Modern Intellectuals Research Articles

Decolonization of African Studies: Theoretical and Practical Dimensions

The article is devoted to the analysis of the historical dynamics of the development of the processes of decolonization of African studies in the period from the 1960s to the present. The decolonization of knowledge has been a longstanding topic, gaining significant relevance in academic discussions in sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades due to the impact of postcolonial discourse. The author examines the theories and practices related to liberating the knowledge production system that have been suggested and put into action by researchers and sociopolitical leaders of African descent. The paper analyzes initiatives to consolidate researchers, and particular attention is paid to the history of the creation of the Pan-African non-governmental research organization CODESRIA, which is still active today. The study also addresses the debates that occurred at the University of Dar es Salaam between the mid-1960s and 1980. Evidence suggests that during the initial two decades of independence, African intellectuals sought integration at the continent, the diaspora, and the international academic community levels. The emphasis is placed on the factors influencing the necessity of further transformations in the research and educational sphere in the 21st century. These factors encompass epistemic and epistemological injustice, along with academic asymmetry. It is noted that the works of modern intellectuals, such as Achille Mbembe and Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, form an “ideological continuum” with the works of their predecessors, Claude Ake, Samir Amin, Cheikh Anta Diop. The article also introduces and characterizes the concept of pluriversality. The author’s conclusion is that contemporary African researchers focused on decolonizing research and education frequently look to the thoughts of earlier scholars when striving to establish their own niche within the pluriversal system of knowledge.

The Elegant Inkstones and Artful Calligraphy in Modern Korea: The Catalogue of Three Inkstones Studio (三硯齋硯譜, Samyŏnjae yŏnbo)

This study investigates The Catalogue of Three Inkstones Studio (三硯齋硯譜, <i>Samyŏnjae yŏnbo</i>), compiled by Pak Yŏngch’ŏl (朴榮喆, 1879~1939), a prominent Korean bureaucrat, businessman, and collector during the Japanese colonial period. The catalogue centers on three inkstones reputedly associated with notable Chinese and Korean scholars. Pak Yŏngch’ŏl, despite his modernist and enlightenment leanings, was deeply rooted in classical Chinese culture and used his collection to assert his cultural and intellectual identity.</br>The study examines the cultural significance of inkstones, their role in forging social ties, and the strategic utilization of the past by modern intellectuals for self-fashioning. The first inkstone is notable for its inscriptions by Dong Qichang (董其昌), Weng Fanggang (翁方綱), and Kim Chŏnghŭi (金正喜), illustrating the cultural interconnectedness between Chinese and Korean scholars. The second inkstone, crafted by the eighteenth-century scholar Chŏng Ch’ŏlcho (鄭喆祚), is explored in terms of the craftsmanship and social networking practices of the late Chosŏn era. The third inkstone features a poem by Shen Rujin (沈汝瑾) and showcases the transnational cultural exchanges between China, Korea, and Japan.</br>Pak Yŏngch’ŏl’s collection practices and the subsequent compilation of the catalogue reflect his efforts to align himself with the cultural heritage of both China and Korea, while also embracing modernization under Japanese influence. The catalogue not only serves as a historical compendium but also as a reimagined past that aligns with the cultural aspirations of subsequent generations. Through a detailed analysis of the inkstones and their associated texts, the study provides a micro-historical perspective on East Asian intellectual history and material culture, revealing the intricate interplay between cultural memory, networks, and craftsmanship.

Intellectuals in the ruling elite political stratum of modern Russia: theoretical and applied aspects of sociological analysis

The article deals with the rather urgent problem of the qualitative composition of the modern elite political stratum of the Russian society and the place occupied by intellectuals in it. The article compares the categories of intelligentsia and intellectuals, which allows us to say that intellectuals are a special social layer that has a number of basic features of the intelligentsia, with the exception of the representation of many of its members with a special ethical self-determination characteristic of this group. This is largely confirmed by the analysis of biographies of 685 political figures representing the modern Russian political elite. Using the latest research on this problem and the results of his own analysis of biographies of elite members, the author comes to the conclusion that, having the necessary theoretical basis, professional characteristics (in the form of appropriate education, experience of activity) modern intellectuals in the ruling elite form layers, one of which in the ruling elite group represents more formal-technocratic stratum, however, far from the layer of technostructure described by J. Galbraith, and in the near-elite environment – the layer of formally deideologized experts.

