Intellectual Milieu Research Articles

Between ‘Anti-totalitarianism’ and Radical Democracy

Abstract Laclau’s theory on populism which is inseparable from his strategic endeavour to formulate a novel form of left-wing emancipatory politics has set off a variety of critiques, most notably from scholars who associate themselves with different strands of democratic theory. This paper picks out and uses Lefortian theory on democracy, utilizing it in order to figure out the different ways in which Laclau’s account could be construed and criticized. It argues that there are two possible interpretations of Lefort’s democratic theory with two different political implications, one liberal and the other radical-democratic and that they provide us with two different ways to formulate a critique of Laclauian populism. It particularly addresses the historical conjuncture from which Lefort’s democratic theory emerges and investigates how his ambiguous encounters with the intellectual milieu in France in the 70s, namely the ‘antitotalitarian moment’ undergird these two possible interpretations. This article’s elaboration on these two interpretations for addressing Laclau’s populism finalizes with a comparison between the political implications of the two and with a new proposal to invigorate counter-populism along the lines of Etienne Balibar as a (Lefortian) radical-democratic alternative to Laclau’s populism.

My Intersecting Quests as a Disabled Independent Scholar

This colloquy, by graduate-student-led collective Project Spectrum, attempts to map out existing discussions around inclusion and equity in music academia, with a specific focus on identifying and analyzing the structures in academia that work against minoritized and historically excluded scholars. 
 Tekla Babyak asks us to re-imagine what is on the other side of the pipeline. In her colloquy contribution, she shares her advocacy experience in fighting for both independent scholars’ and disabled scholars’ seat at the proverbial table. She imagines an academic discipline that would readily accept, acknowledge, and uplift independent scholars—instead of considering them half- or failed scholars for their lack of institutional affiliation. And she imagines an academic discipline that would readily include disabled scholars, not for their exceptionality in achieving scholarship, but for their ability to contribute to a more diverse and inclusive intellectual milieu. She critiques the ableism endemic to the academic pipeline, an ableism that veils the physical and also emotional, mental, and spiritual obstructions in our discipline’s path to so-called success.

Transnational Nazism: Ideology and Culture in German-Japanese Relations, 1919–1936 by Ricky W. Law

Reviewed by: Transnational Nazism: Ideology and Culture in German-Japanese Relations, 1919–1936 by Ricky W. Law Ken Ishida (bio) Transnational Nazism: Ideology and Culture in German-Japanese Relations, 1919–1936. By Ricky W. Law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2019. xvi, 343 pages. $120.00, cloth; $28.99, paper; $24.00, E-book. Ricky Law's new book has two unique characteristics. First, the author assumes there existed civil societies in both Japan and Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. Second, he uses a symmetrical approach as a basis for comparison and contrast. Many scholars engaged in the history of cultural intercourse often analyze processes of negotiation or points of contact between two countries. However, this author focuses on the sociopolitical and intellectual milieu of each society. The book has two parts. Part 1 contains chapters 1 to 4 which are concerned with the narratives of Germany in Japanese newspapers, lectures and pamphlets, nonfiction, and language textbooks. In part 2, chapters 5 to 8 cover the public utterances of views on Japan in German newspapers, films, nonfiction, and voluntary associations. The two parts consist of 136 pages and 128 pages, respectively. The parallel analysis of the cultural tendencies in both countries highlights their differences. As the author considers transnational Nazism to be an ideological outlook, his stated objective is to write "an ideologically and culturally contextualized history" (p. 10) instead of describing short-term power politics or relying on generalized structural history. Hence, the book deals with the rhetoric and imagery which influenced the popular views in Taisho Japan and Weimar Germany. In connection with learning from Germany in the 1920s, "admiration for Nazi Germany without necessarily advocating the Nazification of Japan" (p. 128) took place in the 1930s. In addition, the author's cultural-historical perspective emphasizes the ideological background of the German-Japanese entente, which led to the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936. In order to situate specific events such as the Sino-Japanese conflict and the Nazi seizure of power within an intellectual milieu, Law tries to pay balanced attention to the reciprocal interest or indifference of both nations. Ironically, the book suggests that the influence was quite one-sided from Germany to Japan; however, its comparative analysis putting the two countries on equal footing brings into relief the asymmetrical trend of their foreign relations more clearly (pp. 17, 301). Since the book underlines public discourse in Japan and Germany rather than diplomatic negotiations or plain propaganda, its readers can find valuable peculiarities in each country, which have been ignored in previous [End Page 220] historiography. For example, the existence of personality cults in Japanese journalism is revealed in articles reporting even trivia related to the ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II, as well as Paul von Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler (p. 35). Moreover, the Japanese papers strongly opposed prosecution of the German emperor and still considered Hitler's putsch in 1923 as a monarchist plot (p. 40). Furthermore, almost every Japanese language textbook contains the phrase "Long Live the Kaiser" in German (p. 154). In contrast to the Japanese personality-driven style, the German press amplified common stereotypes of traditional Japan. The chapters suggest that despite the progress of technology, democracy, and internationalism during the Taisho and Weimar periods, narratives in the two countries did not change their basic positions but shifted in the 1920s from political and economic topics to social and cultural ones. During the Nazi period, the image of Japan as a powerful modern state distinct from the "Asiatics" supplanted the anthropological accounts of missionaries and travelers (p. 203). From the viewpoint of social history, Transnational Nazism is also informative and interesting. The development of communication tools such as the return to the regular operation of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1927, the arrival of the airship Graf Zeppelin in Japan in 1929, and a two-way radio broadcast in 1933 accelerated the cultural exchanges between Japan and Germany. Every chapter gives us helpful facts, such as how much such infrastructure cost, how deep the influence of the media was in both countries, and what kind of prejudices were revealed in their reciprocal public images (pp. 42–47, 57, 110, 199, 212–17). The book...

