Enlightenment Ideals Research Articles

The Enlightenment’s connections to two US accounting-based regulatory models

Enlightenment ideals relating to individual and group autonomy versus state power have long shaped socioeconomic ordering in the Western world. This article explores how competing Enlightenment ideologies influenced the development of two different accounting-based regulatory models in the United States, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Both commissions experimented with both models with different outcomes. The ICC, formed in 1887, ultimately followed a Hamiltonian approach involving direct intervention of the federal government to regulate the monopoly power of railroads. Almost half of a century later, after the 1929 Crash, the SEC was formed to re-establish public confidence in the nation’s financial markets. That resulted in reducing investors’ risk perceptions by assuring greater transactional transparency and probity. The SEC settled upon a Jeffersonian approach, which supported the delegation of responsibility for the application of accounting knowledge in regulation to professional groups rather than government officials. This approach characterized the emergent bureaucracy of the United States’ fast-expanding national executive state.

Negotiating absence: Bernard Tschumi’s new Acropolis Museum in Athens

The ambition to inaugurate the new Acropolis Museum illuminated by the Olympic flame of 2004 and broadcast worldwide was not fulfilled. Difficulties and delays of practical, economic and archaeological nature were in the end less daunting than the political, legal and ideological obstacles to the aspiration of crowning the new museum with the Elgin Marbles, which were moved to London about two hundred years ago. The expatriation of the Parthenon fragments and the repeated requests for repatriation, both brought to play in Bernard Tschumi's highly persuasive structure, define a striking prism through which to look at some of the urgent and conflicting issues haunting the museum institution today (Fig. 1).Driven by the ideals of enlightenment, the idea of the public, universal museum, perfect and complete, proliferated at the turn of the nineteenth century. In 1796, only three years after the foundation of the Muséum Français (the later Musée du Louvre), Antoine Chrysostôme Quatremère de Quincy advised passionately against the relocation of antique monuments to European capitals in his ‘Lettres au géneral Miranda sur le préjudice qu'occasionnens aux arts et à la science le déplacement des monumens de l'art de l'Italie, Le démembrement de ses écoles, et la spoliation de ses collections, galeries, musées, etc.’1 In hindsight, however, the physical removal of ancient art and architecture marks not only the decontextualisation of these objects, but also their re-location from one discourse to another. Once relocated to the museum, architectural elements are invested with new functions and historical and aesthetic values that radically alter their significance.Thus, as Greece today reclaims the Elgin Marbles by means of a compelling architectural rhetoric, the discourse on decontextualisation gets a new twist, now including the possible re-contextualisation of a fragment whose original context has changed beyond recognition. In fact, Quatremère himself anticipated this delicious paradox in his Canova-correspondence of 1818 on the Parthenon Collection in London. Here, Quatremère addressed with surprising precision a fundamental museo-theoretical problem regarding decontextualisation as well as re-contextualisation; a problem to which Tschumi's design for the new Acropolis Museum gives such an eloquent architectural manifestation.

Perpetual peace and shareholder sovereignty: the political thought of José de Carvajal y Lancaster

ABSTRACTThis article contributes to the recent historiography on Enlightenment plans for European peace by shedding light on the political and intellectual work of the neglected Spanish minister and intellectual José Carvajal y Lancaster. The article begins by outlining the intellectual context surrounding the War of Spanish Succession, and proceeds to analyse the ways that Carvajal deployed, both in his texts and in power, Enlightenment ideals to reform the Spanish Empire and achieve perpetual peace in Europe. The ideas of his first work, his Testamento Político, revealed the ways that the logic of joint-stock companies could catalyse the reform of the Spanish Empire. His measures in government, in turn, illustrated how international cooperation could be mutually beneficial, but turned on his fraught relationship with the future Marquis of Pombal. Finally, his text Mis Pensamientos, written in 1753, envisaged a formal commercial and political coalition between the Spanish and the British Empires. Carvajal’s vision for European peace was at once utopian and clear-eyed, and the ideas behind his plan persist as demanding questions for our age.

