Intellectual Formation Research Articles

Examinations for Vicars in the Diocese of Tarnów Between 1918 and 1939

Since its inception, the Church has paid great attention to the intellectual formation of the clergy. After the reception of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, for the pastoral and intellectual formation of the clergy of the Diocese of Tarnów between 1918 and 1939, theological examinations were of vital importance and they were carried out in accordance with the dispositions of the universal legislator contained in the 1917 Code of Canon Law in Canon 130. In the period under discussion, examinations for vicars were held in August in the auditorium of the Theological Seminary in Tarnów. The examination material included dogmatic theology, moral theology, pastoral theology and canon law. This study is a contribution to the history of canon law, as the development of the institution of examinations for vicars in the Diocese of Tarnów between 1918 and 1939 has not yet been studied.

GRAMSCI AND SAVIANI

This article explores the contributions of Antonio Gramsci and Dermeval Saviani to the critical theory of education, highlighting its distinct views on the role of education in social transformation. While Gramsci emphasizes cultural hegemony and the formation of organic intellectuals, Saviani develops historical-critical pedagogy, focusing on concrete educational practice and material conditions of education in Latin America. This study investigates the theoretical contributions of Antonio Gramsci and Dermeval Saviani to education, exploring its complementary and distinct perspectives on how education can be an instrument of social transformation. Gramsci, influenced by Western Marxism, highlights cultural hegemony and the formation of organic intellectuals as strategies to challenge the ideological domination of the ruling classes. In contrast, Saviani, with his historical-critical pedagogy, focuses on concrete educational practice and educational policies, especially in the Latin American context, proposing an education that promotes critical awareness and the emancipation of the oppressed.

OS GRUPOS DE PESQUISA DE GRAMSCI NO CENTRO-OESTE: ASPECTOS TEÓRICO-METODOLÓGICOS DE ESTUDOS E PESQUISAS

The aim of this essay is to present an analysis of the meeting of research groups in the central-west of Brazil, based on Gramsci's work. The methodology used is a documentary study based on the survey carried out by the International Gramsci Society - Brazil (IGS-BR) on research groups in Brazil and the report on study and research activities. As a unit category, the question of translatability was chosen, linked to the analysis of theoretical-conceptual postulations on the subject of education and politics. We aim to present, qualitatively, the intensity of Gramsci's thinking on philosophical issues for the formation of intellectuals of the subaltern class, with research groups as one of the spaces with the possibility of cultural formation.

A FORMAÇÃO INTELECTUAL DO PROFESSOR: CONSIDERAÇÕES SOBRE A EXPERIÊNCIA DE UM GRUPO DE PESQUISA

Gramsci's writings have had an impact on various fields of knowledge, mainly the education. Using the concepts of intellectuals and the State in an extended perspective, it is possible to understand the ways in which consensus is formed through the school apparatus. Based on Gramsci as a theoretical and practical reference point, this essay aims to expose the ways in which the activities of the GForP - Grupo de Estudo e Pesquisa em Formação de Professores (UFMS/CPTL) has been developed. In order to do this, the study started with an analysis of excerpts from Gramsci's writings and then moved on to discuss the dispute over the intellectual formation of teachers, especially in the way it is materialized within the GForP.

Comics and the culture of free speech: the case of Neil Gaiman

ABSTRACT Comics have been especially vulnerable to censorship. A history of repression has been well documented in the scholarship and is part of fan lore and culture – so much so, in fact, that the topic risks becoming calcified. This paper argues for a broader examination of free speech and comics, the better to understand how the creation and circulation of texts shapes the medium. Here, Neil Gaiman serves as a valuable case study, a creator who not only advocates for free speech but whose intellectual formation depended upon it. Attending to the liberalising forces of mid-Twentieth Century, the paper illustrates how the availability of texts was essential to the formation of Gaiman’s distinct comics aesthetic. Moreover, as Gaiman’s case suggests, comics depends on free speech not only to protect creators, but to guarantee access to the materials out of which traditions can be built.