There Once Was a Frog: An Early Modern Frog in Ms. ROS 77

The article discusses an unpublished early modern Hebrew manuscript penned by the Italian Jewish physician Avraham Joel Conegliano (1665-1745) and today preserved at the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana in Amsterdam. Among its pages, the book conceals several floral remains and even a desiccated frog, an unprecedented finding in the research fields of both Jewish magic and Hebrew manuscripts. This article offers an overview of the manuscript and its contents and presents relevant biographical information on the author, highlighting the cultural and intellectual milieu in which Jewish physicians were trained, operated and transmitted their knowledge in Northern Italy at the end of the seventeenth-century.

Understanding Nativist Elements Relating to Immigration Policies and to the American Constitution’s Natural Born Citizen Clause

INTRODUCTION: I start with a definition. A “nativist” element of a legal system is one which preserves some benefit for, all or some of, the nation’s citizens or its indigenous inhabitants, as opposed to granting that benefit neutrally to citizens and immigrants alike. Not so long ago the essential morality of such a distinction was considered so obvious that no defense was thought to be necessary. Indeed, in many traditional societies there is no distinction between the indigenous inhabitants (that is, the people) and the nation. Any attempt by a government to treat newcomers equally in all respects would have been akin to incomprehensible. Today, in the West, there is a growing view that all such distinctions are actual or tantamount to invidious racial, ethnic, or religious discrimination. Still such distinctions have long-standing bona fides — even in Western societies. For example, under the United States Constitution (1787), all elected federal officials in the national government must be held by citizens. Members of the diet’s lower chamber must be 25 years old, be an inhabitant of the state in which they are elected, and have held citizenship for at least 7 years. Similarly, members of the upper chamber must be 30 years old, be an inhabitant of the state in which they are elected, and have held citizenship for at least 9 years. Like holding a congressional seat, eligibility to hold the presidency and vice presidency requires that the candidate meets an age requirement (at least 35 years old) and a residency requirement (at least 14 years in the United States). However, unlike holding a congressional seat, eligibility to hold the presidency and vice presidency is limited to natives, or more properly, using the language of the United States Constitution, to “natural born citizen[s]” — a person who is born in the United States and a citizen since birth. This essay asks two related questions: Is a society justified in distinguishing citizens and immigrants? Is a society justified in distinguishing citizens from birth from those who become citizens subsequently through naturalization? CONCLUSION: The efforts of the modern commentators to explain the Natural Born Citizen Clause as one rooted in bigotry and prejudice directed at naturalized citizens is the product of an intellectual milieu of large, powerful countries, where there is no memory of bombs falling on the nation’s core territory or any existential fear of conquest by foreign powers. The concern of these authors is merely the fair distribution of society’s benefits and opportunities, between citizens and immigrants. The “other,” to the extent he exists at all, is just a person who has not yet become or who has not yet been allowed to become an American. Modern theories of separation of powers and constitutional design have little or nothing to do with the Framers’ and Founders’ world of revolutions and imperial wars—where oceans and frontiers pose dangers—as you yourself pose dangers to others—where others may burn down your capital as you may burn down theirs. The Natural Born Citizen Clause was the limited policy response of a People who believed that beyond one’s national frontier was a dangerous world. That the clause’s purpose is no longer widely understood indicates that much has changed since 1787.