Rethinking Censorship: A Case Study of Singaporean Media

Singapore is often represented as an example of a successful “postcolonial” society that transitioned into a developed nation and economy. The government articulates its reliance on enlightenment ideals such as reason and meritocracy, separation of church and state, and equality; but at the same time draws its legitimacy from articulations of “tradition” based on “ethnicity” and “culture.” These contradictions extend to censorship, particularly since the state actively censors the media when it comes to issues of race and religion whenever they threaten to disrupt the appearance of equality, while selectively using repackaged “Asian values” to justify their interventions. To convolute matters further, critics and academics often employ quasi-Western concepts of “freedom of expression” to critique state censorship. So, what underlying assumptions do these various representations articulate? And how do these rival articulations relate to the ways censorship work in practice? Drawing on ethnographic materials obtained during an intensive 15-month fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2013, this article aims to complicate dominant conceptualisations of censorship by shifting its focus onto situated practices.

Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and the Modern Debate on the Enlightenment

This article discusses Tocqueville’s and Mill’s views of the cultural progress of indigenous colonial societies in the context of the current debate about the Enlightenment. The analysis of their philosophical outlooks tends to support Jonathan Israel’s interpretation of the Enlightenment, yet with one important difference: while Israel emphasizes the Radical Enlightenment as the chief instigator of the movement towards modern democracy, Tocqueville’s and Mill’s views emphasize the preponderance of the Moderate Enlightenment, which, while sharing the radical advocacy for rationalism, broad education, religious toleration, the critique of despotism, and other enlightened ideals, nonetheless shunned support of full democracy or universal suffrage. Tocqueville’s and Mill’s Eurocentric views regarding the possible ameliorative influence of colonialism emphasize how the ideals of the Moderate Enlightenment had an overriding effect on the emergence of nineteenth-century liberalism. While this conclusion broadly accepts Israel’s outline of the intellectual history of the Enlightenment, it gives greater weight than he does to the Moderate Enlightenment.

Panel Introduction: Labor, Industry, and Technology

Panel Introduction: Labor, Industry, and Technology Hazel Gold (bio) Over the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, small-scale production in the hands of cottage industries and individual manufacturer-entrepreneurs transitioned to the greater efficiencies that drove the proto-factories of the nascent Industrial Revolution. An explosion of new technologies—the flying shuttle, the spinning jenny, the steam engine, the power loom, the cotton gin, and the battery, among others—fueled changes in the operations of textile mills and in the mining of coal, iron, and other metals. Agricultural production, too, experienced the impact of these innovations. As work processes were automated, the labor force experienced a general shift away from skilled craftsmen toward semi-skilled or unskilled workers; simultaneously, highly trained tradesmen with the technical competence to work with these new machines also began to appear. For eighteenth-century politicians and economists, as for philosophers and practitioners of the literary and fine arts, the results of these transformations could hardly be more consequential. This is no less true for today’s scholars of the Enlightenment era. The essays in the panel that follows originated as papers presented in a session at the 2016 ASECS annual meeting devoted to the theme of labor, industry, and technology. Session participants were asked to address the question: How did changing modes and scales of labor and production that emerged over the course of the long eighteenth century shape, consolidate, [End Page 29] or disrupt Enlightenment society and culture? Conversely, how did Enlightenment ideals and debates modify the understanding of technological innovation as a social and cultural force, or redirect the uses to which it was put? Their responses, here expanded and revised, draw on a broad range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives to examine the mutually transformative interactions of Enlightenment projects (both realized and imagined) and economic and technological change. The geographical range of the essays included here bridges Europe and the Atlantic world: England, Spain, France, the French West Indies, and the North American colonies during the Revolutionary War. Equally varied are the methodologies with which the authors have framed their objects of study. Drawing on approaches grounded in historical, literary, and visual studies, these four essays underscore the dislocations that overtake the political, social, and cultural realms as a consequence of technological innovation and the reorganization of labor according to rational, utilitarian models. Yet, because technology and society travel a two-way street, these essays also acknowledge ways in which evolving political and social structures, not to mention cultural imaginaries, may have influenced how those very models came to be defined.1 The richly textured canvas that emerges from this multidisciplinary analysis, carried out on both the micro and macro levels, illuminates significant aspects of Enlightenment culture that we can point to as the intellectual and ideological underpinnings from which modernity issues. Similarly, the global interconnections created by war, commerce, and the spread of new technologies that these studies expose should be easily recognizable from our present vantage point. The lead essay, “Spanish Orphans, British Prisoners, and the American Revolution,” teases out a series of connections linking military and commercial objectives pursued during the 1770s–1780s by the Spanish Crown, which intervened in the American Revolutionary War fighting against the British. The focal point for Valentina Tikoff’s study is the role in this conflict of male wards of Seville’s San Telmo and Los Toribios orphanages. As the size of the Spanish fleet grew over the course of the eighteenth century, demand for trained seamen exceeded supply; to secure the required maritime labor, the Spanish government resorted to voluntary registration and enlistment, impressment of petty criminals and vagabonds, and, not least, training of orphaned youths in seafaring skills.2 Making extensive use of unpublished documents held in Spanish archives, Tikoff examines two pivotal incidents involving these boys, to show how they exemplify an enlightened reformist agenda that espoused charitable relief—in this instance, the education of orphans in the technical skills required for the maritime and textile industries—to create productive workers and citizens. This contributed [End Page 30] to strengthening Spain’s naval defense forces, thus conflating welfare with warfare, while also highlighting the potential role of...

