scholarly journals Materialist history of ideas and study of architecture and urbanism: The case of Martin Jay

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-118
Author(s):  
Nikola Dedić
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
The Past ◽  
Intellectual Labor ◽  
Material Reality ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Architecture ◽  
Political Conditions

History of ideas is a sub-discipline of history that deals with description and interpretation of creative work of thinkers and artists of the past. Martin Jay, as a central aspect of his theoretical work points out two Marxist thesis. 1. Ideas have, as products of intellectual labor, their own material foundation: this means that social reality is determined by those products as much as by economy - in that way, materialist history of ideas is constituted on the shift from the analysis of the economy (base) to the analysis of culture (superstructure). 2. Ideas are related to social practices: ideas within a society are not separate from material reality, but they actively shape social relations, i.e. there is a link between intellectual labor and political conditions of life within a given historical society. The paper examines the connection that Jay established between the history of ideas and the history of architecture and urbanism.

Receptions of the Past: Commemoration, Racism, Desire

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-303
Author(s):  
Michael Connors Jackman
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

This article investigates the ways in which the work of The Body Politic (TBP), the first major lesbian and gay newspaper in Canada, comes to be commemorated in queer publics and how it figures in the memories of those who were involved in producing the paper. In revisiting a critical point in the history of TBP from 1985 when controversy erupted over race and racism within the editorial collective, this discussion considers the role of memory in the reproduction of whiteness and in the rupture of standard narratives about the past. As the controversy continues to haunt contemporary queer activism in Canada, the productive work of memory must be considered an essential aspect of how, when and for what reasons the work of TBP comes to be commemorated. By revisiting the events of 1985 and by sifting through interviews with individuals who contributed to the work of TBP, this article complicates the narrative of TBP as a bluntly racist endeavour whilst questioning the white privilege and racially-charged demands that undergird its commemoration. The work of producing and preserving queer history is a vital means of challenging the intentional and strategic erasure of queer existence, but those who engage in such efforts must remain attentive to the unequal terrain of social relations within which remembering forms its objects.

scholarly journals A different kind of story: Pedagogy of hope at The Ration Shed Museum, Cherbourg

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-207
Author(s):  
Carly Smith
Keyword(s):  
Observational Data ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ethnographic Interviews ◽  
History Of ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Pedagogy Of Hope

AbstractIn recounting the history of Cherbourg as an Aboriginal settlement, the Ration Shed Museum presents some traumatic narratives. It paints a picture of violent geographic and cultural dislocation, crude living conditions, forced labour and administrative oppression by infusing historical artefacts with the personal recollections of Cherbourg residents. The intent behind the Ration Shed Museum itself, however, is something quite different: its curators want to tell a story that speaks of hope for this community’s future, and to work towards some form of reconciliation. They do this by actively engaging with the ‘terrible gift’ of the past in the present, and by providing spaces for encounters that can lead to open discussions of difficult social issues and celebrations of contemporary Cherbourg life. This article draws on ethnographic interviews and observational data alongside the theoretical work of Roger I. Simon and Andrea Witcomb to describe how the Ration Shed Museum engages its community and visitors in a dual process of both understanding Cherbourg’s history and reframing traumatic narratives to enact a pedagogy of hope.

Provincializing memory studies: Polish approaches in the past and present

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kornelia Kończal ◽  
Joanna Wawrzyniak
Keyword(s):  
Memory Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Terms

The history of memory studies has usually been told through research perspectives advanced in France, Germany and the United States. This well-established cartography and, thus, chronology of the field can be challenged while taking into account other provinces of thought. The example of Polish sociology and history shows that the Western memory boom took off just at the time when the golden age of the biographical method reached its apex in Poland and most research on historical consciousness had already been carried out. Furthermore, the Polish case illustrates how since 1989 researchers have been abandoning key terms previously used in the social sciences and humanities in favour of terminology related to memory. On the whole, the article argues for the exploration of continuities, ruptures and transformations of categories developed in non-mainstream research traditions to question the beaten tracks of the history of ideas.

scholarly journals On the International Roots of Prehistory (2002)

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc-Antoine Kaeser
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Sociology Of Science ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Identity Based

