Combining Intellectual History and the History of the Book: A Case Study on the Concept of Folk in Popular Literature in the Nineteenth Century

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lone Kølle Martinsen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals VIRTUE LANGUAGE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY ORIENTALISM: A CASE STUDY IN HISTORICAL EPISTEMOLOGY

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 689-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
HERMAN PAUL
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Historical Epistemology ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Thought Pattern ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dependency Relations

Historical epistemology is a form of intellectual history focused on “the history of categories that structure our thought, pattern our arguments and proofs, and certify our standards for explanation” (Lorraine Daston). Under this umbrella, historians have been studying the changing meanings of “objectivity,” “impartiality,” “curiosity,” and other virtues believed to be conducive to good scholarship. While endorsing this historicization of virtues and their corresponding vices, the present article argues that the meaning and relative importance of these virtues and vices can only be determined if their mutual dependencies are taken into account. Drawing on a detailed case study—a controversy that erupted among nineteenth-century orientalists over the publication of R. P. A. Dozy'sDe Israëlieten te Mekka(The Israelites in Mecca) (1864)—the paper shows that nineteenth-century orientalists were careful to examine (1) the degree to which Dozy practiced the virtues they considered most important, (2) the extent to which these virtues were kept in balance by other ones, (3) the extent to which these virtues were balanced by other scholars’ virtues, and (4) the extent to which they were expected to be balanced by future scholars’ work. Consequently, this article argues that historical epistemology might want to abandon its single-virtue focus in order to allow balances, hierarchies, and other dependency relations between virtues and vices to move to the center of attention.

scholarly journals Non-compliant Reading and Annotating in the Ruthenian Reformation: Cyril of Jerusalem’s Mystagogical Catechisms from Szymon Budny’s Library

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-121
Author(s):  
Maria Ivanova
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Religious Leader ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Church Father ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church

While the works of the Antitrinitarian thinker and religious leader Szymon Budny (ca. 1530-93) have been the subject of extensive scholarly research, his library, marginalia, and reading practices have been significantly less examined. Following the discovery of a copy of Cyril of Jerusalem’s Mystagogical Catechisms (Vienna, 1560) belonging to Budny, I analyze Budny’s notes and comments regarding the Latin translation of Cyril’s text as a case study of Budny’s attempt to recover the Church Father from the Catholic post-Tridentine agenda and his own subsequent re-appropriation of Cyril for his radical non-adorantist program. By exploring Budny’s subversive reading and annotating strategies, I demonstrate Budny’s original contributions to the development of Antitrinitarian thought in Europe. I also illustrate how marginalia and paratexts reflect not only the history of the book in which they are found, but also how they throw light on religious and intellectual history.

Luther's Word on Man's Will: A Case Study in Comparative Intellectual History

1984 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-667
Author(s):  
Mark Migotti
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
Thematic Unity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Single Set

It is commonplace to observe that the history of thought reveals certain recurring patterns whose mode of expression changes according to context. It is equally apparent that to chart the salient characteristics of an influential way of thinking – to give concrete, clearly defined shape to the usually tangled fundamental impulses informing a cast of mind – is a complex, difficult task which calls for attention from (at least) the historian, the psychologist, the philosopher and, in the case of religious figures and movements, the theologian alike. With regard to the manner of thinking embodied in the theological doctrines of Martin Luther such a task is fraught with more than the usual number of pitfalls. In the first place, following recent Luther scholarship, we must be wary of assuming that the great Reformer held fast to a single set of theological opinions throughout his long career. We shall not, therefore, attempt to reach conclusions applicable to Luther's thought as a whole, but rather shall focus exclusively on a number of key early expositions of the Theologia Crucis. Here, between about 1514 and 1520, we find, according to our argument, enough thematic unity to warrant the search for underlying principles. A second, less easily disposed of difficulty is the lack of a working consensus as to how and with what aims in mind one should even begin an historical analysis of Luther's texts. For example, to the believer who regards Luther's basic tenets as in a straightforward sense divinely inspired, the attempt to extract from his writings the ingredients of a certain thoroughly human way of thinking will seem doomed to inadequacy from the start. Likewise, for different reasons, many of today's.