Antiquity for Connoisseurs: Animals with Classical Pedigree in the Emblems of The Theatrum Memoriae Nobilis ac Almae Societatis Unitorum

The Theatrum Memoriae Nobilis ac Almae Societatis Unitorum or the Album of the Ljubljana Noble Society of St Dismas (Archive of the Republic of Slovenia, ref. AS 1073, I/1), is a monument of great cultural value which unequivocally reflects the intellectual milieu of Ljubljana at the time of its dynamic renewal in the late 17th and early 18th century. It is the most outstanding illuminated manuscript of the early modern period that survives in Slovenia, as well as a treasury of hand painted emblems created for academy members. The article focuses on animal symbolism with origins in Greek and Roman Antiquity. The abundance of animals in the illuminations of the Album clearly indicates their importance in the iconography of the emblems and demonstrates the patrons’ interest in animal symbolism. The emblems fall into three main categories: (1) the first group consists of animal motifs with an apparent origin in Greco-Roman culture, well-known literary sources and/or an established tradition in the visual art of Classical Antiquity; (2) the second demonstrates more sophistication in handling themes from Greco-Roman animal lore: the classical origin of animal symbolism is less manifest and it may take some effort to identify; (3) the third group is characterized by a highly skilled and sophisticated treatment of the motifs from Classical Antiquity as well as the interesting iconography. Many of them actually appear to have no reference to Greco-Roman culture whatsoever because the allusion is particularly refined. The author shows the characteristics of this group by the emblem made for Siegfrid Bonaventura von Werthenthal, featuring an original image of Bucephalus. The author points out that the ambitious members of St Dismas Society designed their individual emblems as witty demonstrations of erudition for their learned colleagues and for posterity. The complexity of the emblems proves that many patrons were well aware of Paolo Giovio’s idea of buona impresa which (as stated in his Dialogo dell’imprese militari et amorose), must not to be too obscure, in a way that it would take the wisdom of a Sybil to understand it, nor should it be so clear as to be understood by any plebeian. In this context, the patron’s familiarity with Greco-Roman Antiquity and his sophistication in dealing with classical themes was not only consistent with the prevailing intellectual trend, it was also a matter of personal prestige.