In recent years, considerable attention has been dedicated to the involvement of archaeology (and most notably prehistory) with nationalism. The probable causes of this recent fashion need not concern us here, but the movement itself is certainly welcome, testifying to the reflection of archaeologists on their own practices and those of their predecessors. For historians, this trend is quite welcome in so far as it contributes to a general renaissance of interest in the past of the discipline. However, a more careful examination of this historiography leads us to some caution about its significance. First, the majority of these historical studies adopt an internalist perspective that, combined with their self-declared reflexiveness, confers on them a rather presentist character. The result belongs to some sort of ‘history of ideas’ that has been embellished with a few sociological insights of varying subtlety. In line with the old sociology of science, social factors are only invoked to explain the ‘errors’ of archaeology. Such errors, therefore, always seem to be accounted for by external and, by definition, pernicious influences. As a consequence our discipline always escapes unscathed: its ‘purity’ is not at stake, simply because it is always ‘society’ and ‘politics’ that abuse it. Moreover, most attention is given to the interpretations of the past, not to archaeological research as such. It is not the historical practice of the discipline that is then under consideration, but rather its thematic scope—which is quite a different matter. However, conceptions of identity based on the past are by no means the exclusive preserve of archaeology. No one has been waiting for the birth of our discipline in order to gloat over the ‘heroic deeds of our glorious ancestors’. As a matter of fact, in terms of nationalism, archaeology has entered quite late into the fray, on a terrain that was by then already demarcated. The wealth of historical case studies suggests that from its origins, archaeology, and more specifically prehistoric archaeology, has been strictly dependent on the emergence of national ideologies. The general impression is clear: were it not for the dynamics of modern nationalism, the argument goes, our discipline would never have emerged.

scholarly journals Response to Lynn Cavanagh

2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-29
Author(s):  
Harald Krebs
Keyword(s):  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
The Past ◽  
Active Reading ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Metrical Dissonance

Krebs's unusual monograph demonstrates that the writing of pure music theory remains an essential enterprise—particularly in the relatively neglected rhythmic domain—but only if the reader undertakes active reading and has prior knowledge of how the music goes. Within the monograph, perpetuation of the image of the misunderstood and suffering artist as a clue to the extramusical meaning Schumann associated with metrical dissonance leads to biased results. This essay's supplementary analysis of the first movement of Schumann's Symphony No. 3, informed by the history of ideas, proposes that in this movement metrical dissonance is used to reinterpret an emblem of the past so as to convey a vision of the future.

scholarly journals Is there a demand for “suggestion” and “counter-suggestion” concepts in modern social science?

2021 ◽  
pp. 28-44
Author(s):  
Э.Г. Задорожнюк ◽  
И.Е. Задорожнюк
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
World Health ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Health Organization

Рассматриваются некоторые идеи Б.Ф. Поршнева, изложенные в его статье 50-летней давности «Контрсуггестия и история», характеризуется их место в истории идей от-носительно динамики социальных изменений, анализируемой, в частности, в трудах отечественных ученых прошлого. Обосновывается настоятельность введения в глоссарий современных социальных наук концепта «суггестия» и понятия «контрсуггестия», показана их релевантность на широком историческом материале и полях взаимодействия социальных субъектов. Отмечено, что суггестия и противостоящая ей контрсуггестия пронизывают массовые настроения и влияют на все общественные отношения, особенно в кризисные моменты. Обращается внимание на феномен инфодемии, усугубляющей, по заключению Всемирной организации здравоохранения, проявления пандемии коронавируса, а также на его корреляцию с суггестией. The article considers a number of ideas by B.F. Porshnev set forth 50 years ago in his article "Counter-suggestion and History", as well as its role in the history of ideas, especially in connection to the dynamics of social changes analyzed, in particular, in the works by Russian historians. The urgency of introducing the concept of "Suggestion" and the notion of "Сounter- Suggestion" into the glossary of modern social sciences is justified, as well as their relevance is shown in a wide range of historical material and fields of interaction of social subjects. It is noted that Suggestion and opposing Сounter-Suggestion permeate mass moods and affect all social relations, especially in crisis moments. Attention is drawn to the phenomenon of infodemia, which, according to the World Health Organization, exacerbates the manifestations of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as its correlation with suggestion.

scholarly journals Ethan Kleinberg: Teoria da História como Fantologia

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (25) ◽  
Author(s):  
André Da Silva Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Stanford University ◽  
Cornell University ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theory Of History

Ethan Kleinberg is Professor of History and Letters of Wesleyan University. He is the Director of the Center for Humanities and the Editor-in-Chief of History and Theory. His first book, Generation Existential: Heidegger’s Philosophy in France, 1927-1961, published by Cornell University Press, was awarded the 2006 Morris D. Forkosch prize for the best book in intellectual history, by the Journal of the History of Ideas. Recently, Professor Kleinberg co-edited with Ranjan Ghosh the volume Presence: Philosophy, History and Cultural Theory for the 21st Century, published by Cornell University Press as well. His book, Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past, will appear in the Meridian Series from Stanford University Press in Fall 2017. He is also finishing the book The Myth of Emmanuel Levinas, centered on the Talmudic Lectures that the French-Jewish philosopher presented in Paris between 1960 and 1990. I had the opportunity to conduct an interview with Professor Kleinberg in June 2016, when I was a Visiting Student Researcher in the Center for Humanities at Wesleyan University. We also took the advantage of the Second International Network for Theory of History conference (2nd INTH), that happened in Brazil at Ouro Preto from August 23 to August 26, to expand the interview.