scholarly journals The Torah in Transition: Imitative Aspects from Codex to Database

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-128
Author(s):  
Emily R. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
New Technology ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
The People ◽  
Reading Technology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Digital Formats ◽  
Made In

Because the significance of a sacred text comes not only from its content but also its format and materiality, the rise of digital formats is especially a concern for the Jewish community, the ‘people of the book’ (Am ha-Sefer) whose identity is rooted in the Torah. Drawing together scholarship on the history of the book in its changing formats and an illuminative case study of the Jewish Torah in its digital iterations, the Jewish case presented here is instructive but certainly not unique. Despite dramatic changes in reading technology throughout history, readers have time and again used a new technology to perform the same functions as that of the old, only more quickly, with more efficiency, or in greater quantity. While taking advantage of the innovation and novelty which characterize digital formats, a concerted effort to retain much older operations and appearances continues to be made in this transition as well. The analysis in this article aims to further dispel the misguided notion of technological supersession, the idea that new reading technologies ‘kill’ older formats in a straightforward model of elimination.

scholarly journals Through the Walls of Time: A Short Reflection on Writing Early Modern Intellectual History

Zutot ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Irene Zwiep
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Jewish Historiography ◽  
Short Piece ◽  
History Of

This short piece takes a longstanding problem from the history of ideas, viz. the use of contemporary concepts in descriptions of past phenomena, and discusses its implications for broader intellectual history. Scholars have argued that being transparent about anachronism can be a first step towards solving the issue. I would argue, however, that it may actually interfere with proper historical interpretation. As a case study, we shall explore what happens when a modern concept like ‘culture’ is applied to pre-modern intellectual processes. As the idea of cultural transfer is prominent in recent Jewish historiography, we will focus on exemplary early modern intermediary Menasseh ben Israel, and ask ourselves whether his supposed ‘brokerage’ (a notion taken from twentieth-century anthropology) brings us closer to understanding his work. As an alternative, I propose ‘bricolage,’ again a central analytical tool in modern anthropology but, as I hope to show, one with unexpected hermeneutical potential.

Islam without Europe

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad S. Dallal
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
European Colonization ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Ganges

Replete with a cast of giants in Islamic thought and philosophy, Ahmad S. Dallal’s pathbreaking intellectual history of the eighteenth-century Muslim world challenges stale views of this period as one of decline, stagnation, and the engendering of a widespread fundamentalism. Far from being moribund, Dallal argues, the eighteenth century--prior to systematic European encounters--was one of the most fertile eras in Islamic thought. Across vast Islamic territories, Dallal charts in rich detail not only how intellectuals rethought and reorganized religious knowledge but also the reception and impact of their ideas. From the banks of the Ganges to the shores of the Atlantic, commoners and elites alike embraced the appeals of Muslim thinkers who, while preserving classical styles of learning, advocated for general participation by Muslims in the definition of Islam. Dallal also uncovers the regional origins of most reform projects, showing how ideologies were forged in particular sociopolitical contexts. Reformists’ ventures were in large part successful--up until the beginnings of European colonization of the Muslim world. By the nineteenth century, the encounter with Europe changed Islamic discursive culture in significant ways into one that was largely articulated in reaction to the radical challenges of colonialism.

THE CLASSICAL TURN IN ENLIGHTENMENT STUDIES

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAN EDELSTEIN
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Course Syllabi ◽  
History Of ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée ◽  
National Difference

Antiquity is back. In some respects, it is surprising it ever went away: for the last forty years, Peter Gay's magisterial survey, which connected the “little flock” ofphilosopheswith “pagan” authors, has loomed large over the field of Enlightenment studies. But shortly after its publication, a methodological sea change pulled the field in an opposite direction. Robert Darnton hailed this rising tide of social and cultural history in a 1971 largely critical review of Gay's two volumes. The hyper-longue duréeof Gay's historical panorama, which extended from the age of Virgil to that of Voltaire, was soon to be displaced by more focused inquiries into the history of the book, forms of enlightened sociability, and national difference. Intellectual history, particularly of Gay's epic brand, soon became scarce, despite the lasting presence of Gay's two volumes on bibliographies and course syllabi.

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