scholarly journals Feeling Bad about Emotional History

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro García-Sanjuán
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
American Anthropologist ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
Positive View ◽  
The Past

This article presents a critical review of The Feeling of History, a recent work by the American anthropologist Charles Hirschkind. In this book, the author treats Andalucismo, a political movement that arose in modern Andalusia early in the twentieth century and was chiefly characterized by an extremely positive view of the Islamic Iberian past (al-Andalus)—a tendency that is certainly unusual in Spain and goes against the prevalent Spanish nationalism. In his book, Hirschkind not only develops an uncritical view of Andalucismo and its intrinsically emotional reading of the past but also legitimizes a rather farfetched conflation of modern Andalusia and al-Andalus. Moreover, he offers an extremely shallow and unnuanced reading of current Spanish scholarship on the Middle Ages, branding it wholesale as an heir to Francoism. He also lends legitimacy to those who call into question the origin of al-Andalus in the Islamic conquest of 711 CE—representatives of an unscholarly approach that has been largely dismissed by academic outlets since the 1970s. Burdened by heavy ideological prejudices and hampered by the author’s limited knowledge of the most recent academic historiographic debates in the field of Iberian medieval studies, the book represents a failed attempt to present the Anglophone readership with a consistent introduction to Andalusian nationalism together with a critical appraisal of the Andalusian nationalist interpretation of the medieval Iberian past.

Latin

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Sharpe ◽  
Alan Deyermond
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
Latin Language ◽  
Language And Literature

This chapter examines the study of Latin language and literature in Great Britain during the twentieth century. It explains that Latin is so pervasive in the literature, philosophy, science, law and historiography of medieval western Europe that most aspects of scholarship on Latin are covered in most medieval studies. It provides background information on Latin language of the earlier middle ages and discusses Latin literature.

Fear, error and death: The abjection of the Middle Ages

2018 ◽  
pp. 70-94
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Prendergast ◽  
Stephanie Trigg
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Creative Play ◽  
Historical Accuracy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
Judicial Systems

As a disciplinary formation, Medieval Studies has long been structured by authoritative hierarchies and conservative scholarly decorums; the associated fear of error in medieval studies dates back to the Renaissance and the Protestant reformation. In contrast, medievalism increasingly celebrates creative play and imaginative invention. Such invention inevitably produces anxiety about historical accuracy. Popular scholarship and journalism in turn are often attracted to the abject otherness of the Middle Ages, especially the torture practices associated with its judicial systems. Such practices are designed to solicit the truth, and so, like illness, mortality and death, they are a useful double trope through which to analyse the relationship between medieval and medievalist approaches to the past.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Monagle
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
Women Intellectuals ◽  
The Past ◽  
Communities Of Learning ◽  
The Middle Ages

This chapter articulates a number of key contributions made by Constant J. Mews to the field of Medieval Studies over the course of his career. In particular, it focuses upon his expertise in Abelard and Heloise, his insights into musicology and musical communities, and his groundbreaking work in the study of women intellectuals in the Middle Ages. All of his scholarly work, the chapter argues, should be understood in the frame of his devotion to the communities of learning, both of the past and in the present.

Agenda for Medieval Studies

1971 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-171
Author(s):  
Robert S. Lopez
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Middle Ages

At a time when so many people under thirty regard most people over thirty as hopeless dotards, an almost sexegenarian cannot feel too comfortable as the caster of horoscopes for future medieval research. Surely David Herlihy would have been a more suitable prophet, had he not been assigned the traditionally historiographic role of inspecting the past; so would Harry Miskimin, were he not otherwise employed. Here I am, nevertheless, with no choice but trying to race ahead as fast as I can; fifteen minutes, one and a half per century of the middle ages, are quickly gone.

Identifying Archaeological Cultures in India: A Critical Appraisal

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-181
Author(s):  
Rajan Gurukkal
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
The Past ◽  
Archaeological Cultures ◽  
The Bronze Age

From a critical review of excavation reports and narratives on the Bronze Age sites, it turns out that archaeological cultures in Indian civilisation are mostly archaeologists’ constructions, resulting from the archaeologists’ subjective classification and typology. It notes inconsistencies of typologies, their ineffectiveness in comprehending the past and failure to establish the structure of the total culture as well as the main features of people’s conditions of life. Archaeologists’ constructs of multiple micro-cultures of ceramic identity may thus tend to obfuscate the macro-picture of larger composite cultures in the long process of the formation of Indian civilisation.

