The Riddle of Me’iri’s Recent Popularity

2020 ◽  
pp. 394-401
Author(s):  
Haym Soloveitchik
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Past

This chapter examines the recent popularity of R. Menaḥem ha Me'iri of Perpignan. It is commonly thought that the works of R. Menaḥem ha Me'iri were first published in the twentieth century. This is correct if one is referring to the series of Me'iri publications that Avraham Sofer produced from the huge, six-volume manuscript in the Parma Palatina Library, and which contains the Bet ha-Beḥirah on most of the tractates of the Talmud. However, a glance at any bibliography will immediately reveal that the Bet ha-Beḥirah on many tractates was already published in the eighteenth century. Some parts of it were printed in the eighteenth century, a few more in the nineteenth; but they were swiftly forgotten. In fact, the revival of his work did not begin in the 1930s: initially Sofer's publications had little impact. Only in the latter half of the twentieth century did they become popular, and various scholars moved quickly to put out the Bet ha-Beḥirah on other tractates of the Talmud and to publish new editions of the works that Sofer had already published, and these editions have been repeatedly reprinted. Why the centuries-long indifference and why the revival of the past sixty years? The chapter answers these questions.

What Was Neo-Classicism?

1969 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-70
Author(s):  
James William Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Matthew Arnold ◽  
Eighteenth Century Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
Vast Range ◽  
Century Literature ◽  
Selection Of

There seems to be no doubt about it: the century-old truisms about the literature variously called “Augustan” and “Neo-Classical” are in the process of dissolution. Premises induced by J. S. Mill and Matthew Arnold, explored by Oliver Elton, dogmatized by G. E. B. Saintsbury, and summarized by Leslie Stephen now appear inadequate to more recent scholars, whose research and rereading of Neo-Classical texts run counter to the general testimony as well as the specific judgments of their grandfathers. For the past few decades at least, published commentary has increasingly indicated the need to overhaul received ideas about those writers identified with the revival of classicism in England following the Restoration of Charles II and continuing throughout the eighteenth century.The deficiencies in Victorian and Edwardian assumptions about Neo-Classicism revealed by latter-day findings are several, some of them due to false criteria of taste, morality, and literary excellence. But chiefly the research of the present age has disclosed a vast range of literature simply ignored — or, perhaps, suppressed — by earlier critics. Based as they were on a limited, prejudged selection of Restoration and eighteenth-century literature, the premises inherited from Victorian criticism have naturally failed to account for the discoveries of twentieth-century scholars.The resulting disparity between limited assumptions and expanded information has called into question the very possibility of formulating any critical schema that accurately describes the characteristics of English literature between 1660 and 1800. The relativistic — not to say atomistic — inclinations of contemporary scholarship enforce the view that indeed no schema is possible.

Material Visions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacy C. Kozakavich
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Temporal Changes ◽  
Intentional Communities ◽  
The Past ◽  
Building Community ◽  
Vinyl Records

Artifacts made, bought, and used within past intentional communities demand careful interpretation. They may reaffirm or challenge our long-held ideas about a group, and as mute witnesses to the past can invite conflicting views among scholars and community descendants. This chapter spans the volume's widest temporal range, from eighteenth-century ceramics and food remains left by Pennsylvania's Ephrata Cloister to twentieth-century vinyl records listened to by members of California's Chosen Family. Examples from the Shakers, Harmonists, and Moravians demonstrate the importance of building community-specific contexts of interpretation that are sensitive to differences between individual groups as well as temporal changes within long-lived communities.

scholarly journals The Journey towards “No Man's Land”: Interpreting the China-Korea Borderland within Imperial and Colonial Contexts

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 1035-1058 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nianshen Song
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Geographic Information ◽  
Legal Knowledge ◽  
Tumen River ◽  
Origin And Evolution ◽  
The Past ◽  
Japanese Colonial ◽  
No Man's Land