The Man of Science as an Intellectual: The Public Mission of Scientist

Purpose. The paper is aimed at identifying the ways of scientist’s influence on the development of modern society as compared to those of intellectuals. Theoretical basis. The socio-anthropological approach to the role of scientists in post-industrial society shows the leading role of people of science as a social group in present-day society. However, philosophical axiology reveals that scientists in today’s society do not have the appropriate social status: neither in state governance nor in the sphere of forming public opinion. The classical doctrine concerning intellectuals has suffered a crisis in recent decades, which is due to the growing gap between the group of intellectuals recognized by society and the sphere of science. A new theoretical approach to determining the role of present-day research scientists as intellectuals is necessary. Originality. Successful development of modern society in conditions of growing social turbulence necessitates the access of research scientists to the sphere of public communication. This is required both by the needs of science advancement itself – to receive its adequate funding and win wide public recognition, and by society’s needs – as it is scientists who can provide reliable diagnostics of social problems and formulate well-grounded programs for overcoming them. Conclusions. For overcoming social barriers and getting access to public space, scientists themselves have to recognize themselves as a destitute social group – those who are unfairly deprived of making principal decisions in today’s society. For that, scientists should become modern intellectuals. Unlike media intellectuals, scientists are to interact not with social masses but, first and foremost, with public elites. The scientist has to gain his/her independent status by achieving the recognition of his/her own ideas among social elites rather than by winning wide personal popularity. Hence, scientists must aim at obtaining the status of the elite for elites – this would reveal in scientists the deepest potential of a modern man.

BOTU’S VIEWS ON LINGUISTICS

Intellectuals who lived and worked at the beginning of the 20th century conducted serious research to solve the problems of our language. They organized a number of scientific conferences on the problem of alphabets and spelling, discussed ways to solve problems in newspapers and magazines. Mahmud Khodiyev, who worked under the pseudonym Botu, was such a passionate linguist, poet and publicist, one of the leading modern intellectuals. The article mentions Bothu’s views on linguistics.

Debate on the True Nobility and Social Classifications of the Nobility in the Early Modern Antiquarian Corpora

The present article examines the impact of the 15th-century Renaissance debate on the true nobility on social beliefs of the English antiquarians of the 16th and 17th centuries. It is based on textual corpora of J. Ferne, T. Milles, J. Selden, M. Carter, and other well-known early modern intellectuals. The author of the article believes that a persistent tendency towards a coherent description and classification of nobility and more broadly — of any social group within the early modern British society — is inseparably connected with the antiquarian tradition of the 16th and 17th centuries. It was within this tradition that so called epistemological turn emerged that led to discursive fragmentation of the entire social order as well as social groups which formed its entirety and complexity. The antiquarian framing of all complexities of social order was based not only on the rejection of an idea of institutional entity — crucial for the medieval corporate theory. In contrast to corporate-functional homogeneity and consistency, it introduced particular group-wide characteristics. These features opened up opportunities for remodeling of the ancient regime with consideration of diversity inherent in social indicia. Nobilitas in the antiquarian texts acquired at least two interconnected meanings. The term was used as a reference to an assemblage of an entire nobility and in this way was very close to a group-wide identity. At the same time, it denoted a total gentility and, in this context, reflected the very complex of Aristotelian and Stoic understanding of the true nobility.

The Well-Tempered Career: Erasmus on the Emotional Health of Scholars

Abstract This lecture explores Erasmus’ beliefs about the life of the healthy Christian humanist, from boy student to mature scholar, through the prism of ‘history of emotions’. It appraises Erasmus’ place in the longer history of scholarly hygiene, a tradition of writing about the physical, psychological, and spiritual health of scholars. What for example does Erasmus have to say about those conditions with which early modern intellectuals were so frequently associated, viz. melancholy and ‘hypochondriac’ disease? Does he pathologize particular kinds of intellectual activity, and what preventatives or remedies does he prescribe for the occupational hazards, if not diseases, of learning? Finally, what was Erasmus’ view of the authority of contemporary learned medicine in relation to these matters?