Bagehot’s classical money view: a reconstruction

Bagehot is difficult for modern economists to read with understanding, for three reasons. He was a classical economist not neoclassical, his orientation was global not national, and most importantly his intellectual formation was as a practicing country banker not an academic. This paper adopts all three perspectives, and uses this frame to reinterpret his mature work, both Lombard Street and the unfinished Economic Studies, as the origin of the key currency tradition which continues as a minority view in modern economics.

The Spiritual Formation of Priests: Lessons from St. Thomas Aquinas

Abstract: Saint Thomas Aquinas is often considered a model for the intellectual formation of future priests. His positive influence on their spiritual formation merits further consideration. This essay examines three areas of St. Thomas's teaching that prove useful for those in priestly formation: (1) the true nature of holiness as a life animated by the theological and moral virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, (2) the sanctifying capacity of philosophical and theological study, and (3) the importance of the Eucharist in the lives of seminarians and priests. In each case, St. Thomas's teaching conforms to the documents of the Church's Magisterium that guide the work of priestly formation.

The Trajectory of a Postnationalist

This contribution is an interview with the Jamaican anthropologist Charles “Val” Carnegie. It aims, in a brief span, to engage with Carnegie’s school and university years, his intellectual formation, and the direction of his current work.

Formația clasicistă a unui autor patristic: Evagrie Ponticul

This study traces the scholarly context in which one of the great pa­tristic figures of Christian antiquity was formed: Evagrius Ponticus. Bio­gra­phical data on this author are extremely scarce and, therefore, in re­con­structing the picture of Evagrius’ intellectual formation, information from a wide variety of sources is used. In this way, the study succeeds in placing Evagrius in the general context of classical Greek paideia, showing how his many connections with pagan teachers of rhetoric and philosophy, as well as with the great theologians of the time, succeeded in imprinting on Evagrius’ thought the characteristic stamp of a classical education impregnated with the Christian ethos. It was with this education that Evagrius left, in the last part of his life, for the Egyptian desert, where he used all his intellectual endowment to create a system that has become a classic in Eastern monastic theology.

Две реминисценции из «русского романа» в очерке Марселя Пруста «Cыновние чувства одного матереубийцы»

The article aims to follow the complementary methods of the history of concepts and genetic criticism, firstly, to consider in general terms the genealogy of the essay “Filial Feelings of a Matricide,” and secondly, to focus on those of his motifs that could go back to the careful reading of Russian novelists. However, it is important for us not only to provide additional evidence of Proust’s active work with the “Russian Novel,” but also to try to understand from the material of this small but crucial text for the intellectual formation of the novelist how the leading themes of the upcoming novel could be formed, incorporating autobiographical, literary, mythological, psychological, sociological, philosophical motifs. It’s about themes of time and death, crime and redemption, art and life. The analysis suggests that the essay became a kind of trigger for a radical transformation of Proust’s position as a novelist, during which, on the one hand, the fixation on the amateurish autobiography of early creative experiences was overcome. On the other hand, an innovative strategy was tested by using first-person narration, in which the narrator’s “I” acquires partial autonomy from the “I” of the author. Finally, the article concludes that the essay establishes two significant elements of the poetics of the upcoming novel: the lexical and semantic circumscription of the narrative and the “telescopic vision” of reality.

Words and their Worlds: A Conversation with Dilip M. Menon

Abstract In this Philological Conversation, Dilip M. Menon dwells on the questions of how to think concepts and theorize from the Global South and on writing history beyond the Eurocentric, colonial, nationalist, and terrestrial. We discuss the political and epistemic implications and consequences of such urgent tasks. Dilip M. Menon speaks about his affinities with Edward Said, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Walter Benjamin, among others, and refects on the themes of coloniality of knowledge, postcoloniality, decoloniality, oceanic history, and the idea of paracoloniality. He links his earlier works to his recent decolonial intellectual projects and discusses his intellectual formation and his practice as a historian and social theorist. Put together via e-mail exchanges, this conversation is a culmination of several in-person conversations that took place in Beirut, Delhi and Berlin. One only hopes for many more to come.

