Between Anarchy and Community in International Relations

This chapter presents the text of a lecture on international relations. It discusses Stanley Hoffmann's opinion on the matter which is that international relations is a by-product of America's own rise to world power after 1945 and its somewhat solipsistic identification of its own interests with those of the world as a whole. It suggests that international relations should be considered as the science of uncertainty, of the limits of action, of the ways in which states try to manage but never quite succeeded in eliminating their own insecurity.

Geographical Knowledges/Political Powers

This chapter presents the text of a lecture on the role of geographical knowledges and political powers in the processes of social and ecological change. It explains the use of the plural knowledges to avoid the risk of assuming that there is some settled way of understanding a unified field such as geography. It discusses the significant differences between geographical knowledges held in different institutional settings and the geography taught and studied within departments that operate under that name.

The Adventures of the Optic Nerve

This chapter presents the text of a lecture on the role of visual medium in art-historical study. It addresses the relationship of art history to the existential acts of painting and looking at painting and describes how the so-called story of modern art has been narrated in the history literature. It also considers how modern histories can accommodate the unfamiliar that is normally part of the story.

A Post-Ukanian Response to Keith Robbins

This chapter comments on Keith Robbins' lecture on the history of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It commends Robbins' remarkable historical overview, particularly his summation ‘a multilateral set of political and cultural configurations which criss-cross the Isles’. It discusses Robbins' problematic of Ireland/Scotland/Wales in the context of Northern Irish and Anglophone literary studies. It also highlights the importance of studying Northern Irish writing and Northern Ireland or Ulster.

A Welsh Perspective

This chapter comments on Keith Robbins' lecture on the history of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It criticizes Robbins' failure to discuss the Welsh language, which is critical to the understanding and validation of Celtic Studies as a subject. It stresses the need to revitalize the study of medieval Welsh history, which is close to collapse because of changing student demands.

A Scottish Perspective

This chapter criticizes Keith Robbins' lecture on the history of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It argues that Robbins' request for correspondence and dialogue contradicts his previous statement that History and Historians in the Twentieth Century provides no place for British historical writing in the twentieth century which had been written in the United Kingdom outside England. It also questions Robbins' use of a model of national culture which derives from and sustains the structure of English culture as the measure by which other national cultures are to be valued.

Is there a Feminine Genius?*

This chapter presents the text of a lecture on feminine genius. It highlights the achievements of Hannah Arendt, Melanie Klein, and Colette in their respective fields. It defines the concept of feminine genius and describes the similarities and differences of these three women. It also comments on the sexual, social and political liberation of women and their entry into various political and intellectual domains in the twentieth century.

Introduction: The British Academy Centenary Lectures

This introductory chapter explains the theme of the volume, which is the lectures delivered as part of the centenary celebration of the British Academy. It discusses the creation of the Academy in August 8, 1902 for the promotion of historical, philosophical and philological studies. The chapters in this volume are offered as a series of reflections on the analytical tools and techniques that have been developed to help us to make sense of the records men and create about their lives and about how we make the knowledge gained known and accessible.

Location and Dislocation: Ireland, Scotland and Wales in their Insular Alignment

This chapter presents the text of a lecture on the history of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It addresses the ‘problematic’ which confronts any author who seeks to focus on Ireland/Scotland/Wales. It describes the situation of Ireland, Scotland and Wales in 1902, comments on the ‘disclocations’ which have occurred over the subsequent century and reflects on ‘relocations’ as they appear in 2002.

A Hundred Years of Studying Politics: What have we got to show for it?

This chapter presents the text of a lecture on the study of the history of politics. It describes the kind of knowledge that the study of politics produces and argues that there exists useful knowledge about political institutions. It contends that the failure of attempts to construct a science of politics modelled on physics or on microeconomics has tended to obscure the value of the contributions of political history. It highlights the importance of political theory in clarifying ideas about what makes a society historically good or just or unjust.