Cortázar and Music by Nicholas Roberts

MLR, .,   literary production, this study destabilizes hegemonic anglophone subjectivities of the modern and posits the Global South as a key site in the articulation of a plural modernity in which aesthetics and the politics of social justice are inextricably intertwined. E B L Cortázar and Music. By N R. (Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures, ) Cambridge: Legenda. . xii+ pp. £. ISBN –– ––. Alongside literature and politics, music is an inescapable presence in the work of Julio Cortázar. In this thorough and wide-ranging study, Nicholas Roberts provides a detailed analysis of the myriad ways in which music appears in the novels, short stories, and critical work of the Argentine. In the process, he reveals that music was no mere leitmotiv, but rather provided the structural tools for key works. Cortázar loved music, wrote passionately about his preferences, and created memorable characters—Horacio Oliveira, the stuffy French critic Bruno, Johnny Carter—for whom music is more than just entertainment or pastime: it is the stuff of life itself. Roberts divides his subject’s musical interests into three broad genres: la música culta, or classical music; tango, Argentina’s (and Uruguay’s) beloved national sound; and jazz, from early New Orleans stylings through to later free experiments. e Introduction looks at Cortázar’s theories on music, especially in his early prose criticism (such as ‘Elogio del jazz’ and ‘Soledad de la música’), and how ideas around language, textuality, and repeatability are drawn from music to inform his literary practice. Cortázar was a frank and honest essayist, and a very generous epistolarian, but his philosophical ideas have aged less well than his fiction. Today a marriage between surrealism and existentialism may lack the urgency it had for the fledgling writer in the s; but the stories that emerge from the same intellectual milieu retain their power to move and perplex. is is a way of saying that the opening pages are something of a slog, and this is not entirely Roberts’s fault—the author himself concludes that Cortázar’s fiction is a far better source than his meta-textual elucubrations (p. ). Subsequent analytical chapters are much more engaging. Despite his lifelong love of jazz, classical music also played an important role in Cortázar’s thinking and fiction. is is explored in the first chapter, with reference to the late story ‘Clone’, which revolves around performances of madrigals composed by Carlo Gesualdo. e second chapter looks at Cortázar’s more explicitly political writing—for many critics his least satisfying work—and the role played by Chopin, for example, in ‘Alguien anda por ahí’, read in the light of an earlier attempt at (Cuban) revolutionary fiction, the Che Guevara-themed and Mozart-scored ‘Reunión’. Chapter  turns to tango, and Cortázar’s ambivalent feelings towards a music at once deeply conservative in its values and profoundly linked to nostalgia towards the homeland he had le in the s but which remained the ‘here’ of his writing  Reviews (and, until dictatorial intervention prohibited, where he published his work). In this and other chapters, Roberts draws productively on archival material, including the Cortázar manuscripts held in the Benson Collection, Austin. e final three chapters all focus on jazz. is weighting is justified by the profound impression, from an early age, that the music of Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker had on Cortázar, alongside its repeated appearances in some of his best fiction—the novel Rayuela, or the pivotal short story ‘El perseguidor’, itself a ciphered version of Charlie Parker’s darkest days. Roberts argues, in short, that Cortázar’s exploration of improvisation, freedom , and translation in jazz and writing about jazz points to a view of the genre as ‘ultimately characterised by and as a self-perpetuating, relentless tension’ (p. , emphasis original). Roberts is not blind to the more problematic aspects of Cortázar’s work— the rather dated gender politics and some questionable depictions of the black musicians whose music is, nevertheless, central to his conception of ‘swing’, that undefinable characteristic of the sounds he adored. But in contrast to, say, Neil Larsen, in his...

Impacts of the plague epidemic on the Kingdom of Bohemia in the second half of the XIVth century and at the beginning of the XVth century

Although the medieval plague epidemic had a global impact, its intensity varied from region to region in Europe. Plague rates as well as mortality rates were conditioned by climatic and geographical conditions, population density, migration, and trade activities, as well as nutritional opportunities and mental or cultural habits. If we look at Europe as a whole, then the Czech lands, the Bohemian Kingdom and the Moravian Margraviate were among the areas affected by plague epidemics in the XIVth and XVth centuries much less than medieval France, England, Italy, or the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire. The causes of the lower intensity of the plague epidemic in Bohemia and Moravia can be seen in all of the aspects mentioned above, which does not, however, mean that the impact of the plague epidemic in the Kingdom of Bohemia was not, in some regards, comparable to that in Western Europe. Research on the medieval plague epidemic in Bohemia and Moravia has struggled with a lack of relevant sources from the very beginning. The limited explanatory power of the sources has also influenced the limited interest of Czech historians in this topic. The only debate that was ever conducted about the impact of the plague epidemic in a Czech intellectual milieu concerned its possible influence on the outbreak of the Hussite revolution, or the degree of the intensity of the plague in 1380. This debate quite clearly led to the conclusion that in plague epidemics, or in their impact on pre-Hussite society, it is not possible to see a significant or even decisive cause of the outbreak of the Hussite revolution.

