taking something from ‘us’.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariya Pavlova ◽  
◽  
◽  

The question regarding the future of the accounting profession is being raised more and more often. The most powerful professional accounting organizations are directing all their resources to study the problems of the future of accounting. The issues regard accounting as a whole, the profession, what types of personnel will be needed for business and the public sector, and possible effects of digitalization. It is argued that the role of the professional accountant is undergoing a dramatic transformation, that in the future she will assume the role of a strategic business partner in the organization and must therefore acquire new competencies. This paper outlines what these competences should be and how to gain them.


2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Dhoest ◽  
Hilde Van den Bulck ◽  
Heidi Vandebosch ◽  
Myrte Dierckx

The public broadcasting remit in the eyes of the audience: survey research into the future role of Flemish public service broadcasting The public broadcasting remit in the eyes of the audience: survey research into the future role of Flemish public service broadcasting In view of the discussion about the future position of public service broadcasting, this research investigates the expectations of Flemings regarding their public service broadcasting institution VRT. Based on the current task description of the VRT, a survey was effectuated among a representative sample of Flemings (N=1565). Questions were asked about the content (broad or complementary to commercial broadcasting), audience (broad or niche) and distinctive nature of public service broadcasting. The analysis shows that, overall, Flemings are in favour of a broad public service broadcasting institution with a strong focus on entertainment (besides information), oriented towards a broad audience. At the same time, they believe the institution should distinguish itself from its competitors, through quality, social responsibility, cultural identity and (particularly creative) innovation, among other things. Cluster analysis shows that the call to prioritize culture and education over entertainment, which dominates public debate, is representative of only a minority (20%) of highly educated Flemings.


2019 ◽  
pp. 70-80
Author(s):  
Lucia Carminati

Zaynab al-Ghazālī (1917-2005) is regarded as a pioneering figure in the field of women’s preaching and religious teaching in Egypt. Her story, however, remains largely undocumented. In Western scholarship, al-Ghazālī has often been framed in terms of a contradictory figure, whose own choices flagrantly undercut her statements on the role of women in Islamic society. Trying to go beyond this type of appraisal, her writings are analyzed in order to question whether or not Zaynab al-Ghazālī’s intellectual genealogy should be understood within the context of her considerable exposure to a well-developed discourse of women’s rights at the turn of the twentieth century. Indeed, she made available to Muslim women a particular field of arguments, while foreclosing for them certain possibilities for action. Overall, her statements and choices in life need to be read as a function of her historical and geographical context and her positioning needs to be framed within the consciousness on the role women had come to play in the public domain.


Daedalus ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 151 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-37
Author(s):  
Paul Butler

Abstract When violence occurs, the state has an obligation to respond to and reduce the impacts of it; yet often the state originates, or at least contributes to, the violence. This may occur in a variety of ways, including through the use of force by police, pretrial incarceration at local jails, long periods of incarceration in prisons, or abuse and neglect of people who are incarcerated. This essay explores the role of the state in responding to violence and how it should contribute to reducing violence in communities, as well as in its own operations. Finally, it explores what the future of collaboration between state actors and the community looks like and offers examples of successful power-sharing and co-producing of safety between the state and the public.


2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-18
Author(s):  
Ginger Garner

Thanks to IAYT, Yoga therapists have a forum where we can find one another, collaborate, research, educate the public, and have a professional association to call home. IAYT's mission is to establish Yoga as a recognized and respected therapy. I fully support and believe in IAYT's mission. I am a practitioner of Yoga therapy, combining physical therapy, Yoga, and Ayurveda to specialize in women's health, chronic pain, and orthopedic injuries, and am the founder and director of a Yoga therapist training program. Having wellfamiliarized myself with the definitions of Yoga therapy from each of the current Yoga therapy programs in the U.S., and having followed the discussions about standards in Yoga therapy on the Integrator Blog (theintegratorblog.com) and in IAYT's publications, I humbly offer what I believe would be a positive step in the future of the recognition of Yoga therapy as a healing therapeutic discipline in the U.S.


Author(s):  
Ivan Tychyna

The article is devoted to the history study of the formation and functioning of district societies «Prosvita»in Volyn between the two world wars. The formation of the public-educational organization in Volyn was in 1918 and functioned up to the end of the 30s of the twentieth century in the region, until it was banned by the Polish authorities. The article analyzes the main directions of the educational work of the society, national cultural work on the background of development and changes in socio-political relations. The role of the Ukrainian intellectuals in the preservation and development of culture and education in Volyn voivodeship between the two world wars was revealed. The author highlighted the achievements and untapped opportunities of the district Prosvita in Volyn, the difficulties and problems, which the society faced and followed the relationship between Prosvita and the Polish state administration in Volyn voivodeship. Keywords: Prosvita, Volyn, Volyn voivodeship, Galicia, Polish authorities, Ukrainian schooling, publishing, reading libraries, repressions, de-nationalization


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