Моё «философское поколение»

The article examines the phenomenon of generation, self-understanding / self-recognition in a generation from the standpoint of hermeneutical philosophy. The first part is a reproduction of the author's 1999 essay. It notes that 1) in the testimonies of individual representatives of the generation, mediation of the individual and the universal is carried out; 2) the identity of the generation is understood through a relationship with another; 3) for self-recognition in the generation, the “pre-reflexive” level is important, which precedes the division into intellectual and sensual. The second part contains a description of events, meetings with people, reading experiences and experiences of a representative of a generation whose intellectual formation took place mainly in the last decade of the 20th century.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL FIELDWORK AND “HAVING AN IDEOLOGY”

In European anthropological circles there was a burst of interest in the topic of ideology in the 1970s in the wake of the riots of May 1968 in Paris and consequent intense interpretative conflict about theory among French intellectuals. The ideas then discussed in the wider context of the Cold War still have pertinence to the present day when ideology seems to clothe, if not inspire, armed confrontations and authoritarian forms of government. This article reviews the intellectual formation then current among Western anthropologists, points to its deficiencies, and notes that even though the issues then debated about ideology still have some interest they were proper to their time. Since then, not only has anthropology moved on, but the world and the very purchase of “political ideology” has fundamentally changed. In this light I re-visited my fieldnotes from research in Siberia in the 1990s and 2000s and I attempt with hindsight to reflect on my ethnographic experience and its relevance for today. Finally, I introduce some remarks about the relevance of all this to the contemporary situation in Russia.

The Bishop’s Special Solicitude for a Presbyter Who Has Served Expiatory Penalties for The Delict «Contra Sextum Cum Minore»

A grave delict contra sextum cum minore committed by a presbyter may result in dismissal from the clerical state. However, in some cases it is possible to impose other expiatory penalties for a determined period. In this case, the offender does not lose the status of a cleric. This means that the incardination may continue, which involves special solicitude on the part of the diocesan bishop, according to c. 384. This paper attempts to examine the nature of this solicitude when the presbyter is the offender of a delict against which the Church has declared a ruthless struggle. Guided by the principle formulated by John Paul II of «zero tolerance», it is necessary consider the capacity of the punished presbyter to carry out pastoral ministry; recognition of his subjective rights, considering the situation in which he finds himself; necessary assistance by taking care of personalized spiritual and intellectual formation. This is an important step towards the creation of a professional system for the protection of minors in the Church.

Cardinal Stanislaw Nagy’s Ecumenical Ecclesiology

The systematic theology of the 20th and 21st centuries has experienced revolutionary changes. The tremendous effort of theologians – which was already evident on the eve of Vatican II to experience order and confirmation during its deliberations – is still bearing fruit today. It seems that interpretations of the Council’s teaching have now become more problematic than the doctrine of Vatican II itself.
 One of the great figures of the theological world is Prof. Stanislaw Nagy, whose create efforts were honoured with a cardinalate, and to whom we are all indebted. Indeed, it is worth discovering his difficult path from the pre-council rigorous spiritual and intellectual formation to formal apologetics, thus paving the way for fundamental theology in Poland during the Communist period, to the ecumenical commitment of the times of freedom. In this respect, it is not without reason to speak of his ecumenical vision of the Church.