Literary Forms/Techniques & Methods of Study

Literary Forms/Techniques & Methods of Study Christopher T. Begg, Thomas Hieke, Fred W. Guyette, Brian J. Meldrum, and John M. Halligan Christopher T. Begg Catholic University of America Thomas Hieke Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz Fred W. Guyette Erskine College and Seminary Brian J. Meldrum Catholic University of America John M. Halligan St. John Fisher College 1880. [Wisdom in the OT in light of Akan (Ghana) Parallels] Emmanuel K. E. Antwi, Isaac F. Adjei, and Joseph K. Asuming, "Understanding Wisdom in the Old Testament through its Akan (Ghana) Parallels: Linkages and Disconnections," OTE 33 (3, 2020) 408-27. Seeking to explain and interpret biblical concepts in various cultures without due regard to the cultures of the biblical world can give rise to difficulties. When this happens, one runs the risk of imposing one's own cultural worldview on the biblical text. At the same time, an understanding of the concepts of one's own culture may be helpful in grasping the meanings of biblical concepts. Against this background, our paper aims to mutually illuminate the concept of wisdom in the OT and among the Akan of Ghana. In pursuit of this goal, we critically analyze the connotations of the concept, sources, and acquisition of wisdom in the OT vis-à-vis those of the Akan ethnic groups in Ghana. By way of such a comparative analysis, we attempt to clarify how the OT concept of wisdom could be understood with the help of its Akan parallels, notwithstanding the differences between them. Our conclusion is that the Akan concept of wisdom can be of help in the interpretation of wisdom in the OT, but cannot fully explain it. Our paper thus pinpoints one of the challenges that interpreters are likely to encounter in the use of reader-centered approaches to biblical hermeneutics. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] Google Scholar 1881. [The Historical-Critical Paradigm in Biblical Studies] Joshua A. Berman, "A Critical Intellectual History of the Historical-Critical Paradigm in Biblical Studies," Exploring the Composition of the Pentateuch, 7-25 [see #2517]. In this essay, I provide a critical intellectual history of the historical-critical paradigm in biblical studies, with particular regard to theories of development of the biblical text. My interest is to understand the origins of the intellectual commitments that shape the discipline today and its disposition toward empirical models of textual growth. I shall examine how theorists over three centuries have entertained the most fundamental questions: What is the goal of the historical-critical study of the Hebrew Bible? What is the probative value of evidence internal within the text itself relative to evidence from external sources? What is the role of intuition in the scholar's work? What is the role of methodological control? As we shall see, scholars in different ages offered very different answers to these questions, answers colored by the prevailing intellectual milieu of their respective times. I proceed by surveying the intellectual currents during the formative period of the discipline, the two centuries between B. Spinoza and J. Wellhausen, with an emphasis on developments in 19th-cent. Germany. We shall see that the axioms that governed 19th-cent. German scholarship were at a great divide from those that governed earlier historicalcritical scholarship. We shall see further that these axioms were based in intellectual currents that were particular to the 19th cent., especially so in Germany. From there, I offer a brief summary of the claims of contemporary scholars who are looking toward empirical models to reconstruct the textual development of the Hebrew Scriptures. I conclude by demonstrating how this vein of scholarship undermines an array of 19th-cent. intellectual [End Page 702] assumptions, but would have been quite at home in earlier periods of the discipline's history. My hope is that this survey will stimulate a new self-awareness among scholars investigating these issues today. [Author's introduction, pp. 8-9—C.T.B.] Google Scholar 1882. [Enemies in the Psalter; Cognitive-Linguistic Approach] Travis J. Bott, "Figurative Enemies in the Psalms: A Cognitive-Linguistic Approach," Gegner im Gebet, 74-106 [see #2541]. This essay investigates the topic of enemies in...

Nostalgia for “Golden Age” in Soviet-era culture

The prerequisites for the study are the relevant trends in modern humanities that study the “era of nostalgia”, the “demand for the past” in the culture of different regions of the world (Z. Bauman, S. Boym, D. Lowenthal and others), and the interest of the global science in the processes that occur in Russian culture. The “taboo on nostalgia” (S. Boym) should be overcome in the Russian intellectual milieu (the consequence of revising the Soviet sociocultural experience) as a factor that introduces subjectivity into research. The purpose of the study is to identify the prospects for the comprehensive study of the mythologization of the Russian “Golden Age” and the functions of the neomyth in Russian culture of the 20th century; the goal is to define the specific features of the key stages in nostalgic mythmaking (from pre-Soviet to post-Soviet). The initial hypothesis: although different generations have their motives for seeking the ideal in the “Golden” 19th century, each stage can only be interpreted in the context of the single mythmaking process. Research methods are based on the interdisciplinary approach; the authors summarize research data in the field of literature, cultural history, and cultural sociology. The result of the analytical review in the study is the significant elaboration of the notions of the most important nostalgic “plot” of 20th-century Russian culture: 1) over the previous century, the neomyth of the Russian “Golden Age” is actualized almost continuously; 2) the latent stages of the neomyth have been the time of creative individuals’ personal searches, their fruits being later in demand by society; 3) a long cycle of the retrospective search for Russian culture ends with a complete change in the meaning-making social context in the post-Soviet era. In the conclusion, the prospect for scientific discussion is outlined.