Russia Triumphant: War Poetry in the Eighteenth Century

This paper deals with a variety of lyric poetry that was widely cultivated under Catherine II — the poetry of war. This poetry was written almost always as oc- casional court poetry; it flourished in the general context of festivities organized in celebration of the Russian successes in the numerous wars of the period. The analysis takes into account not only the main poets, but also the minor poets in order to receive a fuller picture of the period’s mentality. Presenting themselves as loyal subjects, the poets dedicated their texts mostly to Catherine II, congratulating her on her victories and praising her multifarious virtues. This panegyric element sheds a light on the cult of the empress and the specifics of her contemporary image. But the poets addressed their works not only to Catherine, but also to her victorious generals and in some cases also to the armed forces. In practicing this kind of poetry, the authors not only showed their patriotism, but also their poetic virtuosity and their erudition: their poetic task was to translate the well-known military facts into the solemn “language” of the “high style”. Writing a victory ode was a celebratory act sui generis: according to a venerable tradition of classical antiquity, the poetic word was able to transcend time, ensuring eternal glory. Remaining close to official doctrine, the poets were nevertheless able to express their own patriotic view on the ongoing wars. This patriotism came in two kinds; each one represented a certain attitude to war. The first was a radical patriotism that advocated the pursuit of national glory by the ruthless use of military power in foreign politics. The second kind was a moderate patriotism that saw war as a necessary evil; it obsessively strove to reconcile Catherine’s bellicose politics with the traditional ideal of а “just war”. The article closes with a discussion of war poetry in its relation to the peace-loving ideals of European Enlightenment.

