The necessity of abolition

Soundings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 78 (78) ◽  
pp. 109-123
Author(s):  
Matt Sandler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Ecological Disaster ◽  
The Moment

The international outpouring of abolitionist sentiment in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in the spring of 2020 came as a surprise even to experienced activists and researchers. The context of the pandemic had thrown into stark relief the consequences of fraying commitments to social welfare and excess commitments to security, policing, and incarceration. This essay argues that the moment laid bare the necessity of abolition, not only of police and prisons but also of the industries which exacerbate ecological disaster. To support this argument on the basis of political theory and intellectual history, it returns first to W.E.B. Du Bois's account of "abolition-democracy" as prompted by a recognition of necessity. The essay then goes on to define "necessity via the philosophical dialectic of freedom and necessity, before finding that conception of abolition as necessity expressed in nineteenth century Black abolitionist thought. It concludes by returning to the present, in which the pathological freedoms of neoliberalism seem to call up the necessity of abolition in response.

scholarly journals VIRTUE LANGUAGE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY ORIENTALISM: A CASE STUDY IN HISTORICAL EPISTEMOLOGY

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 689-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
HERMAN PAUL
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Historical Epistemology ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Thought Pattern ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dependency Relations

Historical epistemology is a form of intellectual history focused on “the history of categories that structure our thought, pattern our arguments and proofs, and certify our standards for explanation” (Lorraine Daston). Under this umbrella, historians have been studying the changing meanings of “objectivity,” “impartiality,” “curiosity,” and other virtues believed to be conducive to good scholarship. While endorsing this historicization of virtues and their corresponding vices, the present article argues that the meaning and relative importance of these virtues and vices can only be determined if their mutual dependencies are taken into account. Drawing on a detailed case study—a controversy that erupted among nineteenth-century orientalists over the publication of R. P. A. Dozy'sDe Israëlieten te Mekka(The Israelites in Mecca) (1864)—the paper shows that nineteenth-century orientalists were careful to examine (1) the degree to which Dozy practiced the virtues they considered most important, (2) the extent to which these virtues were kept in balance by other ones, (3) the extent to which these virtues were balanced by other scholars’ virtues, and (4) the extent to which they were expected to be balanced by future scholars’ work. Consequently, this article argues that historical epistemology might want to abandon its single-virtue focus in order to allow balances, hierarchies, and other dependency relations between virtues and vices to move to the center of attention.

scholarly journals The boundary between the domains of the Kosaca and the Brankovic south of the Tara river

Balcanica ◽  
2004 ◽  
pp. 91-158
Author(s):  
Milos Lukovic
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Accurate Identification ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Feudal Lord ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Village ◽  
Rule Out

With the partitioning in 1373 of the domain of Nikola Altomanovic, a Serbian feudal lord, the old political core of the Serbian heartland was shattered and the feudal Bosnian state considerably extended to the east. The region was crossed by the Tara river, mostly along the southeast-northwest "Dinaric course". Although the line along which Altomanovic?s domain was partitioned has been discussed on several occasions and over a comparatively long period, analyses show that the identification of its section south of the Tara is still burdened by a number of unanswered questions, which are the topic of this paper. An accurate identification of this historical boundary is of interest not only to historiography, but also to archaeology ethnology, philology (the history of language and dialectology in particular) and other related disciplines. The charters of Alphonse V and Friedrich III concerning the domain of herceg Stefan Vukcic Kosaca, and other historical sources relating to the estates of the Kosaca cannot reliably con?rm that the zupa of Moraca belonged to the Kosaca domain. The castrum Moratsky and the civitate Morachij from the two charters stand for the fortress near the village of Gornje Morakovo in the zupa of Niksic known as Mrakovac in the nineteenth century, and as Jerinin Grad/Jerina?s Castle in recent times. The zupa of Moraca, as well as the neighbouring Zupa of Brskovo in the Tara river valley, belonged to the domain of the Brankovic from the moment the territory of zupan Nikola Altomanovic was partitioned until 1455, when the Turks ?nally conquered the region thereby ending the 60-year period of dual, Serbian-Turkish, rule. Out of the domain of the Brankovic the Turks created two temporary territorial units: Krajiste of Issa-bey Ishakovic and the Vlk district (the latter subsequently became the san?ak of Vucitrn). The zupa of Moraca became part of Issa-bey Ishakovic?s domain, and was registered as such, although the fact is more di?cult to see from the surviving Turkish cadastral record. The zupa of Moraca did not belong to the vilayet of Hersek, originally established by the Turks within their temporary vilayet system after most of the Kosaca domain had been seized. It was only with the establishing of the San?ak of Herzegovina that three nahiyes which formerly constituted the Zupa of Moraca (Donja/Lower Moraca, Gornja/Upper Moraca and Rovci) were detached from Issa-bey?s territory and included into the San?ak of Hercegovina. It was then that they were registered as part of that San?ak and began to be regarded as being part of Herzegovina.

scholarly journals Authorial Self and Modernity as Reflected in Diaries and Memoirs. Three 19th-Century Hungarian Case Studies

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-97
Author(s):  
Béla Mester
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Individual Character ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The One