Filomena SerraFernando LemosThe more I desire / Quanto mais desejo, series Ph, vol. 4: Fernando Lemos

Portuguese Studies vol. 37 no. 1 (2021), 120–34© Modern Humanities Research Association 2021 Reviews Filomena Serra (text) and Fernando Lemos (photographs), The more I desire / Quanto mais desejo, series Ph, vol. 4: Fernando Lemos (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional–Casa da Moeda, 2019). 136 pages. Print. Bilingual text, English and Portuguese. Reviewed by Bernardo Pinto de Almeida (Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto) Few Portuguese artists have experienced a personal and geographic destiny as particular and erratic as that of Fernando Lemos (1926–2019), even if others, who came later, were also travellers discovering the world. Born in Lisbon, Lemos left Portugal for Brazil in 1952, having already published his first book of poems, Teclado Universal [Universal Keyboard]. Frustrated by Salazarism and its misery, he built a new career in this Lusophone country, where he would later be naturalized. He is part of the cultural history of both lands, not only because of his strong attachment to them, but also because of certain acts and various kinds of recognition. As he himself once stated, ‘I am yet another Portuguese looking for something better’. This intelligent, cultured and self-made man started in Portugal as a kind of jack-of-all-trades (locksmith and upholsterer; lithograph and graphic printer) that helped sustain him, and his restless talent that could not earn him a living at the time. This was before he committed himself to photography and moved towards the surrealists — the few still active — and later, in Brazil, tried his hand as a museum director, journalist, curator, competition judge and teacher, besides being an artist. He found some recognition both as a fair and set designer, as well as a photographer and even a painter. This adventurous life made Lemos an exemplary Portuguese: an adventurer never satisfied with his lot. It also made him a daring man who adapted, wisely and good naturedly, to every circumstance, without making it a major problem or drama. Involved in so many activities and with so many desires arousing his curiosity, Lemos was able, once in Brazil, to meet other illustrious Portuguese who saw his multi-moded talent early on, and opened doors for him knowing he would never disappoint. That was how, six years after arriving there, the eminent historian Jaime Cortesão, who was preparing the Fourth Centenary Commemorations of the Foundation of São Paulo, invited him to participate and enabled Lemos to establish himself as a painter. Photography, however, had already gained him recognition in Portugal from the artistic and critical milieu. His lifelong friend, the critic and, later, historian José-Augusto França, for instance, had supported him from an early age. In Brazil, it would again Reviews 121 bring him some attention; in particular, from the poet Manuel Bandeira, who was immediately surprised by ‘the intense atmosphere of mystery, with its, one would say, fluorescent contours’. It was also in Brazil, in the ’50s, that Lemos met the poet Hilda Hilst, who was linked to the Brazilian avant-garde. Their intense year-long romance inspired one of his most beautiful series of photographs, which drew praise from René Girard and other critics and intellectuals, forming a bond between Lemos and the Brazilian intellectual milieu that lasted until the end of his days. This adventurous life, always shared between art and photography, in addition to the diverse other crafts that helped him survive, now with renewed dignity on a par with his culture and intelligence, would occupy the artist throughout the many years in which poetry continued to call him. His art was diversified into a multiplicity that suited his temperament, restless until the end, and always coherent, with a sense of experimentation (and remarkable humour) in its daring creativity. Recognition, however, came late in Portugal, where he remained forever remembered, and deservedly so, for his significant role in the brief shining moment of the Portuguese surrealist movement, in which his career had begun with particular originality.1 These images today are part of the history of this short but intensely lived movement, which was original despite arriving late on the scene; and in which Lemos had a prominent place. And so, after participating, in 1979, in an important...

The Excerptiuncula: A Short Introduction to Boethius’s De arithmetica from the Early Middle Ages

The article deals with the early medieval reception of Boethius’s De arithmetica by offering a critical edition of one hitherto unpublished text, i.e. the Excerptiuncula, which represents a short Carolingian introduction to Boethius’s mathematical work and is written by an anonymous master, presumably at the end of the tenth century. The edited text is nothing more than a summary of the first book of the De arithmetica and is intended for a rudimentary teaching level. Elementary as this text is, the Excerptiuncula is revealing of the intellectual milieu of the Carolingian and Ottonian schools in Europe, demonstarting circulation on both sides of the Alps. More specifically, the summary contributes to clarify how arithmetic was taught in Tegernsee and Montecassino. In the eleventh century, the Excerptiuncula was used by two renown Carolingian scholars, i.e. Froumund of Tegernsee and Lawrence of Amalfi. Together with Montecassino, Archivio dell’Abbazia, MS 189, which preserves Boethius’s De arithmetica, the Excerptiuncula is at present the only known witness of the interest in Boethian number theory at Montecassino during the Desiderian age.