Editorial Comment

Editorial Comment E.J. Westlake "I have observ'd those countries, where trade is promoted and encouraged, do not make discoveries to destroy, but to improve, mankind; by love and friendship, to tame the fierce and polish the most savage; to teach them the advantages of honest traffick by taking from them, with their own consent, their useless superfluities, and giving them in return what, from their ignorance in manual arts, their situation, or some other accident, they stand in need of." So recites the character of Trueman at the top of act 3 in George Lillo's 1731 drama The London Merchant. Trueman has apprenticed to the merchant Thorowgood and has been learning the basic tenants of capitalism. He has absorbed the ideas of the rising merchant class—specifically, the notion that free trade and democratic ideals go hand in hand. The roots of colonialism lie within this confluence of aggressive capitalism in the form of spreading Enlightenment ideals throughout the world, a project every capitalist has an obligation to pursue. As Thorowgood responds, "[i]t is the industrious merchant's business, to collect the various blessings of each soil and climate, and, with the product of the whole, to enrich his native country." Each of the essays in this issue touches on the themes of colonialism, labor, neoliberalism, and capital. Amanda Culp examines the politics of translation vis-à-vis the first version of the Sanskrit drama The Recognition of Shakuntala, translated into English by William Jones in 1789. The dramatic text, she argues, then took its place as part of the English literary canon. By comparing two theatrical productions of the play in the late nineteenth century, Culp reveals the ways in which colonial, Orientalist constructions of universal humanism shape the production and reception of what had become an English "classic." The Elizabethan Stage Society performed the Jones translation in 1899 with white actors in brownface makeup, and with the Regents Park botanical gardens standing in for the "tropical vegetation" of India. Less successful was an earlier staging by the Parsi Victoria Dramatic Company, a company of actors from Bombay, labeled "absurd" by English reviewers. Culp notes, however, that the rejection of the Indian production by English audiences may not have been so much because of the foreign costumes and language, but rather that the bodies of the artists, who were not practitioners of classical Indian performance but actors trained in English staging conventions, created an uncomfortable doubling for English spectators. Culp observes that "the subaltern bodies performing onstage were not ultimately too dissimilar from those that habitually performed at the Gaiety or, even more upsetting, from those seated in the audience." Siyuan Liu focuses on the evolution of several forms of xiqu in the twentieth century. He examines the writing of scholar Zhou Zuoren, a professor at Beijing University in the mid-twentieth century influenced by the work of Enlightenment folklorist Johann Gottfried Herder. Liu argues that the work of Herder and the writing of John Locke influenced Chinese thinkers to embrace the revival and reconstruction of classical art in a way that parallels the trajectory of European antiquarianism. Citing Richard Bauman [End Page ix] and Charles Briggs's description of a modernity that was both a "nostalgia for a vanished past and a growing ideological commitment to progress," Liu chronicles the project of recovering folkloric tradition through to the reform campaign against xiqu in the early years of the People's Republic of China. The disavowel of Asian labor is the subject of Chris Eng's essay on the 2014 revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He notes that the revival, two decades after the original production, must be read within the context of the "neoliberal incorporation of queerness and transness into the folds of normativity." Eng examines the problematic labeling of the title character as trans and the characterization of transness as a violent injury, and the equally problematic privileging of the white gay male over trans and racial Others. Written as passing moments within the play, the use of camp to dismiss and ridicule the Asian labor that makes Hedwig's performance possible places the musical within a contemporary matrix of imperialism, in...

‘유토피아’를 향한 러시아 인텔리겐치아의 이상과 한계: 스토파드의 삼부작 The Coast of Utopia를 중심으로

The aim of this paper is to study the political ideals and limitations of Russian intelligentsia in the 19th century, centering on Tom Stoppard’s trilogy The Coast of Utopia. The Russian intelligentsia was armed with Western enlightenment ideals and aimed at liberating peasants from serfdom and tyranny and transforming Russia from a structural point of view. Being a thinker who inspired Stoppard to write this trilogy, Alexander Herzen is at the center of The Coast of Utopia.BR Chapter 2 analyzes the situation of the 19th century Russia, described in the first play Voyage. It also includes a grasp of the Russian manor system and the serfdom system under the Tsarist regime. The serfdom system in the 19th century Russia is an important basis for explaining the structural problems of the Russian society, such as the underdevelopment of capitalist production system, the backwardness in modern industrial development, and the absence of the citizen class. Chapter 3 focuses on the exchange of thoughts among Herzen and other intelligentsia, who had left their own countries and lived in Europe. In particular, I would like to discuss how the failure of the French Revolution of 1848 influenced Herzen’s ideological journey. Chapter 4 deals with Herzen’s life in exile in the UK, his Free Russia publishing activities, and the disagreement with the ’60s Russian political theorists.BR Herzen perceived the communistic elements, such as the principle of collective production and distribution, the centralization of power, and the negation of private property system, as monolithic, repressive and barbaric elements. Herzen, as well as Stankevich and Turgenev, all of whom are noble intelligentsia, was unable to sympathize with the radical ideas of communism. However, the Russian intelligentsia in 1840-50s became a good foundation for the birth of a new generation of the 1860s and further laid the foundation of the Russian communist revolution in the early 20th century.BR Through the trilogy, Stoppard tries to shape a new perspective on the 19th century Russian intelligentsia, especially on Herzen. The Russian intelligentsia he depicted is a “noble” human race that chose to liberate peasants and reform the repressive Tsarist system rather than live comfortably in their own identity and property. Furthermore, Stoppard grants a keen perception to Herzen who grasped the limits of the monolithic and repressive communist revolution.BR