In the early twentieth century, the sovereignty of a territory north of the China-Korea Tumen River border was under severe dispute between China, Korea, and Japan. Based on a Jesuit memoir and map of Korea published in eighteenth-century Europe, a Japanese colonial bureaucrat and international law expert, Shinoda Jisaku, asserted that a vast region north of the China-Korea border should be regarded as a “no man's land.” Employing Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and European materials, this article traces the origin and evolution of such a definition. It demonstrates that the Jesuit map and description were based on false geographic information, which the Korean court deliberately provided to a Manchu official in 1713 in order to safeguard its interests. During prolonged intercommunication between diverse areas of the globe during the past three centuries, spatial and legal knowledge has been produced, reproduced, and transformed within imperial and colonial contexts.

scholarly journals WINCKELMANN’S APOLLO AND THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF RACE

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (59) ◽  
pp. 6-35
Author(s):  
Lasse Hodne
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Present Article ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
White Male ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Male Body ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Different Types

The taste for classical art that induced museums in the West to acquire masterpieces from ancient Greece and Rome for their collections was stimulated largely by the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann. In the past decade, a number of articles have claimed that Winckelmann’s glorification of marble statues representing the white, male body promotes notions of white supremacy. The present article challenges this view by examining theories prevalent in the eighteenth century (especially climate theory) that affected Winckelmann’s views on race. Through an examination of different types of classicism, the article also seeks to demonstrate that Winckelmann’s aesthetics were opposed to the eclectic use of ancient models typical of the fascist regimes of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals Crazy about Catherine: Representations of Catherine the Great in Contemporary Russian Cinema (Temptations of Power and Legitimation of the Present)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Prikazchikova
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
National Pride ◽  
The Past ◽  
Emotional Culture ◽  
Russian Cinema ◽  
Female Audience

This article discusses the reasons for the increased interest in the figure of Catherine II in Russian cinema of the 2010s. These films recreate the principles of gynecocracy in the period of Catherine’s reign. The analysis of TV series Catherine (2014–2016) and The Great (2015) aims to answer the question about the ideological and psychological meaning of such ‘retrohistory’ and its connection with the political concerns of the present. This study also considers these series within the cinematographic tradition of the twentieth century and the context provided by the memoirs of the eighteenth century. The conclusion is made that contemporary Russian historical cinema has lost its escapist function as well as its interest in depicting the emotional culture of the Catherinian era. Cinematic representations of the past are thus characterized by the following features: use of the past to legitimize the present; aesthetic empathy; ‘Russification’ of the German princess as a source of Russian national pride; gender self- presentation and projection of certain psychological complexes on the representation of Catherine in order to enhance the film’s appeal to the female audience. Keywords: Catherine the Great, Russian cinema, gynecocracy, retrohistory, legitimation of the present, aesthetic empathy, gender self-presentation

War in the Making of Modern China

1996 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-756 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans J. Van De Ven
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Opium War ◽  
Taiping Rebellion ◽  
War Of Resistance

No one even with only a casual interest in Chinese history can be unaware that China's capacity for war in the last few centuries has proved truly awesome. In the middle of the eighteenth century Qing armies numbering some 150,000 troops marched into central Asia. After many campaigns some of which continued for nearly two years, they rid China finally of the menace from the desert that had caused so much havoc in the past. In the process they exterminated the Zunghars as a people. In the nineteenth century, China fought wars with nearly all the major powers: England in the Opium War of 1839–42 and several times thereafter; France in the 1880s; and Japan in the 1890s. In 1900 it took on all of them at the same time. Civil war too was a frequent occurrence. The Taiping Rebellion of 1852–64 exacted casualties that should be counted in the tens of millions, and this was merely the most devastating of a series of rebellions. The scale of war in the twentieth century has proved even more spectacular. Warlord wars, fighting between the nationalists and communists, and the War of Resistance against Japan ravaged China until the communist victory in 1949.

