scholarly journals Presidential Address: The Personal and the Historical

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Judith Fingard
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Personal History ◽  
Contentious Issue ◽  
The Past ◽  
Key Points ◽  
History Of ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Personal Reflections ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract In her 1998 Presidential Address to the Canadian Historical Association, Judith Fingard poses a question which has been on our collective minds for some time: “Does the personal history of the historian determine the choice of her or his subject matter, approach, and ongoing professional development?” By delving into the personal reflections of celebrated Canadian historians, Fingard has been able to shed light on this contentious issue. According to Fingard, the personal and professional intersect at several key points (or at least have for her sample of historians working in Canada in the past twenty years). The obvious, it seems, is true. Gender, class and stage of life all influence scholarly pursuits whether it be in terms of subject matter chosen or the amount of time one is able to devote to research and writing. Certainly the past twenty years has seen great change in Canadian academia; particularly, one can argue, in the field of history. It is clear that those sampled in Fingard's survey drew upon their personal backgrounds not only to forge a passion for the past - sometimes against all odds - but a professional identity based on the study of history of the margins. Ultimately, we can conclude that social historians of the past twenty years personify the field they played such a role in developing. To varying degrees, the profession is indeed personal.

The causal analysis of development in the past half century: a personal history

Development ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 116 (Supplement) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Salome G. Waelsch
Keyword(s):  
Causal Analysis ◽  
Close Friend ◽  
Personal History ◽  
Analytical Evaluation ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Reflections ◽  
Past Half

I feel greatly privileged having been asked to talk to you here and I want to begin by thanking the organizers for this invitation. My task of preparing this talk has caused me considerable worry. Obviously, I shall not be able to present here a sound and objective history of embryology over the past 50 years. If nothing else, my great admiration for my close friend Jane Oppenheimer would keep me from being bold enough to step onto her territory, and there have been other serious attempts of an analytical evaluation of embryology during the past half century, e.g. the Nottingham symposium in 1983, published in 1986. What I intend to present here are my personal reflections based on reminiscences over the years during which I had the good fortune of seeing our science develop and of getting to know personally many of the scientists actively involved in the causal analysis of development.

scholarly journals A Personal History of Using Crystals and Crystallography to Understand Biology and Advanced Drug Discovery

Crystals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 676
Author(s):  
Tom L. Blundell
Keyword(s):  
Growth Factors ◽  
Drug Discovery ◽  
Cell Surface ◽  
Small Molecule ◽  
Personal History ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Surface Receptors ◽  
The Past ◽  
Industry Collaboration ◽  
History Of

Over the past 60 years, the use of crystals to define structures of complexes using X-ray analysis has contributed to the discovery of new medicines in a very significant way. This has been in understanding not only small-molecule inhibitors of proteins, such as enzymes, but also protein or peptide hormones or growth factors that bind to cell surface receptors. Experimental structures from crystallography have also been exploited in software to allow prediction of structures of important targets based on knowledge of homologues. Crystals and crystallography continue to contribute to drug design and provide a successful example of academia–industry collaboration.

scholarly journals On Remembering Le premier festival culturel panafricain d’Alger 1969

Lateral ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Jayne Kimmel
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Third World ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Personal History ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Remarkable Event ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pandemic Response

This assembled interview centers both Elaine Mokhtefi and Le premier festival culturel panafricain d’Alger 1969 (PANAF), a festival which she organized and attended as a part of the Algerian Ministry of Information, noting it as an exemplary instance of the power of performance at the nexus of political ideology, activist history, and the subsequent nostalgia for that era of liberation. It is equally an attempt to overcome a distant relationship to each, reflecting on the potential of oral histories to open up new pathways through the past. This history—of entangled international relations negotiated under the guise of a festive performance, a complicated trajectory of global politics which culminated in a remarkable event of celebration and solidarity—remains understudied, a footnote to more “political” concerns of Third World agendas, decolonial reorderings, and capitalist critiques. Yet through Mokhtefi’s testimony, interwoven with searching tendrils of archival detail, we can see that this festival was not a superficial exaltation in extravagance, but a pivotal moment in foreign affairs. More importantly, through her personal history, we can trace the central role that women played in these politics, if often unacknowledged. Edited in 2020, it also counters the pejorative label of non-essential labor applied to most cultural activities during the contemporary pandemic response to COVID-19.

