scholarly journals James Clifford's Influence on Bronislaw Malinowski: The Moral Implications of Intertemporal Heterarchy

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-29
Author(s):  
Miloš Milenković
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
History Of Anthropology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Holistic Interpretation ◽  
To Come ◽  
Science Methodology ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Social Science Methodology

Drawing on the explanation already offered for the confusion of positivism with realism in the epistemological imagination of the author and founder of postmodern anthropology, the paper analyzes the moral implications of dealing with problems characteristic of the philosophy of science by literary-theoretical means. The transdisciplinary migration of "realism" from literary theory to social science methodology has produced a whole new history of anthropology. The history of pre-postmodern anthropology constructed in this manner can be said to fit the register of some sort of comparative-cultural theory of retroactive moral judgement, complementing postmodern anthropology as a general theory of writing by political subjects, so that the theoretical-methodological dilemmas of postmodern anthropology do not constitute proof of the legitimacy of a holistic interpretation of the discipline’s founders’ intentions, but rather lead to neo-pyrrhonic, formalistic endeavours to uphold, by respecting academic trappings, the academic authority of the discipline whose subject, method and purpose, as a rule, even colleagues from adjacent departments for various reasons fail to understand. In the paper, evidence for this is derived from Clifford's writing of Malinowski, and the moral implications of the unfortunate analogy between the writing of political subjects and the writing of disciplinary founders are followed through. The paper then goes on to explain that the critique of the possibilities of misuse, particularly through political instrumentalization, of anthropological fictions as evidence of Others did not have to come at the cost of sacrificing the semblance of continuity in the establishment of anthropology as a proper academic discipline.

scholarly journals Un historien se penche sur son passé

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-141
Author(s):  
Marcel Trudel
Keyword(s):  
Academic Career ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Objective Assessment ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Canadian History ◽  
French Canada ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
Assessment Of Evidence ◽  
Second World

Abstract Every historian ought to be invited to appear before his peers, as formal retirement looms, to present his reflections on his discipline. Looking backwards is, of course, an historian's profession; to do so in individual terms is, however, a deep personal pleasure. This is especially true when so much has taken place during one lifetime, both to the profession of which one is a part, and the society within which one grew. The younger generation of historians should remember how different things were. It was common to come, as the author did, to the profession with a training in a different academic discipline; unlike today's teachers, one could and did become a Canadian historian without the intense formal study which marks the contemporary graduate school. Choosing a profession research in Canadian history was the result of happenstance; selecting a sub-field — in the author's case, the history of the French régime — was a personal one, resulting from a need to know much more about the origins of the society which developed along the St. Lawrence. This lack of a formal historical profession in French Canada did not reflect a disinterest in the past; to the contrary, the society's culture was firmly rooted in its past. But it was a history of a special type, and its advocates were vigorously opposed to any reassessment which challenged their cherished notions. Today's younger historians must not forget the handicaps which their predecessors had to overcome. There was a day, not so very long ago, when, to write the history of French Canada, one had to be both French Canadian and an active Catholic. Behind each completed monograph stands a litany of obstacles: the precarious nature of an academic career, the chronic inadequacy of its wages, the unsatisfactory quality of archival institutions (and sometimes of their staffs), the diplomacy required to obtain the evidence one needed, and the difficulties in finding a publisher and seeing the manuscript to printing. The joy in the process rested with the personal achievement, and its acceptance by the few whose judgement you respected. Only the obstinate and truly devoted scholar survived such circumstances. What has been achieved? History in French Canada has made enormous strides since the Second World War, in part because of the influence of a "scientific" view of historical study, in part through the cross-fertilisation of associated disciplines, in part because of the scholarly standards of contemporary historians. Ideological dogmatism, which has itself been a danger to the integrity of the history that has been written, has largely been overcome. The task of the historian remains the objective assessment of evidence, so that the integrity of history does not itself become the historian's first victim. To assist in this difficult task historians must continue to call on the resources of sister disciplines, such as geography, sociology, economics and law. These serve to broaden one's perspective, even though some of these techniques frankly mystify us with their complexity. Sometimes it appears that the use of social science methods obscures actual results, that effective communications has been weakened by jargon, and that overspecialisation threatens the meaningful generalisation. Yet in the end one trusts that an intelligible history results. So long as the historian refuses to serve a political or ideological master, we all have a future. If the historian, on the other hand, seeks the role of prophet, he departs from his proper place.

