Search

The article presents the discussion on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's return journey from the University of Göttingen to England in June 1799. Topics include studying historical-critical methods, collecting materials on German poets and literary controversies; and touring significant cultural and academic centers like the Harz Mountains, Wolfenbüttel, and Hamburg, enriching his understanding of German intellectual history.

This article seeks to address what the work of Catherine Malabou can offer to the thinking and understanding of history. Characterizing Malabou's intellectual project as a meditation on the relation between history and possible knowledge, it situates the philosopher's work in the tradition of historical epistemology. It will be argued that, in its engagement with philosophical and (neuro)biological theories of plasticity and epigenesis, the historical constitution of Malabou's philosophical system problematizes the practical and ontological difficulty behind any commitment to a historically bounded knowledge of what here will be called, following Heidegger and Foucault, 'pure finitude'. The article concludes by suggesting that, if placed alongside the work of intellectual historian Quentin Skinner, Malabou's historical epistemology makes a decisive and useful contribution to contemporary debates regarding historical method by underscoring the (neuro)biological rooting of persistent epistemic gaps between historical understanding and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study presented here is an attempt at a comparative analysis of three early modern phenomena in the history of ideas and culture: three ethnogenetic theories about the origins of the Swedish (Gothic) and Polish (Sarmatian) nations and states, as well as that of the Danes, originating from the ancient Cimbri. First, they will be compared as historiographic concepts characteristic of early modern knowledge. The next part of the paper concerns modifications to these theories made in national historiographies and the broader visions of the history of the respective countries based on them. The last part of the study presents how these ideas function at the political level, both in relation to broader visions of political reality and political practice. The analysis suggests that while in the case of the 16th-century historical concepts of origo gentis, there are more similarities than differences, the subsequent stages of development show increasing differentiation: the ideas of Sarmatian ethnogenesis underwent greater changes than others. However, there are similarities in the way Gothic and Sarmatian ideas functioned in political life and politics during that period in Sweden and Poland, respectively. The weakest point is the influence of Cimbrian ethnogenesis on the politics of Denmark at that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Punish or Reward? Positive Sanctions" by Ángeles Solanes Corella, professor at the University of Valencia, proposes an alternative to the legal paradigm focused on coercion. The book addresses the promotional function of law and positive sanctions as a technique to promote behavior through incentives and rewards. The author uses an interdisciplinary approach that combines sociology, history of ideas, logic, criminal law, and other fields of knowledge. The book seeks legal devices that respond to the demands of increasingly complex social, cultural, economic, and political environments. [Extracted from the article]