The Study of the Principles of Philosophy of Islamic Art

The main discourse on Islamic art in the western academia primarily views Islamic art through the lens of art history and sociology of art. Islamic art is considered as sacred in Islamic civilisation and culture, and derives its sanctity from the Quran as the fountain from which it has emanated, which Muslims consider to be the Word of God, much like Christ is the Word of God in Christianity. The Quran has played a formative role in shaping the trinity of sacred Islamic art which is Quranic recitation, calligraphy and architecture. However, another approach which not only is viable but can be considered of great importance to the study of Islamic art, is the employment and utilisation of principles of Islamic philosophy and Sufism which were the pillars of the intellectual milieu in which a given work of art is produced. The application of such principles allows a more comprehensive and detailed interpretation of a work of art. In this paper, the primary Islamic philosophy and sufi doctrines that will be discussed are the concepts of imagination, colour, and calligraphy and examples of their application in the khānqāh and shrine ensemble of Shaykh Ṣafi al-Din Ardabīlī in Ardabil, Iran.

Pilgrims and Missionaries of Social Peace: Geneva and Pontigny as Sites of Scandinavian Internationalism in Late Interwar Europe

This article investigates two interlinked sites of Scandinavian socialist internationalism in continental Europe: the Nordic folk high school in Geneva and the humanistic centre created by French philosopher Paul Desjardins in Pontigny. Locating and situating these two nodes on the cultural-political map of late interwar Europe allows for a study of how actors from the popular movements in Denmark, Norway and Sweden mobilised educational ideals and practices to internationalise the experience of Scandinavian social democracy. The analysis shows how the transnational activities of the Nordic folk high school’s study course opened up new spaces for Scandinavian internationalism. In this way, the article argues, the school represented an experiment in internationalism from below where Nordism was deployed as a cultural strategy to create international understanding for working-class Scandinavians; and created new arenas for Nordic encounters with French political and intellectual milieus that admired Scandinavian democracy and social peace.

A Traveller in One’s Homeland: Local Interest in Archaeology and Travel Writing in the Ottoman Greek World in 19th Century Anatolia

This article examines local scholarly interest in archaeology and travel writing in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. It concentrates on the work of an Ottoman Greek intellectual from the provinces, i.e. a travelogue entitled Periegesis eis tin Pamphylian (“Travels in Pamphylia”) written by Dimitri E. Danieloğlu, who belonged to one of the leading Greek families of Antalya in southern Anatolia. By examining this work and focusing on the profile of an Ottoman Greek writer in the provinces, this essay explores the practical meanings and outcomes of modernization, intertwined with a civilizational discourse and modes of local Orientalism. Particularly, the essay dwells on what was possibly local and Greek in this story and aims to situate Periegesis in a broader historical context. It discusses the connection of Periegesis to the European travelogue genre, the emergence of an investigative attention to ancient remains and contemporary society among the educated classes of the empire, and developments in the Ottoman Greek intellectual milieu in the 19th century.

Benyamin Dias Brandon’s Orot Hamivot (1753) : Halacha and Polemics in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam*

Abstract This article considers the halakhic work Orot Hamivot (1753) of Benyamin Dias Brandon, and its posthumous co-editor, Isaac Cohen Belinfante. The article situates this publication in the intellectual Portuguese-Jewish milieu of eighteenth-century Amsterdam and the kinds of scholarship and ideals of erudition that were fostered in its Ets Haim yeshiva. More specifically, the article shows how Brandon’s and Belinfante’s work contributed to a wider tradition of literature, flourishing in the early eighteenth-century, that combined halakhic arguments with polemical defenses of rabbinic authority. This literature built on seventeenth-century precedents, but it also broke new ground by incorporating developments in natural science, such as theories of atomism, into halakhic thought.