Logos and paideia

The aim of this paper is to reconsider the meaning of two title concepts of essential importance for the development of the European thought. The author makes an attempt to reconstruct the origin of Greek reflection referring to Paideia written by Werner Jaeger, German classicist and philosopher from the first half of the twentieth century. Starting with the mythical sources of education, connected with the Minoan tradition reinterpreted by Zbigniew Herbert, the author goes on to present the mnemonic sense of the epic Catalogue of Ships from the second book of Iliad by Homer and subsequently discusses cathartic educational tradition and its reference to Pythagoreanism and Heraclitism. He subsequently discusses the stage of education constituted by the Athenian sophists connected with the utilitarianism of Protagoras and its development and transgression achieved by Socratic elenchus and maieutic. Platonian proposal of turning paideia into the integrity of the Greek polis culture was presented as the culmination of the idea of the Hellenic education. It had to prepare the soul of the disciple for the acceptance of the uttermost pattern of arete. For Plato it was the affection for ideas, notably noble virtue of aspiration to triple unity (trinity) of the Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Wilhelm von Humboldt renewed classical paideia and established the idea of Bildung to join education with inner self‑development and not only personal but also cultural maturation. The importance of connection between paideia and Bildung was also underlined by two quoted writers: Karl Jaspers (German co‑founder of existentialism) and W.H. Auden (English‑American poet). In conclusion, the author poses a question whether postmodern contesting of classical and enlightenment ideals of education (paideia and Bildung) has any purpose and whether the quest for the principle of the universe based on the universal logos can be still considered reasonable. He also wonders whether traditional search for the Truth, Beauty, and Goodness can actually compete with narrowly understood, effective technological practice. In his humble opinion this question must be left without any conclusive answer.

Z rozważań o rosyjsko-francuskim dialogu kulturowym XVIII wieku

Referat prezentuje zarys historii mariażu kulturowego Rosji i Francji, począwszy od epizodycznych kontaktów w XVI i XVII wieku, aż po wiek XVIII, który otwiera trwający wiele wieków dialog z Francją. Jej ideowe i kulturowe pryncypia staną się źródłem inspirujących przemian cywilizacyjnych i fundamentem prozachodniej tożsamości niedawnej jeszcze Świętej Rusi, a inicjatorem i propagatorem zachodniej – francuskiej – cywilizacji okaże się „rewolucjonista na tronie” Piotr I. Procesowi postępującej infiltracji francuskiej kultury w Rosji sprzyjać będzie fascynacja córki Piotra I – Elżbiety wszystkim, co z ducha francuskie, co procentować będzie zjawiskiem gallomanii, którego apogeum przypadnie na II połowę XVIII wieku – okres panowania Katarzyny II. Wówczas, w tle rosyjskiej admiracji ideami francuskiego Oświecenia, dzięki przyjaźniom Katarzyny II z encyklopedystami (głównie Wolterem i Diderotem) Rosja ze swym absolutyzmem oświeceniowym aspirować będzie do grona najpotężniejszych mocarstw europejskich.

William James, Nitrous Oxide, and the Anaesthetic Revelation

William James greatly influenced the fields of psychology, philosophy, and religion during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was the era of Modernism, a time when many writers rejected the certainty of Enlightenment ideals. Positivism, which rose to prominence in the early 19th century, had emphasized physical phenomena, empirical evidence, and the scientific method. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), with its theory of natural selection, provided an explanation for the evolution of species apart from a divine Creator. Within this context, William James served as a “mediator between scientific agnosticism and the religious view of the world.” James’ own experience inhaling nitrous oxide played an important role in shaping his views.For James, the use of nitrous oxide served a key role in elucidating some of his most central ideas: 1) the value of religion, and the emphasis on mysticism and revelation (as opposed to theology and doctrine) as religion’s foundation; 2) the universe as pluralistic (as opposed to absolutist, constant, eternal), driven by chance, experience, and change.