What is NORML? Sedimented Meanings in Ambiguous Organizational Identities

2021 ◽  
pp. 017084062110577
Author(s):  
Matthew C.B. Lyle ◽  
Ian J. Walsh ◽  
Diego M. Coraiola
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Identity ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
National Organization ◽  
The Past ◽  
Organizational Identities ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Identity Threats ◽  
History Of ◽  
Identity Labels

Organizational identity scholarship has largely focused on the mutability of meanings ascribed to ambiguous identity labels. In contrast, we analyze a case study of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) to explore how leaders maintained a meaning ascribed to an ambiguous identity label amid successive identity threats. We found that heightened dissensus surrounding meanings attributed to the organization’s “reform group” label at three key points spurred theoretically similar manifestations of two processes. The first, meaning sedimentation, involved leaders invoking history to advocate for the importance of their preferred meaning while mulling the inclusion of others. The second, reconstructing the past, occurred as leaders and members alike offered narratives that obscured the history of disavowed meanings while sharing new memories of those they prioritized. Our work complements research on identity change by drawing attention to the processes by which meaning(s) underlying ambiguous identity labels might survive.

Presidential Address—1974

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
pp. 673-676
Author(s):  
James B. Gillespie
Keyword(s):  
Child Health ◽  
American Academy ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
Robert Frost ◽  
The Past ◽  
Medical Environment ◽  
American Academy Of Pediatrics ◽  
Concern For Others ◽  
History Of

The history of the American Academy of Pediatrics is a chronicle of practical idealism. I will not attempt to recount recent and past achievements of our society, for most have been well documented. It is beyond my capacity to identify the changes in Academy role and structure which may occur in our rapidly changing and complex social and medical environment. However, I do wish to reflect briefly on certain recent programs and actions which point up the expanding role and broader scope of interests of the Academy. These actions and interests, hallmarks of maturity and enhanced concepts of responsibility and accountability, are significant of our times. Wisdom has been gained as we have stood upon the shoulders of our predecessors. Today's Academy cannot be separated from the past. We are deeply indebted to the perceptive, astute leadership of other days and to a dedicated membership which, for 44 years, has closely adhered to our stated goals. We continue to value their counsel. The contributions of those who preceded us are the principal reason why we are where we are today. There is justifiable optimism for the assumption that the Academy will continue its leadership role as the major advocate for improved child health in the Americas. I sincerely believe that success will come to a society whose principal objective is placing concern for others higher on the scale of values of more and more people. We are reassured by a membership and leadership dedicated to service above self. In the words of Robert Frost: "There cannot be much to fear in a country where so many right faces are going by.

On One Approach to the Control of Uncertain Systems

1993 ◽  
Vol 115 (2B) ◽  
pp. 373-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Leitmann
Keyword(s):  
Dynamical Systems ◽  
Lyapunov Stability ◽  
Stability Theory ◽  
Uncertain Systems ◽  
Lyapunov Stability Theory ◽  
Personal History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Control Of Uncertain Systems

This paper is a personal history of one area of research with which I have been concerned over the past twenty years and which continues to attract my albeit waning attention, the control of dynamical systems based on uncertain models. Thus, it is a subjective account of various factors which I believe to have steered me to approach the problem via a constructive use of Lyapunov stability theory.

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 The Past and its Possibilities in Nahḍa Scholarship

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 265-287
Author(s):  
Feras Krimsti ◽  
John-Paul Ghobrial
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Heritage ◽  
The Many ◽  
Historical Reflection ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract This introduction to the special issue “The Past and its Possibilities in Nahḍa Scholarship” reflects on the role of the past in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century nahḍa discourse. It argues that historical reflection played a pivotal role in a number of scholarly disciplines besides the discipline of history, notably philosophy and logic, grammar and lexicography, linguistics, philology, and adab. Nahḍawīs reflected on continuities with the past, the genealogies of their present, and the role of history in determining their future. The introduction of print gave new impulses to the engagement with the historical heritage. We argue for a history of the nahḍa as a de-centred history of possibilities that recovers a wider circle of scholars and intellectuals and their multiple and overlapping local and global audiences. Such a history can also shed light on the many ways in which historical reflection, record-keeping practices, and confessional, sectarian, or communalist agendas are entwined.

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