Kemi Morgan and the Second Reconstruction of Ibadan History

1991 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 93-112
Author(s):  
Toyin Falola

I did not set out to write a new book, not even to write thehistory of Ibadan. I intended to re-write the old man's book.The concerns which dominated Yoruba historiography in the nineteenth century were similar to those of the first half of this century. Primary among these concerns were the patriotic desire to document Yoruba history, explain the turbulence of the nineteenth century, and inspire the new generation with a sense of history. Isaac Babalola Akinyele (1881–1964), the first to write a chronicle on Ibadan, expressed these concerns in the preface to the first edition of his book, Iwe I tan Ibadan, published in 1911. He explained that the origin of the book was the invitation extended to him in May 1911 by an Ibadan-based society, the Egbe Onife He Yoruba (“Lovers of the Yoruba”) to give a lecture on “Ancient and Modern Ibadan.” In the same month, he delivered a lecture which he later expanded and published into a book in order to preserve history at a time when the knowledge about the past was being forgotten and the elders were passing on. Chief Akinyele believed that it was urgent to document the oriki of Yoruba Obas, again being forgotten because only a few persons were interested in them. To him the oriki reveal much about Yoruba history. He also believed that the Yoruba language was undergoing a decline, and that there was a need for a rescue mission. He concluded his preface by appealing to his readers to accept his work and to ignore any derogatory remarks on people and ethnic groups in the oriki, which were composed by poets to eulogize the achievements of chiefs and warriors during a period of warfare. Finally, he enjoined all the Yoruba to unite, to learn from the British nation where everybody, irrespective of differences in language and culture, had united in order to build a strong and prosperous nation.

Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari

This chapter examines the lack of continuous tradition of the art of the theatre in the history of Jewish culture. Theatre as art and institution was forbidden for Jews during most of their history, and although there were plays written in different times and places during the past centuries, no tradition of theatre evolved in Jewish culture until the middle of the nineteenth century. In view of this absence, the author discusses the genesis of Jewish theatre in Eastern Europe and in Eretz-Yisrael (The Land of Israel) since the late nineteenth century, encouraged by the Jewish Enlightenment movement, the emergence of Jewish nationalism, and the rebirth of Hebrew as a language of everyday life. Finally, the chapter traces the development of parallel strands of theatre that preceded the Israeli theatre and shadowed the emergence of the political infrastructure of the future State of Israel.


Literator ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. Steyn

A study of the history of South African universities from 1918 to 1948 showed that six factors influenced the use of a particular language as a language medium at a university, namely economic and political power, as well as the number of people in the language community (which determines matters such as the official status of the language and the availability of money for universities), lecturers' and students ’ knowledge of the language, its position as scholarly language, language loyalty and attitudes toward other languages and the support enjoyed by language and related ideologies. Whereas these factors were reasonably favourable for Afrikaans universities in the past, they currently pose a threat to the survival of Afrikaans-medium universities. The standpoint is defended that retaining Afrikaans as educational and scholarly language should be an important factor when making decisions on universities. The tension between internationalisation and retention of the own language and culture is also topical in Europe, and steps have been taken to try to protect the retention of Dutch as language medium at Dutch and Flemish universities.


2021 ◽  
pp. 389-405
Author(s):  
Lars Magnusson

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in Cameralism, both as a discourse and as an administrative political economy, in both theory and practice. Attention has been drawn to how Cameralism—defined as thought and practice—should be understood. The aim of this article is to take a step back and focus on the historiography of Cameralism from the nineteenth century onwards. Even though many in recent times have challenged old and seemingly dated conceptualizations and interpretations, they are still very much alive. Most profoundly this has implied that Cameralism most often in the past has been acknowledged as an expression of—German. as it were—exceptionalism to the general history of economic doctrine and thinking.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 152-168
Author(s):  
Tiina Aikas

In recent years we have witnessed a growing contemporary use of Sámi offering places by various actors, for example tourists, the local population and contemporary pagans. Hence, sites that the heritage authorities and researchers have seen as belonging to the past have gained new relevance. Nevertheless, Sámi religion is often presented in museums in relation to history and prehistory. Sámi culture has been presented in museums and exhibitions since the nineteenth century. In pointing out that this long history of museum displays affects how Sámi culture is presented in contemporary museums, Nika Potinkara (2015:41) suggests that we can renew, comment on or question the old presentations. This article explores the representations of Sámi religion in four museums and exhibitions in Northern Finland, and will answer the following research question: How is Sámi religion presented and what kind of themes are present? Here museums are studied as arenas for the dissemination of results of knowledge production. What kind of image of Sámi religion do they share?    