What Can we Learn from ‘Postmodern’ Critiques of Education for Autonomy?

Abstract Lyotard defines being postmodern as an ‘incredulity toward metanarratives’. Such incredulity includes, in particular, skepticism vis-à-vis Enlightenment ideals like autonomy. Motivated by such skepticism, several educational scholars put into question education for autonomy as it is practiced in the formal settings of national school systems. More specifically, they criticize that practices of autonomy education can have certain normalizing and ideological effects that undermine the aim of creating autonomous subjects. This article examines these critiques of education for autonomy and argues that they are best understood as calls for reforming educational practices, and not as outright rejections of education for autonomy. Thus, since the allegedly ‘postmodern’ critiques of autonomy education cannot be plausibly understood as radical ruptures with Enlightenment ideals, the article concludes that these critiques represent (merely) constructive self-critical reflections on what Habermas dubbed the ‘unfinished project of modernity’.

Design thinking between rationalism and romanticism—a historical overview of competing visions

This article presents a longue durée history of design thinking with particular focus on recurrent ideological tug-of-war between two competing visions: Enlightenment ideals of logic, rationality and civic order against Romanticist ideals of artistic creativity and social change. Drawing on design history and cultural studies, the authors present a broad overview of more than 200 years of developments in European and North American design thinking, from the rise of design as a profession to the formation of a science of design. The article contributes to the history of design thinking by presenting the influence of specific, sociocultural configurations on design culture.

The American Revolution on the Periphery of Empires: Don Bernardo de Gálvez & the Spanish-American Alliance, 1763–1783

It was something of an embarrassment to the founding generation of the United States that freedom had been won with the aid of English America’s two arch enemies, France and Spain. The Spanish Empire in America was clearly at odds with the revolutionary cause. Not only had it stood as a traditional enemy, but it adhered tightly to monarchy and Roman Catholicism – which together amounted to probably the worst evil an American Patriot could imagine, second only (at the moment) to British tyranny. The Spanish American campaign against the British from 1776 to 1783 did not at all reflect a shared democratic political identity or solidarity with the English American rebels. Even so, Bernardo de Galvez’s Spanish campaign in the Southeast is a quintessential American story. This essay argues that new Enlightenment ideas about government were birthed within the Spanish imperial system and did not necessarily entail American independence, that the American environment bred unprecedented social cooperation between diverse peoples, and finally that Galvez was successful in Louisiana precisely because he adopted Enlightenment ideals of governance such as transparence and tolerance.

Totalitarianisms as systems of lawlessness (Miłosz’s remarks)

The article accounts for the gnostic individualism in Miłosz’s records. It shows that its essence is not freedom, but self-will. It argues that its premises are existential. Among them we can find the fundamental data of existence: the passage of time, death, growing old of the body, the decomposition of matter, experiencing biological drives as violence and the laws of nature and history as necessity. If existence is experienced that way it bears self-will. The author argues that Miłosz fell into a crisis of gnostic self-will as he realized it leads to the inner split between the evil world and the ideal super-world. He was also aware that this duality implies the aversion to the earthly life and nihilism. The author shows that the experience of self-will served as a tool in the Nobel laureate’s writings to study totalitarianisms. From this perspective Nazism seems to be the self-will inspired by Darwinism, while Communism – the quintessence of Enlightenment idealism. As a result of the deviation of freedom the Nazi Germany and the Bolshevik Russia became the mine of genocide.

