Living with friends

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Mai
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Relationship ◽  
Shared Activity ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines Guédiguian’s youth in l’Estaque, a “communist” neighbourhood of Marseille, his political activism, his transition away from the Communist party, and finally a turn toward friendship as a figure for human interaction. The chapter examines the history of l’Estaque. It tells of Guédiguian’s friendship with Gérard Meylan, his meeting Ariane Ascaride, and then his disillusion with the Communist party, corresponding with his entry into filmmaking, but filmmaking that is not so much an industry or an art form as a way of “remaining with friends” through shared activity and cooperation. The chapter turns to the philosophy of friendship since Aristotle to ground this move in what Aristotle calls “eudaimonia” or the flourishing life. From there it discusses the political implications of a human relationship built on philia in a cultural period, our own, in which different figures of human interaction, the figures of the consumer and the entrepreneur are dominant. It concludes with a discussion of how Guédiguian’s cinema offers a way forward to those who have felt politically alienated during a period of economic “neoliberalism.”

The Mensheviks and NEP Society in Russia

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Brovkin
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
New Period ◽  
History Of

AbstractContemporary scholarship on the development of the Soviet political system in the 1920s has largely bypassed the history of the Menshevik opposition. Those historians who regard NEP as a mere transition to Stalinism have dismissed the Menshevik experience as irrelevant,1 and those who see a democratic potential in the NEP system have focused on the free debates in the Communist party (CP), the free peasantry, the market economy, and the free arts.2 This article aims to revise some aspects of both interpretations. The story of the Mensheviks was not over by 1921. On the contrary, NEP opened a new period in the struggles over independent trade unions and elections to the Soviets; over the plight of workers and the whims of the Red Directors; over the Cheka terror and the Menshevik strategies of coping with Bolshevism. The Menshevik experience sheds new light on the transformation of the political process and the institutional changes in the Soviet regime in the course of NEP. In considering the major facets of the Menshevik opposition under NEP, I shall focus on the election campaign to the Soviets during the transition to NEP, subsequent Bolshevik-Menshevik relations, and the writings in the Menshevik underground samizdat press.

Pragmatism, Practice and the Politics of Critique

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Livingston
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Critique ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
American Pragmatism ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Practices

Colin Koopman’s Pragmatism as Transition offers an argumentative retelling of the history of American pragmatism in terms of the tradition’s preoccupation with time. Taking time seriously offers a venue for reorienting pragmatism today as a practice of cultural critique. This article examines the political implications third wave pragmatism’s conceptualization of time, practice, and critique. I argue that Koopman’s book opens up possible lines of inquiry into historical practices of critique from William James to James Baldwin that, when followed through to their conclusion, trouble some of the book’s political conclusions. Taking time and practice seriously, as transitionalism invites pragmatists to do, demands pluralizing critique in a way that puts pressure on familiar pragmatist convictions concerning liberalism, progress, and American exceptionalism.

scholarly journals Ethnographic Memories

1969 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-18
Author(s):  
Maxime Polleri
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Personal Knowledge ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
Politics Of Knowledge ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
History Of

This article explores the similarities between a memoir and an ethnographic work. A memoir stands as an historical account written from personal knowledge. It is a form of writing that should resonate deeply within the heart of the anthropologist, whose very own specificity is to be, first and foremost, an ethnographer. That is, anthropologists are individuals full of (hi) stories, contingence, and subjectivity, who nevertheless struggle to bring “objective” accounts of what had happened under their eyes during fieldwork. I use this short comparative act as a jumping board to examine the politics of knowledge in the history of anthropological inquiry since the Enlightenment. More precisely, this comparison represents an opportunity to look at what is silently invested in the practices of ethnographical writing. In a brief discussion, I highlight the political implications that surround issues of knowledge production, expert voices, and translation amidst the discourse and narrative of anthropologists.

USURPATION AND “THE SOCIAL” IN BENJAMIN CONSTANT'S COMMENTAIRE

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
GIANNA ENGLERT
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Central Elements ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Elements ◽  
Liberal Thought

As part of Benjamin Constant's academic “revival,” scholars have revisited the political and religious elements of his thought, but conclude that he remained uninterested in the nineteenth century's major social and economic questions. This article examines Constant's response to what would later become known as “the social question” in his Commentary on Filangieri's Work, and argues that his claims about poverty and its alleviation highlight central elements of his political liberalism, especially on the practice of citizenship in the modern age. By interpreting social issues through his original political lens of “usurpation,” Constant encouraged skepticism of social legislation and identified the political implications of a “disinherited” poor class. The lens of usurpation ultimately limited the scope of Constant's solutions to poverty. But his attention to social and economic issues prompts us to reexamine the category of “the social” and its uses in the history of liberal thought, particularly the place of class concerns in the French liberal tradition.