The Dialectic of Deodorization

Art Scents ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 87-97
Author(s):  
Larry Shiner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Western History ◽  
Sense Of Smell ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
Natural Tendency

Chapter 5 begins by recalling the central role that incense and perfumes once played in religion, medicine, and social relations throughout Western history, from ancient Egypt through the eighteenth century. The second part of the chapter looks at the “dialectic of deodorization” over the past two centuries, involving the narrowing of the uses of incense and the gradual discrediting of the medical uses of both incense and perfume, in part through the great sanitary campaigns to rid cities of the stench of human excrement and various noxious industries, leaving incense to mostly religious and perfumes to mostly aesthetic uses. The chapter concludes that this historical turn may have exacerbated our natural tendency to be unaware of smells and have encouraged intellectuals to view the sense of smell as of little importance, despite evidence of a certain “reodorization” from the mid-twentieth century on.

scholarly journals Deprogramming Baconianism: The meaning of desiderata in the eighteenth century

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Keller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
First Generation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern View ◽  
The Future ◽  
Joseph Priestley ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Changing Times

The historiographical construct of the ‘Baconian programme’ rose to prominence in the mid-twentieth century. It has since shaped views of Bacon and his followers, particularly concerning Bacon's utilitarianism. It has also set expectations concerning how defined and prescriptive Bacon's vision of the future ought to be for later Baconians. Yet, neither Bacon nor those who claimed to follow him thought of his work in programmatic ways. The early modern view of Bacon's futuristic writing allowed his followers great agency in re-sketching it to fit changing times. This essay first follows the rise of a ‘Baconian programme’ in historiography. It then returns to the past to outline some of the rich vocabulary for future-oriented writing deployed by the first generation of Bacon's self-proclaimed followers. Finally, testing how Bacon's plans appeared over a longer durée, it skips forward to Peter Shaw (1694–1763) and Joseph Priestley (1733–1804). Shaw employed one of Bacon's futuristic terms ( desiderata ), dropped another ( optativa ) and developed the significance of a new category (hint). Shaw's case illustrates the creativity that even Bacon's most ardent followers expected to be within their rights. Baconianism invited future redrafting and haphazard invention, rather than adherence to a predictive programme.

scholarly journals Authorisation by Using ‘the Past’: The Development of the Gayā Pilgrimage Programme

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-83
Author(s):  
Tomoka Mushiga
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sanskrit Literature ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
People Today

In modern Gayā, pilgrims are advised to make a seventeen-day pilgrimage programme visiting forty-five holy spots, which has been regarded as ‘complete ( sampūrṇa), most authorised ( śāstrika) and correct in view of religious rule ( vidhivat) gayā-śrāddha’. In the Sanskrit religious texts, however, you will not find a description of the seventeen days and forty-five holy spots of the Gayā pilgrimage. Beginning with the introduction of modern pilgrimage regulations, this article shows the descriptions in the purāṇas and nibandhas, which are different from the modern ones, and examines the relationship between the descriptions in the śāstras and modern practices. This article illustrates that the origin of the authorised pilgrimage programme can be traced back, not to Sanskrit literature, but to modern regulations that were developed with the help of Sanskrit literature; the rules were defined by Mr Thomas Law, a tax collector, at the end of eighteenth century and a manual written by the priest Mukuṭ Bihārī Gautam in the middle of the twentieth century. The article not only focuses on the changes of the pilgrimage programme itself but also on the interpretation and application of the past by people today. Through these investigations, this article examines how the śāstras, religious authorities and traditions have been created in Hinduism.

Nine Centuries of Man

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Gender Expectations ◽  
Court Records ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Police Reports ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Scottish History ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

What did it mean to be a man in Scotland over the past nine centuries? Scotland, with its stereotypes of the kilted warrior and the industrial ‘hard man’, has long been characterised in masculine terms, but there has been little historical exploration of masculinity in a wider context. This interdisciplinary collection examines a diverse range of the multiple and changing forms of masculinities from the late eleventh to the late twentieth century, exploring the ways in which Scottish society through the ages defined expectations for men and their behaviour. How men reacted to those expectations is examined through sources such as documentary materials, medieval seals, romances, poetry, begging letters, police reports and court records, charity records, oral histories and personal correspondence. Focusing upon the wide range of activities and roles undertaken by men – work, fatherhood and play, violence and war, sex and commerce – the book also illustrates the range of masculinities that affected or were internalised by men. Together, the chapters illustrate some of the ways Scotland’s gender expectations have changed over the centuries and how, more generally, masculinities have informed the path of Scottish history

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