Abstract The role of the diaries and memoirs in the process of the conscious self-reflection and their contribution to the emergence of modern individual personalities are well-known facts of the intellectual history. The present paper intends to analyze a special form of the creation of modern individual character; it is the self-creation of the writer as a conscious personality, often with a clearly formulated opinion about her/his own social role. There will be offered several examples from the 19th-century history of the Hungarian intelligentsia. This period is more or less identical with the modernization of the “cultural industry” in Hungary, dominated by the periodicals with their deadlines, fixed lengths of the articles, and professional editing houses on the one hand and the cultural nation building on the other. Concerning the possible social and cultural role of the intelligentsia, it is the moment of the birth of a new type, so-called public intellectual. I will focus on three written sources, a diary of a Calvinist student of theology, Péter (Litkei) Tóth, the memoirs of an influential public intellectual, Gusztáv Szontagh, and a belletristic printed diary of a young intellectual, János Asbóth.

scholarly journals Historia rozwoju Republiki Rzymskiej według Polibiusza

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-93
Author(s):  
Anna Ceglarska ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Republic ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
The State ◽  
Mixed System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mutual Relation ◽  
Perfect System ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment

History of the rise of the Roman Republic as described by Polybius The aim of this article is to refer Polybius’s political theory, included in Book VI of The Histories, to the history of the rise of the Roman Republic. This theme must have been particularly significant for Polybius. For him, Rome was the most perfect example of a mixed government system, and the aim of describing its history was to show the development of this perfect system. The article presents the mutual relation of theory and history, starting with the period of kingship, up to the emergence of the democratic element, i.e. the moment when Rome acquired the mixed system of government. Both the political and social contexts of the changes are outlined. The analysis suggests that Polybius related his political theory to the history of the state he admired, thus providing the theory with actual foundations. Reconstructing his analysis makes it possible to see the history of Rome in a different light, and to ponder the system itself and its decline, even though the main objective of both Polybius and this article is to present its development.

scholarly journals ‘Gaelic a Recommendation’: Language and Employment in the Nineteenth-Century Highlands

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-102
Author(s):  
Sheila M. Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Domestic Service ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Job Advertisements ◽  
The Church

This article examines the linguistic landscape of the nineteenth-century Highlands through the lens of the labour market. It analyses a corpus of over 600 job advertisements seeking Gaelic speakers which appeared in the Inverness Courier between 1817 and 1899 and draws on a further 200 from selected years of the Glasgow Herald and The Scotsman. It examines the range of roles in which an ability to speak Gaelic, alongside English, was seen as either a necessity or advantageous by employers, considering in turn, education, health and social welfare, commerce, domestic service, law and order, estate and land, and the church. Some of the factors behind growing opportunities for skilled and semi-skilled Gaelic speakers are explored, such as the expansion of the health and welfare system in the wake of the 1845 Poor Law (Scotland) Act, and the accommodations made for the needs of Gaelic speakers when new roles were created. The continuing utility of Gaelic in Highland commerce also emerges as a counter to contemporary views of the language as unsuited for such transactional contexts. The evidence from these advertisements underlines the complexity of language usage in the Highlands in the nineteenth century as well as the need for further research to extend our understanding of the use of Gaelic in both public and private spheres.

Creation, Fall and Political Order — Prussian Conservatism and the Old Testament

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-181
Author(s):  
Laura C. Achtelstetter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Wars

Abstract This article examines differences within the theological basis of early nineteenth-century Prussian conservatism. By exploring the usage of the Old Testament in the writings of conservative thought leaders Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach, and Friedrich Julius Stahl, this article contributes to scholarship of both traditions of biblical interpretation and that of the relation of theology and political theory. The focus of this article centers on three concepts of the Old Testament and their implementation in conservative political doctrine. I will discuss Hengstenberg’s concept of biblical historicity and unity of Scripture, Gerlach’s use of the Old Testament as the source of a role model for just religious wars and a theocratic concept of law, as well as Stahl’s bible-based political philosophy of history and the resulting model of political order. Thus, the basis for different, resulting concepts of church, state, and nation that were merged into an overall religion-based political conservative doctrine in pre-1848 Prussia are analyzed.

From New Anarchism to Post-anarchism

Kropotkin ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Kinna
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Political Theorist ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter examines contemporary anarchist critiques of Kropotkin, especially post-anarchist analysis. It argues that science has become a byword to describe Kropotkin's political theory, providing an exemplar for classical anarchism. This theory is described as teleological, based on a particular concept of human nature and linked to a form of revolutionary utopianism that promises the realisation of anarchy. Post-anarchists dissolve the distance between Kropotkin and Bakunin that advocates of his evolutionary theory invented in the 1960s in order to rescue anarchism from its reputation for violence. This repackaging of historical traditions underpins judgments about the irrelevance of anarchism to contemporary politics and political theory. In response, critics of post-anarchism have sought to defend nineteenth-century revolutionary traditions. The result of this argument is that Kropotkin emerges as a political theorist of class struggle. This defence raises significant questions about the coherence of Kropotkin's position on the war in 1914.

The Folk Song Project at the Confluence of Music and Nationalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip V. Bohlman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
South America ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
World Music ◽  
Musical Thought

Published in six folios during 1778 and 1779, Herder’s Volkslieder (Folk songs) has been one of the most influential works in modern intellectual history, even though it has never before appeared in English translation. The Volkslieder not only became the first collection of world music—songs came not only from many regions of Europe, but also from Africa, the Mediterranean, and South America—but also served as the source for European composers throughout the nineteenth century. Aesthetics, ethnography, and literary and cultural history converge to transform modern musical thought. Part one of the chapter contains translations from Herder’s own introductions to the songs, and part two contains twenty-four songs that represent the paradigm shift inspired by this monumental work on folk song.

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