Dostoevsky as an Artist of the Godless World

Article off ers an unconventional view of Dostoevsky as an artist of the godless world. The author separates Dostoevsky’s Christian worldview from the artistic image of the world he created in his works. In Dostoevsky’s imaginative world, Christianity is only a dream and hope, which is not manifested in real life. While only a few of his characters are focused on it, the absolute majority live their lives as if Christ never existed. The Christian dimension transcends the godless world created by Dostoevsky, only occasionally touching it from the outside as a kind of revelation. The external in this world must be overcome by the internal, which is only possible if one experiences this “external” within themselves, with all its sins and temptations. Dostoevsky’s world is therefore even more godless and frightening than the world in which he had actually lived. Which is also in the nature of things, because the only way to defeat it is by reaching the last satanic depths. Dostoevsky’s texts were originally addressed to secular people, to the religiously ignorant intelligentsia, as opposed to devout Christians. This fact also determines the perception of Dostoevsky’s works by diff erent types of readers. The author proposes a new classifi cation of types Dostoevsky’s readers belong to. The article introduces the concept of a “gnostic myth” about Dostoevsky, the emergence of which is characteristic of modern intellectuals. The historical context of the appearance of the Dostoevsky phenomenon is that Dostoevsky himself was a phenomenon of a traditional person living in conditions of a secular civilization of the modern era. Formed by a millennium of Russian Christian culture, Dostoevsky had been thrown into the godless intellectual world of the 19th century. This godless world, prophetically shown by Dostoevsky, is the world of the 21st century, which he had already envisioned in the 19th century, and this insight into the “new” world ruled by “demons” anticipated the genre of “dystopia” and is in fact his main artistic achievement.

Human Being as a Self-Responsible and Connected Being

Background: In contemporary scenario, we can notice a significant drop in self-responsibility and social connectedness among modern intellectuals and youth. As a result, several irresponsible and denigrating comments against cultural tools and practices continue to surface in the media and on the social networking sites. Psychological studies have identified co-occurrence between loss of reliance on cultural practices and emergence of physical and mental health issues. Objectives: Against this backdrop, current study has sought to analyzes integrative and comprehensive perspective of human nature found in Gandhian literature to expand the paradigms of self-nurturance and psychological counseling. Materials and Method: The data were analyzed by using thematic analysis. Results: Gandhian view goes beyond the prevalent notions of individualism and identifies over-indulgence in sensory pleasures, lack of self-investigation, utilitarianism, and lack of faith in God as causal pathways for mental health concerns. Addressing these challenges requires attending to the functioning of body, mind, spirit /soul, and nature (svabhav). Conclusion: Inculcating spirituality, love, non-violence, truth, theism, service, and celibacy in the process of psychological counseling is important. The Gandhian perspective especially acknowledges the relevance of self-expansion, sensory restraint, prayer, and inculcation of peace as techniques for Psychological counseling to restore physical and mental health.

Heaven's Wrath: The Protestant Reformation and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World

Heaven's Wrath: The Protestant Reformation and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World

Достоевский как художник обезбоженного мира

The article offers a view of Dostoevsky as an artist of a godless world. The author distingueshes Dostoevsky's Christian worldview from the artistic image of the world that the writer created in his works. In Dostoevsky's artistic world, Christianity is only a dream and a hope, not real life. Only a few of Dostoevsky's characters aspire to it, but the vast majority of them live as if Christ did not exist. The Christian reality is transcendent to Dostoevsky's godless world and only occasionally touches it from outside as a kind of revelation. In this world the external must be overcome by the internal, but this is only possible as a result of experiencing this "external" within oneself, with all its sins and temptations. This is why Dostoevsky's world is even more godless and fearful than the world in which he lived was in fact. And this is also natural, because the only way to find a way out of it is to reach the last depths of Satanism. Dostoevsky's texts are originally addressed to secular people, to religiously ignorant intellectuals, but not to convinced Christians. This is also the reason for the perception of Dostoevsky's works by various types of readers. The article proposes the notion of a "gnostic myth" about Dostoevsky, the creation of which is characteristic of modern intellectuals. It is shown that for the adherents of the "gnostic myth", immersion into the world of Dostoevsky creates the illusion of "spiritual life" and intellectual chosenness, replacing the religious life with an artistic illusion. Dostoevsky is a man shaped by a millennium of Russian Christian culture, abandoned in the godless world of the 19th century intelligentsia.  The godless world prophetically depicted by Dostoevsky is the world of the twenty-first century, in which "demons" rule, and this is his main artistic achievement.

Introduction: Margin Release

Introduction: Margin Release

The Ideological Emancipation of Chinese Women and Its Idealistic Pursuit in the May 4th Movement

The May 4th Movement of 1919 is a significant period of ideological change in Chinese modern history, and in it is during this time that the ideological enlightenment of modern Chinese women made its debut. Led by modern intellectuals, they, from all angles, criticized the traditional social structure, traditional etiquette and feudal family system hindering the liberation and development of women, and further discussed the emancipation of women in terms of ideological education, economic independence, family status, freedom of marriage, ethics, social communication, as well as other relevant social issues. The intense exchange of ideas influenced public opinion, provoking enormous responses from all sections of society, particularly from women. Based on real educational and economic issues concerning women, combined with theories, real thoughts and practices, and carried out with a series of practical social reform activities, the ideological emancipation of women in the May 4th Movement of 1919 laid a solid foundation for the transition of traditional women to modern women, thus becoming the source of ideological emancipation of modern women in China.