Conceptualizing Policy Change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Guiney
Keyword(s):  
Policy Change ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Early Release ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
History Of ◽  
Science Methodology ◽  
Social Science Methodology

The chapter sets out a theoretical framework for the systematic and historically grounded analysis of early release in England and Wales between 1960 and 1995. It reviews the existing criminological literature on the history of criminal justice and reflects upon the tendency to conceptualize policy change as the product of individual action or the socio-economic shifts associated with late twentieth-century modernity. It goes on to consider the mediating role of political institutions in shaping complex policy outcomes and presents a theoretical framework for the analysis of early release based upon the broad tradition of historical institutionalism. The chapter concludes with an honest appraisal of the challenges facing a criminologist doing historical study and reflects upon the largely untapped potential of archival research as a criminological and social science methodology.

scholarly journals Development of International Relations at the Periphery: The Case of Bangladesh

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-255
Author(s):  
Lailufar Yasmin
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Western Country ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
Ir Studies ◽  
Significant Area ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
The University

International Relations (IR) is no longer considered as an academic discipline that analyzes the major powers or great powers’ activities only. From its Cold War content of emphasizing on traditional state-centric security, it has traversed a long way to expand its subject matter. Similarly, smaller nations and their imprints on international politics are also emerging as a significant area of inquiry in IR. This article seeks to contribute to this inquiry by discussing Bangladesh’s rising significance and how academic IR addresses this issue. It traces the history of IR in Bangladesh as well as its gradual expansion. It discusses the growth of IR as an academic discipline at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, that gradually led to the development of IR studies in other parts of the country. The article documents this growth, which is the first of its kind to trace the rise and development of IR in Bangladesh. It therefore fulfils the lacuna in understanding how and where the growth of IR took place in a non-western country. One might contend what is the relevance of studying IR in Bangladesh. The article argues that despite being physically small , academic IR has generated interest in Bangladesh due to the changing geostrategic significance of the country. The article outlines the rising geopolitical significance of Bangladesh where great powers are interested to come and be a part of Bangladesh’s development. It is in this context, the study of IR becomes more pertinent in Bangladesh.

A Watershed in Mexican Rural History: Some Thoughts on the Reconciliation of Conflicting Interpretations

1971 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Coy
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Conflict Theory ◽  
History Of Anthropology ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Short History ◽  
American Anthropologist ◽  
Rural History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Constant Feature

In the short history of anthropology as an academic discipline, polemics tinged with personal recrimination have been a constant feature. One might even be led to suspect that controversy has become a firm technique, in line with conflict theory, so that in the middle ground between opposing interpretations of social behaviour may be found a more acceptable aspect of the truth. ‘Penetrating analyses’, so the aphorism might run, ‘are tempered in the fire of animosity.’ Some protagonists had a positive genius for attracting thinly-veiled contumely and for polarizing opinion, even after they had ceased to be practising anthropologists. Perhaps the best example of this was Radcliffe-Brown, as a perusal of the journalsOceaniain 1955 and theAmerican Anthropologistfrom 1951 to 1956 will readily disclose. This method of advancing knowledge, if we may call it such, did not die with Radcliffe-Brown; it has been used many times since—and the discipline is the richer, one hastens to add.