GEORGE FINLAY IN EGYPT AND SWITZERLAND: NINETEENTH-CENTURY TRAVEL, SCHOLARSHIP AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

George Finlay was a British gentlemen and philhellene, resident in Greece in the mid-nineteenth century. His journals, letters, library and antiquities now reside at the British School at Athens, collections that provide a wealth of information both about Finlay himself and about the world of his contemporaries. This paper looks at two episodes from Finlay’s life as preserved in his archive, documenting two overseas travels: the first is a tour around Egypt, Jerusalem and the Near East in 1845 and 1846, and the second is a series of repeat visits to Switzerland beginning in 1859 and continuing in the late 1860s. By looking at Finlay’s itineraries and at the activities he undertook in Egypt and Switzerland, and by analysing what and how Finlay chose to document in his notebooks, the aim of this paper is to understand more about Finlay’s motivations for travel and his intellectual formation. While Finlay’s time in the Near East was likely spurred by the recent publication of handbooks and by a developing fashion for (biblical) tourism, his time in Switzerland coincided with the flurry of excitement from recent excavations of the Swiss lake villages, allowing Finlay to re-engage an interest in prehistory that he had long since developed. In each case, Finlay’s social connections and his networks played a large part in directing his programme.

Изобретая свободу

This work is a brief historical and philosophical essay that allows the author to convey some elements of the mindset formed in the conditions of the transformation of the system – the collapse of one socio-political, civilizational, structure and the formation of a new, intellectual formation in a situation of potentially productive uncertainty.

Telling Feminist Philosophy Stories

This introduction reflects on practices of telling stories about works by influential contemporary feminist philosophers, interrogating what is considered impactful feminist philosophy. I frame this edition through a particular kind of re-citational engagement with Heyes’s work—through her own previous writings and my first-personal experiences with the text and her role in my intellectual formation as my dissertation supervisor. I draw on Clare Hemmings’s (2011) work on the grammar of feminist intellectual storytelling, offering brush strokes through embodied and relational stories that help me make sense of Anaesthetics, in order to tell alternative stories to frame the work, specifically Heyes’s methods, impacts, and the relations amongst her previous works. In reflecting on the embodied realities and feminist intellectual networks that inform our framing practices, I consider how we are relationally and affectively invested in figures and thinkers, our schools of thought, our style of philosophy, and our forms of participation in the discipline. Through these reflections, I trace Heyes’s work as grasping life examples with rich opportunities to grapple with stubborn philosophical ambivalences in conceptualizing embodied freedom and agency, while developing adaptive methods that probe their transcendental conditions.

Political and Unpolitical Germany: Max Weber and Thomas Mann

Abstract This paper presents a comparison of Max Weber and Thomas Mann from a historical perspective. It does not seek to override the obvious differences between them, but it suggests that these differences reflect on the remarkable diversity and plurality of a common context: Germany seen as a community of Kultur. Furthermore, very different views of the world could still lead to significant coincidence. This is particularly true of their views on politics, where both men emerged as robust democrats. Yet they also upheld a large “unpolitical” space, a position which was symptomatic of their class, the Bildungsbürgertum, but which was ordinarily a source of political weakness in that class in early 20th century Germany. The comparison is asymmetric however. While a wide range of Weber’s texts can be drawn upon, in Mann’s case Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen stands out as a focal point. This leads to a revaluation of that text. It was a central component in Mann’s intellectual formation; not an aberration which can be set aside.

Librarians as Agents of German Foreign Policy and the Cultural Consequences of the First World War

AbstractIn this article I explore the cultural impact of the First World War by analysing the work of libraries and librarians in different settings, from German-occupied Belgium and prisoner-of-war camps to Germany's own public and private libraries. By examining the work of German, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and American librarians, the article makes a case for applying the notion of a ‘long’ First World War to cultural and intellectual history. Considering ephemeral and established libraries, along with new types of collections generated by the war itself, the article sheds light on the changes to library work as a result of mobilization, censorship, and the growth of mass readership. While these changes concerned librarians in all belligerent states, German librarians were particularly affected after the burning of the Leuven library during the city's occupation by German forces. This singular event damaged Germany's national reputation and thereby laid the groundwork for a significant politicization of library work all the way to the Second World War. In addition to tracing the importance of librarians for German foreign policy, the article reconstructs how this professional community, whose intellectual formation was ultimately supranational, responded to the First World War.