Micrography, Medleys, and marks: the visual discernment of text in the calligraphy collection of Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys’s calligraphy collection comprises numerous textual fragments pasted and bound into three volumes, which together document a history of handwriting and textual forms. The calligraphy volumes evidence a deep and multifaceted interest in visual criticism trained on the written word within Pepys’s social and intellectual milieu. In particular, micrographic texts and trompe l’œil ‘Medley’ images offered educated gentleman a body of delightfully curious material on which they could practise and hone communal, comparative, and repeatable modes of critical observation. The article also provides new evidence to show that early Medley images emerged in tandem with the rise of calligraphic collections and were developed by penmasters in collaboration with the interests of seventeenth-century collectors who were fascinated by the impact that optical devices, drawing instruments, and developments in printing techniques could have on the aesthetic rendering of text. From the mid-1690s to the early eighteenth century, the appearance of the written word played a vital role in discussions about visual discernment within English intellectual circles.

“Since Those Days All Things Have Progressed for the Better”: Tradition, Progress, and Creation in Ambrose of Milan

AbstractIn Ambrose’s apologetic writing against the Roman prefect Symmachus, he makes a surprising argument for Christianity’s superiority over Roman religious practices, arguing that Christianity is in fact a newer and therefore superior form of religion. The whole world has “progressed” and so must religious practices. In the letters to Symmachus, Ambrose’s arguments are ad hoc and apologetic, not constructive. This article seeks to understand better the intellectual and historical contexts that make Ambrose’s surprising convictions possible by looking at Ambrose’s writings on creation in the context of the pro-Nicene debates. Considering Ambrose’s writing in the Hexameron, I argue that Ambrose’s account of cosmological progress finds an intellectual milieu in pro-Nicene reflection on the implications of Christ’s divine consubstantiality for a doctrine of creation. When Christ is no longer seen as a mediator between God and the world, a new space is opened up to speak of creation’s change and even “progress” without a worry that doing so will jeopardize creation as the divine handiwork. Ambrose’s apologetic strategy, though apparently not directly related to pro-Nicene debates, is illuminated when seen against this backdrop. The result is a better understanding both of Ambrose’s strategies in particular and of the situation of fourth-century apologetics more broadly.

On the Sources of Nihilism in Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment"

It is well known that Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment reflects the intellectual milieu of the period of its conception. More specifically, the motivation of Raskolnikov's crime is rooted in the nihilism of the radical intelligentsia of the period. In this article, the ideology of Raskolnikov is identified with the ideology of the representatives of the radical intelligentsia, namely Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Dimitri Pisarev. It also traces the continuity and discontinuity of the ideas of these thinkers. Finally, argues that Dostoevsky perceived the evolution and radicalization of the intelligentsia's ideas through the lenses of the evolution and radicalization of the Left Hegelians, namely Feuerbach and Stirner, whose ideology influenced the Russian radical intelligentsia. Thus is brought to the fore the intellectual origins of the Russian radical intelligentsia's nihilism, which was seminal to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

New Light on the Emergence of Māturīdism: Abū Shakūr al-Sālimī (fifth/eleventh century) and his Kitāb al-Tamhīd fī bayān al-tawḥīd

Abstract The present paper focuses on the Arabic theological work al-Tamhīd fī bayān al-tawḥīd (‘Introduction to the Explanation of Monotheism’), authored by the Transoxanian scholar, Abū Shakūr al-Sālimī (fifth/eleventh century). A jurist and theologian, he belonged to the kalām-school in the succession of Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), and which, based on Ḥanafī tradition, forms the second pillar of the Sunni confession alongside the doctrines of Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935) and his followers. Despite increasing activities in the field of editions during the last few decades, details of Māturīdī speculative theology (kalām) still remain insufficiently studied. This deficiency applies, on the one hand, to the utilization of texts, partially or not yet available in text-critical and analytically focused editions. On the other hand, a profound and pressing need for systematic research remains, particularly with regards to the relationship between Māturīdism and Ashʿarism, given that the latter has been studied in much greater detail. Against this background, al-Sālimī is presented in his historical and intellectual milieu. It is shown that his treatise is in the Ḥanafī–Māturīdī tradition, but his doctrines sometimes differ from other Māturīdī teachings. Subsequently, some key topics of the Tamhīd are addressed. A special focus is on the beginning of the dispute between Māturīdī theologians and the Ashʿariyya, where issues of epistemology, prophecy, the doctrine of God’s names and attributes, and the conception of faith that serve as typical examples of Ḥanafī jurisprudence and theology are also treated. Finally, a case study illuminates important issues at the heart of Māturīdī theology, as well as the integration of juridical topics into kalām. Through this approach, this paper intends to introduce the text as a valuable source for the study of Sunni theology in a more comprehensive sense than has previously been considered.