‘The Professor’s Dream’: Cockerell’s Hypnerotomachia Architectura?

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 117-145
Author(s):  
Anne Bordeleau
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Royal Academy ◽  
Architectural History ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
The Past ◽  
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Architecture

In 1849, after teaching architectural history at the Royal Academy in London for just under a decade, the architect Charles Robert Cockerell (1788-1863) exhibited ‘The Professor’s Dream’, a graphic synopsis of the history of architecture (Fig. 1). Produced in an era dominated by historicism, the drawing operates between the two poles of historical relativism, negotiating the line between accumulation and rationalization. Some nineteenth-century architects, indiscriminately collecting, understood each style to have emerged from the particular conditions of their times, considering them distinct and yet equally valid. Other architects, critically ordering, privileged one style over another, variously justifying themselves on religious, technical, moral or structural imperatives. Cockerell’s ‘Dream’ is ambiguously positioned as a place of showing and a means of knowing, speaking both of an homage to the past and a vision of progress, apparently flattening a thousand years of history but inherently offering the depth of historical experience. David Watkin, Peter Kohane and, more recently, in the context of an exhibition at the Royal Academy, Nick Savage, have interrogated the drawing, the first two paralleling it with Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), the latter framing it within a tradition of systematic charting of history, and suggesting a possible link to geological charts. While all these interpretations certainly stand, it is essential to recast them within a larger discussion of Cockerell’s understanding of history. Substantiating the different readings of the drawing — against Cockerell’s earlier drawings and surveys, within his architectural theory as expounded in his Royal Academy lectures, and in the larger perspective of the interests he cultivated since the 1820s — this essay brings to the fore the tension between ordering and experiencing, revealing how the architect was interested in the latent interstices between history and time.

Bourgeois Universality and Anthropological Differences

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Étienne Balibar
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter articulates the relationship between the political categories of modernity and the question to which its metaphysics always returns: that of subjectivity, endowed with consciousness—perhaps affected with unconsciousness—and with rights, duties, or individual and collective missions. It examines this relationship on the level of the history of ideas, morals, and social relations, and also articulates it as a conceptual unity that helps to clarify certain existential and institutional problems. In so doing, this chapter asks whether they are still our problems (and why) or whether they are already on the wane (and how). This discussion is thus schematic, incomplete, and preliminary, not only in its “conclusions” but also in its formulations.

IN NOSTRIS EXTREMIS (TERROR AND FANATICISM IN THE WESTERN MIND)

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 719-733
Author(s):  
JULIAN BOURG
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Access Point ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Social Stability ◽  
The Past ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Historical Progress ◽  
History Of ◽  
John Brown ◽  
The Government

The abolitionist John Brown. Freedom fighter? Terrorist? The choice is unsatisfying for any number of reasons, least of all for the anachronistic nomenclature and the moral obviousness of his cause. Of course Brown was right, we can easily say, to take up the fight against that “peculiar institution” of barbarous slavery. Insofar as the federal government stood in the way of historical progress, perhaps he also was justified in striking the arsenal at Harper's Ferry in 1859 as the first salvo of the American Civil War, demonstrating by his pitiful action that the Union would have to choose sides and fight. Yet no less clear today is the sheer difficulty of justifying such antistate violence. Since the 1970s and especially since September 11, 2001, with comparable moral obviousness, insurgent and terroristic violence have generally been condemned as threats to social stability and political coherence. The very liberal-democratic traditions that might otherwise superficially heroize someone like John Brown recoil at the disorder he personified. The truth of Brown's adventurism is clearly more complicated than the postcard version, and his crazed biblical prophetism, nasty 1856 murder spree in Kansas, and patronizing wish to play Moses to southern blacks must be read alongside successful efforts by the government and pro-slavery camp to brand him an incorrigible fanatic—a label that Brown himself and other abolitionists embraced as their own. What Brown represents, however, is an access point to the deep history of ideas about fanaticism and terrorism in the modern West, a history filled with paradoxes and ambiguities that nonetheless revolve around the basic fact—avoided with ease by contemporary pundits and prognosticators—that for the past several centuries we have met the enemy, and he is us.

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