The Nanchang Uprising

1962 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 161-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Guillermaz
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Accurate Assessment ◽  
People's Liberation Army ◽  
Red Army ◽  
People’S Liberation Army ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

August 1, 1927, is one of the big days in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It marked the opening of a military phase which was to last more than twenty years and was to leave a deep mark on the Party and the present régime both in their outlook and their structure. Symbolically, it is the birthday of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Chinese Red Army, and it is as such that it is celebrated every year. It would perhaps be worthwhile after thirty-five years to make an accurate assessment of this event and first to place it in the political context of the time.

Utopia’s Orphan

2018 ◽  
pp. 228-246
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Communism

This conclusion examines the demise of the Communist project, along with its vision to create an atheist society. Over the course of its history, Soviet atheism developed through direct engagement with religion. These engagements exposed atheism's contradictions, pointing to the deeper crisis within Soviet Communism. The conclusion first considers Mikhail Gorbachev's reintroduction of religion into Soviet public life, highlighted by his meeting with Patriarch Pimen (Izvekov) and the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, before explaining why Soviet Communism never managed to overcome religion or produce an atheist society. It also discusses the political transformations of perestroika and cites the history of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow as an allegory for the fate of religion and atheism under Soviet Communism. Finally, it asks why the Soviet Communist Party orchestrated the divorce between Communism and atheism, and between the party's Communist ideology and political power.

Waqf as a Political Weapon

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 92-124
Author(s):  
Astrid Meier
Keyword(s):  
Initial Phase ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Concept ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mount Sinai ◽  
Political Weapon ◽  
The Church

Abstract The aim of this article is to highlight the political uses of the legal concept of waqf in a confrontation between an Orthodox and a Catholic institution during the initial phase of the schism within the Church of Antioch. The Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai confronted the hospice of the Franciscans in the court of the Chief Judge of the province of Damascus in 1145/1733. The legal aspects of the lawsuit are an interesting example of the use of the Ottoman judiciary by non-Muslims, but in order to understand the political implications of the case, it needs to be analysed in the broader context of the religious and political tensions of the time. Therefore, a sketch of the history of both monasteries and their endowments is supplemented with a chapter on the role of Sylvestros, Patriarch of Antioch, in Damascus and an examination of the French and Spanish interests within this Ottoman context.

On the Nature of Mao Tse-tung's ‘Deviation’ in 1927

1964 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 55-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart R. Schram
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Printed Sources

The second half of 1927 is one of the most obscure periods in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. From a large and well-organised force openly playing a major role in the political and military affairs of the country, the Chinese Communist Party rapidly found itself reduced to a few small remnants fighting for their existence. As a result, the printed sources available for future historians were drastically reduced. The Communists cut their output of publications both for lack of the means to produce them, and because it was no longer prudent to reveal even as much about their plans as they had done before. The Nationalist authorities further decimated this scanty output by confiscation and repression. So much of what has been written about this period is based on verbal testimony or secondary sources, and cannot be regarded as altogether reliable.

Is Land Inalienable? Historical and Current Debates on Land Transfers in Northern Ghana

Africa ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carola Lentz
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Ownership ◽  
Northern Ghana ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
The Political ◽  
Land Conflicts ◽  
West Region ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Region I ◽  
History Of

The article traces the history of debates on land transfers in northern Ghana and discusses the ways in which African and European views on land tenure influenced and instrumentalized each other. Using the case of Nandom in the Upper West Region, I analyse how an expansionist group of Dagara farmers gained access to and legitimized control over land previously held by a group of Sisala hunters and farmers claiming to be the ‘first-comers’ to the area. Both groups acknowledge that the Sisala eventually transferred land to the Dagara immigrants, symbolically effected by the transmission of an earth-shrine stone. However, the Sisala interpret this historical event in terms of a ‘gift’, invoking the language of kinship and continued dependency, while the Dagara construe it in terms of a ‘purchase’, implicating exchange, equality and autonomy. These different perspectives, as well as colonial officials' ideas that land ownership was ultimately vested in the ancestors of the first-comer lineage and therefore ‘inalienable’, have shaped early disputes about the Nandom earth shrine and Dagara property rights. Competing conceptions of pre-colonial African land tenure continue to provide powerful arguments in current land conflicts, and shrinking land reserves as well as the political implications of landed property, in the context of decentralization policies, have exacerbated the debate on the ‘inalienability’ of land.

Singapore Political Cartooning

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Political Context ◽  
Political Cartoons ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Art Form ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Viewpoint ◽  
Political Cartooning ◽  
The Times

AbstractThe lack of research on the history of political cartoons in Singapore and the kind of tradition it has evolved is what prompted this thesis to perform its rudimentary search through 36 years of The Straits Times (1959-1995) in a basic attempt to fill in some of the gaps. It has taken upon itself to identify the trends - thematic and stylistic - of this tradition, by looking at the political context behind the cartoon's production. The assumption here is that the kind of tradition an art form has evolved can be understood by studying it from a historical viewpoint, that is, from its political context. A political cartoon is more than just a summing up of the day's issues. In Singapore, it has a consensus-shaping role as well. It reflects the times and political space and how things are run here. That is why its history is important to any society.

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