Historical Consciousness, Part I: Origins and Characteristics

AbstractAlthough history as a scientific discipline continues to be taught in universities, historical consciousness is being displaced in modern self‐understanding by scientific rationality. There is no necessary conflict between the two. Each is a form of critical understanding, and each benefits from the work of the other. But whereas modern intellectuals perceive the value of analyzing events outside of time and history in purely formal or mathematical terms, the value of understanding the place of events in the larger patterns of history is losing ground. A likely cause of this loss is the decline in intellectual respect for the roots of historical consciousness in the prophetic tradition found in the Hebrew Bible. No other culture in the ancient world focused attention on questions that related personal and collective behavior to the larger context of universal history. As recognition of that remarkable human achievement slowly dissolves in modern awareness, we are losing the capacity to question the wisdom of geopolitical, environmental, and technological changes taking place with long‐term consequences. In a word, we are losing perspective. This is an almost completely invisible feature of the wholesale rejection of the Bible as a source of self‐understanding.

Fu Lei: A Patriotic Chinese Intellectual

Fu Lei, a well-known Chinese scholar, art theorist and translator, is well versed in a variety of Chinese and Western arts. He has profound cultural and academic knowledge, unique insights, meticulous and rigorous style of study, and a sincere pursuit of art and truth. He is an iron man with personality and thought, with ill-fated destiny, but he never surrendered. He has a strong character and is known as the most backbone of modern Chinese intellectuals. This article reviews Fu Lei's ups and downs throughout his life, introduces his representative works and writing styles in different periods, as well as the social influence of his works, and appreciates his passion for literature and art, noble personality and patriotism.

Knowing oneself and one’s home country: Reflections on Fang Junbi's experiences from the perspectives of emotions and feminist history

Fang Junbi 方君璧 was a famous Chinese female painter of the twentieth century and a core member of the Wang Jingwei 汪精衛 clique. As an intellectual woman of both the old and new eras, she had fierce national affection and patriotic zeal and also held moral ideals on the lasting loyalty and unchanging nature of love and friendship. During World War II she experienced the loss of country and family and the course of Wang Jingwei seeking peace with Japan. While extremely pained internally, her feelings for Wang remained as strong as ever, and when he fell gravely ill she risked her life to travel to Japan to be with him. Wang gave her an inkstone as a parting gift, signifying that the affection between the two was as solid as stone. During the 1970s she accepted an invitation to return to China where she witnessed the historic achievements of New China and sincerely identified with the Communist Party of China and its revolutionary culture. Knowing herself and her home country was the deepest sentiment of her life, and these two sentiments cannot be fully accounted for using the narrative of "women's liberation" in Chinese revolution or Western feminist discourse. Through the winding path of affection in the deep spiritual connection between Fang Junbi and her sister Fang Junying 方君瑛, her husband Zeng Zhongming 曾仲鳴, and her teacher and friend Wang Jingwei, we can understand their personalities, values, and modes of behavior, enriching our knowledge of the world of affection, ethics, and souls of modern Chinese female intellectuals, and providing resources for reflecting on the personal growth of women today.

The making of a littoralminzu: The Dan in late Qing–Republican intellectual writings

AbstractTracing the assumption behind China's nationality identification that the Dan constituted a littoralminzu, this article examines the rise and circulation of “Dan” as a racial entity in writings by Chinese thinkers, reformers, and scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. It explains how “Dan” emerged as azu, minzu, zhongzu, andrenzhongin late-Qing political polemics and pedagogical texts, and how this notion was combined with Republican-era scholarship on the Dan within and across the disciplines of popular literature, folklore, ethnohistory, and anthropology. Both Western and imperial Chinese scholarly trends and racialist ideas shaped pre-1949 Dan studies. Modern intellectuals presented the Dan as a non-Han minority based on various nationalist concerns as well as their Han and regional identities. From a historical perspective, this article redraws the geoethnic landscape of modern China by taking transregional littoral fringes into consideration and calling for attention to those identified as non-Han before the nationality investigation in the 1950s but as Han afterward.