Culture

Anthropology ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hai Ren
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Cultural Imperialism ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
History Of Anthropology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History

Culture is a term that describes and characterizes various ways in which human differences and similarities are recognized and marked. It is inseparable from many important ideas such as cultural tradition, cultural relativism, cultural imperialism, popular culture, mass culture, etc. Moreover, culture is often used as a recognizable genre that marks a division of labor among anthropologists (and other scholars). Cultural anthropology itself is built on the conceptualization of culture’s meanings, its changes, and its problems, all of which are interdisciplinary. The questions of culture, its conceptualization, and its embedded meanings of civilization, the nation-state, aesthetics, economy, and everyday life are tied to the entire history of anthropology as an academic discipline, not just in Western countries such as the United States, Britain, France, and Germany but also in many other countries. As a foundational concept of anthropology, culture has been continuously shaped to adapt to changes both inside and outside the discipline.

scholarly journals Interconnections between theory, history and imagination in anthropology

Sociologija ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 323-350
Author(s):  
Nada Sekulic
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
History Of Anthropology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Imaginative Thinking

The article examines the interconnections between theory, history and imagination in anthropology. Anthropology as academic discipline was established on the scholars? endeavors to raise the history above simple historiography descriptions to the level of theoretical knowledge and nomotetic science, based on the principles of rationality. Therefore, in a way, the contribution of imaginative thinking to the emergence of anthropology and its influence on the formative processes of multi-cultural exchange has been underestimated. An revised analysis of the importance of imagination in these processes makes possible revision of the history of anthropology asking for new anthropological "literacy" focused on understanding the formative aspects of imagination in constitution of knowledge.

The History of the History of American Education, 1900-1976: The Uses of the Past

1976 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sol Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Teacher Training ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
History Of Education ◽  
American Education ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come

Most recent histories of American education begin with an attack that enumerates the ways in which Ellwood P. Cubberley and other traditional historians of the early twentieth century stymied the development of the field. Indeed, these works suggest that the tradition of Cubberley and company was the only obstacle to good history of education until the pathbreaking contributions of Bernard Bailyn and Lawrence Cremin in the early 1960s. In this article, Sol Cohen argues that a rich and controversial chapter in the history of the history of education has been forgotten in the zeal to get on with the "new" history. He contends that historians need to come to terms with the struggles, primarily in the 1930s and 1940s, between those who would make the field purely "functional"—addressed to teacher training and to contemporary social problems—and those who would make it an academic discipline. After tracing the development and context of those struggles,Cohen concludes by noting certain dangerous continuities between the past and the present in the craft of history of education and cautions that progress can be made only by acknowledging and understanding that past.

We Have Tasted the Powers of the Age to Come: Thinking the Force of the Event—from Dynamis to Puissance

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Clément Mercier
Keyword(s):  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
Interpretative Model

Responding to the provocative phrase ‘The Age of Grammatology’, I propose to question the notion of ‘age’, and to interrogate the powers or forces, the dynameis or dynasties attached to the interpretative model of historical periodisation. How may we think the undeniable actuality of the event beyond the sempiternal history of ages, and beyond the traditional, onto-teleological chain of power, possibility, force or dynamis that undergirds such history?

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Winter
Keyword(s):  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Rich Diversity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Oppression ◽  
The Rich ◽  
To Come

This concluding chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. The book has shown that the multiplicity of lived ʻAlawi experiences cannot be reduced to the sole question of religion or framed within a monolithic narrative of persecution; that the very attempt to outline a single coherent history of “the ʻAlawis” may indeed be misguided. The sources on which this study has drawn are considerably more accessible, and the social and administrative realities they reflect consistently more mundane and disjointed, than the discourse of the ʻAlawis' supposed exceptionalism would lead one to believe. Therefore, the challenge for historians of ʻAlawi society in Syria and elsewhere is not to use the specific events and structures these sources detail to merely add to the already existing metanarratives of religious oppression, Ottoman misrule, and national resistance but rather to come to a newer and more intricate understanding of that community, and its place in wider Middle Eastern society, by investigating the lives of individual ʻAlawi (and other) actors within the rich diversity of local contexts these sources reveal.

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