2020 ◽  
pp. 217-248
Author(s):  
Roma Bončkutė

SOURCES OF SIMONAS DAUKANTAS’S BUDĄ SENOWĘS-LËTUWIÛ KALNIENÛ ĨR ƵÁMAJTIÛ (1845) The article investigates Simonas Daukantas’s (1793–1864) BUDĄ Senowęs-Lëtuwiû Kalnienû ĩr Ƶámajtiû (The Character of the Lithuanian Highlanders and Samogitians of the Old Times, 1845; hereafter Bd) with regards to genre, origin of the title, and the dominant German sources of the work. It claims that Daukantas conceived Bd because he understood that the future of Lithuania is closely related to its past. A single, united version of Lithuanian history, accepted by the whole nation, was necessary for the development of Lithuanian national identity and collective feeling. The history, which up until then had not been published in Lithuanian, could have helped to create the contours of a new society by presenting the paradigmatic events of the past. The collective awareness of the difference between the present and the past (and future) should have given the Lithuanian community an incentive to move forward. Daukantas wrote Bd quickly, between 1842 and May 28, 1844, because he drew on his previous work ISTORYJE ƵEMAYTYSZKA (History of the Lithuanian Lowlands, ~1831–1834; IƵ). Based on the findings of previous researchers of Daukantas’s works, after studying the dominant sources of Bd and examining their nature, this article comes to the conclusion that the work has features of both cultural history and regional historiography. The graphically highlighted form of the word “BUDĄ” used in the work’s title should be considered the author’s code. Daukantas, influenced by the newest culturological research and comparative linguistics of the 18th–19th centuries, propagated that Lithuanians originate from India and, like many others, found evidence of this in the Lithuanian language and culture. He considered the Budini (Greek Βουδίνοι), who are associated with the followers of Buddha, to be Lithuanian ancestors. He found proof of this claim in the language and chose the word “būdas” (character), which evokes aforementioned associations, to express the idea of the work.


Author(s):  
Federico Varese

From the mid-nineteenth century, many Sicilians, including members of the mafia, were on the move. After sketching the contours of the mafia in Sicily in the nineteenth century, this chapter outlines the parallel history of Italian migration and mafia activities in New York City and Rosario, Argentina, and offers an analytic account of the diverging outcomes. Only in the North American city did a mafia that resembled the Sicilian one emerge. The Prohibition provided an enormous boost to both the personnel and power of Italian organized crime. The risk of punishment was low, the gains to be made were enormous, and there was no social stigma attached to this trade.


2020 ◽  
pp. 303-308
Author(s):  
Xiaoqun Xu

The conclusion points out the multidimensional interactions of many factors in the functions of Chinese law and justice in the past and present and delineates four overlapping historical contexts for an understanding of such functions. These are the indigenous traditions in the long history of China; Western influences from the nineteenth century and especially on the transformations in the twentieth century; interactions between lawmakers and state agents, and between state actions and societal responses; and the reality of justice being done in relative and imperfect ways under the best circumstances, due to human fallibility.


1984 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 199-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blair Worden

Toleration is a Victorian subject, a monument to Victorian liberalism. ‘To us who have been educated in the nineteenth century’, proclaimed F. A. Inderwick in his book on the Interregnum, ‘any declaration inconsistent with religious toleration would be abhorrent and inadmissible’. His sentiment would not have seemed controversial to a generation raised on such best-selling works as Buckle’s History of Civilisation in England and Lecky’s History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism. It may be that the Victorians, enquiring into the origins of the toleration which they had achieved, were prone to congratulate the past on becoming more like the present. Yet in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when interest in the subject was perhaps at its peak, we can also detect, in the statements on toleration of a Creighton or a Figgis, a fear that the present might become more like the past: that materialism and religious indifference might destroy the moral foundations of toleration, and foster a new barbarism which would persecute Christians afresh.


2015 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 245-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary Sweet

This article offers an analysis of the preparation, publication and reception of the two separate versions of William Gell's Pompeiana, texts that exercised a formative influence over Victorian understanding of not just Roman Pompeii, but of domestic Roman life more broadly throughout the nineteenth century, and that highlight a transition from eighteenth-century antiquarianism to a more ‘archaeological’ approach to the past in the nineteenth century. Using unpublished correspondence that has been overlooked by other scholarship on Gell, it argues that the form and content of the volumes responded to both contemporary fascination with the history of domestic life and the need for an affordable volume on Pompeii. But the volumes also reflected many of Gell's more personal interests, developed in a career of travelling in Greece, Asia Minor and Spain, and were a product of his circumstances: they were conceived in order that Gell (and his coadjutor John Peter Gandy in the first edition) might earn much-needed additional income, and were a means through which Gell could consolidate his social position in Naples by establishing his authoritative expertise on Pompeii.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Megill

In recent years David Christian and others have promoted “Big History” as an innovative approach to the study of the past. The present paper juxtaposes to Big History an old Big History, namely, the tradition of “universal history” that flourished in Europe from the mid-sixteenth century until well into the nineteenth century. The claim to universality of works in that tradition depended on the assumed truth of Christianity, a fact that was fully acknowledged by the tradition’s adherents. The claim of the new Big History to universality likewise depends on prior assumptions. Simply stated, in its various manifestations the “new” Big History is rooted either in a continuing theology, or in a form of materialism that is assumed to be determinative of human history, or in a somewhat contradictory amalgam of the two. The present paper suggests that “largest-scale history” as exemplified in the old and new Big Histories is less a contribution to historical knowledge than it is a narrativization of one or another worldview. Distinguishing between largest-scale history and history that is “merely” large-scale, the paper also suggests that a better approach to meeting the desire for large scale in historical writing is through more modest endeavors, such as large-scale comparative history, network and exchange history, thematic history, and history of modernization.


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