The Ages of a Woman and the Middle Ages

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Women Poets ◽  
Old Irish ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Folk Beliefs ◽  
The Past ◽  
Austin Clarke ◽  
Francois Villon ◽  
The Impact

This essay springs from the experience of translating the Old Irish ‘Song of the Woman of Beare’, and from researching its reception in the twentieth century. The poem was rediscovered in the 1890s and the scholarly reaction is tinged with Victorian preoccupations, including the bohemian cult of François Villon. In Ireland it is aligned with Pearse's ‘Mise Éire’, and with the work of later poets such as Austin Clarke. But as well as voicing the ancient text, the Woman of Beare appears in folklore in both Ireland and Scotland, and there are interesting parallels and divergences between the traditions of scholarship and the figure in the popular imagination. My account of the impact of both text and myth shows a development through the mid-twentieth century and into the twenty-first, in the work of poets writing in both Irish and English. In recent decades the work of women poets has engaged with the myths of the Cailleach as Goddess, and they have thus confronted questions of the legitimacy of treating the past, and especially mythology and folk beliefs, as a source for poetry. I believe it would be foolish for a poet who has the knowledge and critical intelligence to do it properly to ignore such a resource.

Introduction

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 13-14
Author(s):  
Howard Louthan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
The Past ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Johan Huizinga ◽  
Religious Landscape

For most scholars, the religious landscape of late medieval Central Europe is familiar terrain. Its geography was most famously mapped in the early twentieth century by the Dutch scholar Johan Huizinga. Casting this period as one of decay and decline, Huizinga shaped the historiography of the late Middle Ages for succeeding generations. The church's moral and institutional failings called forth the reforming efforts of first Jan Hus in Bohemia and then a century later Martin Luther in Germany. But as John Van Engen has recently reminded us, “any historical period called ‘late’ is headed for interpretive trouble.” During the past decade in particular, a number of scholars have reexamined this period and region with fresh eyes.

Thinking through feeling: critical theory and the affective turn

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Mussell
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Materialisms

Chapter 1 sets out the theoretical terrain on which the wider project is based. It begins by revisiting some of the founding tenets of critical theory in the context of the establishment of the Institute for Social Research in the early twentieth century. The chapter then discusses contemporary theories of affect that have emerged in the past couple of decades as part of the so-called ‘new materialisms’. Taking on board some of the key findings of this recent work on affect, the author also highlights the potential political deficiencies that accompany such accounts, particularly within a growing ‘post-critical’ context. The chapter closes with suggestions as to how early critical theory – read through an affective lens – might provide the social and political grounding that affect theory often lacks, while at the same time noting how theories of affect are invaluable in shedding light on the efficacy of the pre- or extra-rational, so often sacrificed on the altar of political philosophy.

Estimating the Accuracy of Historic Homicide Rates

2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66
Author(s):  
Eric H. Monkkonen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Missing Data ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Homicide Rates ◽  
The Past

Even though it declined in the last decade of the twentieth century, homicide remains anAmerican problem of extraordinary importance. Yet our empirical knowledge is remarkably shortsighted. Simply put, most researchers focus on the past decade or two—usually for reasons having to do with convenience, not theory—and ignore the longer term. However, recent work has shown that past lethality is inherently recoverable, and that there is every reason to expect that comparable homicide rates across time and place should be used to set current research in context (Gurr 1981; Johnson and Monkkonen 1996; Ylkiangas forthcoming; Eisner 2000).This paper builds on some of my recent research and responds to the challenge of a recent paper by Douglas Eckberg (1998), who has shown that not only can we recover the past, but that we can even estimate missing data counts.

Introduction

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Deyermond
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
European History ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
Book Covers ◽  
Celtic Studies ◽  
British Research

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about twentieth-century British scholarship on the European Middle Ages. This book covers English and European history, scholarship in particular geographical or cultural areas that is neither mainly historical nor exclusively literary, and other disciplines of crucial importance to medieval studies including archaeology, numismatics and science. The specific topics examined include British research and publications on ecclesiastical history, Slavonic studies and Celtic studies.

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