A Contrastive Study on the Confessions novel of a Melancholic Motif for Korean and Chinese Modern Intellectuals

본 연구는 근대지식인을 다룬 한국과 중국의 고백소설 네 편을 중심으로 양국의 근대 수용 역사 중 발생하는우울의 기제는 무엇이고 지식인의 우울 정서 형성에 어떤 영향을 주었는지 살펴본 연구이다. 이광수의 ｢방황｣과 위다푸의 ｢침륜(沈淪)｣은 근대일본에서의 유학 체험을 제재로 한 작품이다. 작중 주인공들은 약소국 국민이자 식민지인으로 전근대의 모습을 한 자국과 근대 국가를 대비하며 우울감에 쉽게 빠지는 모습을 보인다. 일본이라는 근대식 제도 안에서 배제되거나, 조국에서 부여받은 지식인 선각자로서의 책무에 부담감을 느끼거나, 혹은 그 책무를 성공적으로 수행하기 어려운 자국의 상황과 조건에 대해 인식하면서 우울의 감정이 발생했던 것을 알 수 있다. 현상윤의 ｢핍박｣과 루쉰의 ｢술집에서(在酒樓上)｣를 통해서는 유학 이후 자국에서의 지식인의 삶의 모습과 그들에게 만연한 우울의 기제의 원인이 무엇인지 살펴보았다. 분석 결과 사회 구조적 변화에 따라 근대적 계몽 지식이더 이상 주류 담론으로 논의되지 않고, 따라서 계몽지식인의 역할이 소멸한 시기에 우울이 발생했음이 확인된다. 식민지조선의 경우 지식인을 통한 계몽적 개혁이 수용되지 못하는 본질적인 이유는 일제의 식민지배가 심화되고 정치 사회의 구조가 재편되었던 것과 관련이 있었다고 볼 수 있다. 진보와 개혁, 우울과 패배주의라는 양가적 속성은 근대시기 지식인의 인물상과 정서를 형성하는 두 가지 보편적 기제라고 볼 수 있다. 앞서 분석한 네 개의 소설텍스트는 이와 같은 근대의 보편적 속성의 영향을 받은 우울함의 정서와 그 발생 기제를 설명한다.

“Islam” in Sanskrit doxography: a reconsideration via the writings of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī

AbstractIn the ongoing debate regarding the construction of the modern concept of “Hinduism”, recent research has considered the ways in which the pre-colonial encounter with Islam may have served as a catalyst in the crystallisation of an increasingly self-aware “Hindu” identity. Andrew Nicholson (Unifying Hinduism, 2010), in particular, has examined the genre of Sanskrit doxography to affirm that such a process of crystallisation was indeed taking place, as the transformations in this genre over time indicate a nascent Hindu identity emerging in the face of the “Muslim threat”. This article reevaluates Nicholson's account with reference to the writings of one Sanskrit intellectual operating at the height of Muslim power in South Asia: the figure of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī (fl. sixteenth-early seventeenth centuries). Madhusūdana's short doxography, the Prasthānabheda, often features in arguments for the pre-colonial roots of the concept of “Hinduism”; Madhusūdana's other doxographical writings, however, are typically neglected. Based upon an analysis of Madhusūdana's Siddhāntabindu and Vedāntakalpalatikā, this article suggests that a more nuanced consideration of the different audiences and authorial intentions that different doxographers had in mind can offer a modified picture of how early modern Sanskrit intellectuals were responding to the Muslim presence in the subcontinent.

VIEWS OF EASTERN THINKERS ON EDUCATION

The use of the legacy of Eastern scholars and thinkers in the upbringing of young people as modern intellectuals is one of the urgent problems. The hadiths collected by Imam al-Bukhari, the teachings of Naqshbandi, the teachings of Tirmidhi, the wisdom of Yassavi, the works of Ibn Sina, Farobi, Beruni, Mirzo Ulugbek, Yusuf Khas Hajib and others provide views on the education of youth, the use of their sources in the educational process important. The views of Eastern scholars and thinkers on child education can also be used to improve inclusive education. In an inclusive learning environment, classes are conducted according to the abilities of the children with disabilities, taking into account their weaknesses. Then the child's social adaptation, such as the ability to work in a team, joint work planning, enrich the content of activities, the acquisition of cultural and hygienic skills, will be accelerated. It also requires thinking skills, understanding of adults and classmates, and collaboration with them. The task of the study is not how much knowledge children with special needs have when entering school, but how important it is for them to be ready to acquire new knowledge, adapt to the environment, analyze events independently and master movement skills.