Atheism, secularism and toleration: Towards a political atheology

There are numerous existing political atheologies that can be characterised by three movements – negative, positive and critical atheological projects. By focusing on the critical atheologies of two political theorists, Richard Rorty and William Connolly, this article presents an insider’s view of the influence that atheism has on political thought. After drawing out just what makes Rorty’s and Connolly’s philosophies atheological, this article sets itself the task of drawing the consequences of a critical atheology for two fundamental concepts of contemporary political theory: secularism and toleration. These Enlightenment ideals can be rescued and re-framed following a pluralist critique. By refining our understanding of secularism beyond a strict church-state separation, an agonistic secularism that promotes an ethos of engagement is defended therein. Second, toleration is then defended in its agonistic form to include the practice of critique against conceptions of indifference or respect. Finally, the hard case of the French ban on veils in public schools is discussed in order to highlight the contribution of this political atheology to an important social issue.

Charlotte Brontë’s Alternative Enlightenment: The Muslim Other in Villette

Unusually, for a British novelist of her time, Charlotte Brontë in Villette embraces the Muslim Other in portraying Lucy Snowe’s choice of Arab, Muslim and particularly Turkish cultural allusions to authenticate her everyday experiences; references to one Thousand and One Nights appear to afford Lucy sanctuary. Charlotte Brontë’s egalitarian Enlightenment ideals, presented in this novel, reveal her freedom of reason while transcending entrenched national and cultural biases against Muslims. She, in using the Muslim Other so effectively as a rhetorical and figurative device, creates an Enlightenment cosmopolitan space.

Identity and Humanity in Primo Levi's "Se questo è un uomo": Enlightenment, Vision, and the "animale-uomo"

Primo Levi’s Se questo e un uomo, first published in 1947, is much more than simply a recounting of the author’s experiences as a prisoner in the Monowitz-Buna labor camp (Auschwitz) during World War II. Indeed, Levi himself explicitly addresses this point in the preface, where he states, “questo mio libro, in fatto di particolari atroci, non aggiunge nulla a quanto e ormai noto ai lettori di tutto il mondo sull’inquietante argomento dei campi di distruzione.” Instead, he outlines a goal that is significantly broader in scope: “fornire documenti per uno studio pacato di alcuni aspetti dell’animo umano” (Levi, 9). Thus, the work transcends issues of national or even ethnic identity to explore instead more fundamental questions of humanity and personal identity: the primary emphasis of Levi’s text is on what his own experiences and those of his compagni, or fellow prisoners, can teach us in regard to what it means to be a human being at Auschwitz and indeed after Auschwitz. Engaging closely with the text, and drawing upon the theories of Agamben and Foucault, along with important insights by historian Martin Jay, the present essay will analyze some of the complex philosophical and psychological issues investigated by Levi, focusing especially on the closely-related thematic concerns of vision – which, as I shall demonstrate, is closely tied to his Enlightenment ideals – and the intricate relationship between the human and the animal.

BETWEEN HASKALAH AND ZIONISM. THE EXAMPLE OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF BRODY

In Galicia the propagation of Jewish diaspora nationalism in the early phase of this movement was welcomed by liberal Jewish organizations as just another step towards the ideals of Enlightenment. However, while Zionism gradually emerged as a separate political movement in Galicia, in Brody remained just a part of the cultural Enlightenment process of the Haskalah. In Lviv and other Galician towns, the same period was characterized by the intense development of Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish national ideologies—a markedly different situation compared to the pro-Austrian, centrist Brody, with its established Jewish economic elite with Austrian liberal supra-national identity. Owing to the dominant role of Jews in the economic, cultural and to some degree political life of the city, the local population did not encounter significant levels of anti-Semitism. This absence of a group that would symbolize the “alien, hostile other”—the absence of anti-Semitism—meant that the Zionism could not establish itself as a saviour and defender of the Jews in 19th century Brody. As such, Zionism was not regarded as a serious alternative to the Austrian liberal ideology espoused by the local population. The situation was changed with the establishment of universal suffrage in the Austrian Empire and the accompanying development of mass election campaigns contributed to the population’s politicization and the formation of a national identity in both Brody and throughout Galicia. Together with the use of modern political campaign methods and the activities of some members of the Jewish community, Zionism in Brody began to attract more active and conscious supporters.