This study aims to broaden our historical knowledge about ideas of rationalism and monocultures in forestry science and rational forest management. Empirically, it focuses on the writings of Swedish forestry scientist Henrik Hesselman, active in the early twentieth century. The texts were analyzed using the method of historical contextualization. The study indicates that monocultures historically have been subjected to debates richer than what previous research gives credit for. Besides a rationalist technology, monocultures have been conceptualized as an example of non-rational forestry failing to deliver sustainable yields. Moreover, instead of only simplifications, one-size-fits-all solutions, and top-down reforms, historical forestry science representatives have also at times understood rational forest management as a quest for complexity, site-specific solutions, and bottom-up approaches. It is argued that our understanding of forest use and society–environment relations, more generally, benefit from more historical contextualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intellectual history is usually seen as essentially historical. It is – but it is also essentially philosophical, both when theorising intellectual history, which some intellectual historians do, and when interpreting texts, which all intellectual historians do. I demonstrate this symbiosis between history and philosophy via critical reflections on Martin Jay's recent book Genesis and Validity. Philosophical analysis, closely integrated with historical examples, suggests that we should significantly rethink Jay's theorisation of the relationship between genesis and validity (e.g. whether ideas from one context are valid in others). But the symbiosis between history and philosophy matters more when interpreting texts. Philosophical analysis is a powerful tool for recovering what authors meant, understanding how their ideas fit together, and seeing similarities and differences between ideas, as I show with examples from Quentin Skinner's interpretations of Machiavelli, Hobbes and others. Yet even Jay and Skinner – two of the world's most philosophically astute intellectual historians – overlook the crucial symbiosis between history and philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feng Zikai and Master Kong Hiap in Singapore not only completed and published the masterpiece Protection of Life at the behest of their mentor, Master Hong Yi but also actively contributed to the growth of religions during the P.R.C.. The focus of this paper will be on the Protection of Life, which was completed secretly in socialist China between the 1950s and 1970s, as well as Feng Zikai's overseas cultural practices, to investigate how these helped Feng Zikai to broaden his cultural expressions and preserve his teacher Master Hong Yi's religious thoughts. Through revisiting Feng's creations and other cultural practices, this paper reveals a competing and conflicting revolutionary structure of feeling, across the 1949 geographical fault line as well as in the global Cold War context. Besides, this paper intends to investigate intellectuals' living status and social networking critically in socialist China during the mid-twentieth-century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the work of John Rawls and its relevance to American political traditions. Rawls developed the concept of "justice as fairness" as a means to guide American citizens in their political actions. He also extended his ideas to the international level, proposing principles for international political and law-making activities. Rawls drew from various disciplines and thinkers to develop a framework for understanding the evolving conscience of the American people. The article also discusses the influence of other scholars, such as Edward Corwin and Alpheus Mason, on Rawls's political philosophy. Additionally, the article examines the ideas of Herbert Croly and Frank Knight, who offered different perspectives on American democracy. The text concludes by emphasizing the need for a stable understanding of America's constitutional republican liberal democracy and the possibility of finding alternative solutions to current challenges. [Extracted from the article]

Although both books discussed in this review essay address problems with relevance to our present day and its dilemmas, they have different chronological scopes and employ different methods of interpretation. Robertson focuses exclusively on the era of the "Enlightenment" (c. 1680-1790), eschewing overt "presentism" to treat a wide range of authors and works as they addressed one another in the context of the events and developments of the period, mainly in Britain, France, and Germany. Friedman's aim, emphasizing the role of "religious" thought, is to explore the roots of present-day "thinking" about economics as a "science" and debates about economic policy. His book, beginning its coverage in Western Europe in the later 17th century and, following a "history of ideas" approach, gives pride of place to Adam Smith's ideas in the formulation of a "coherent" economic theory, and then in a linear account, centered on America, describes the key steps that he argues led from Smith to the present. This review essay, concentrating on what each book has to say about the Enlightenment, juxtaposes their accounts of the era and offers critical judgment of their differing treatments of its character and accomplishments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the papers on Tacitism presented at the Renaissance Society of America’s conference in Dublin in 2022, summarises some broader tendencies in the scholarship on Tacitism, and presents a provisional sketch of the contribution to that scholarship which the current Warsaw research group on Tacitism and its connected researchers are developing, as exemplified by the articles in this collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1957, the Japanese affiliate of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an international anticommunist organization dedicated to the liberal ideals of the "free world," convened a symposium under the title "Tradition and Transition in Japanese Culture" ("Nihon bunka no dentō to hensen"). The event put noted Kyoto School intellectuals who had earlier conceptualized Japan's unique mission within world history during the war years—including Kōsaka Masaaki, Suzuki Shigetaka, and Nishitani Keiji—into dialogue with postwar thinkers who advocated for freedom of thought in opposition to what they viewed as the closed-mindedness of ideology. Drawing on rarely cited archival documents, this article explores how the symposium raised key questions about the fate of world historical thinking in transwar Japan at the same time that it tested the putative universality of postwar liberal ideals against what the symposium participants called the particularity of Japanese culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a response to Samantha Matherne's book, Cassirer, which provides a comprehensive guide to Ernst Cassirer's thought. It explores Cassirer's approach to cultural history as a history of philosophy, influenced by Kant and Hegel, and his dedication to revindicating the Enlightenment in a time of rising irrationalism and political extremism. The article discusses Cassirer's engagement in Kulturwissenschaft and his belief that philosophical thought is the ultimate product of culture. It also highlights the influence of Aby Warburg and the Warburg Institute on the development of Kulturwissenschaft, and how Cassirer's association with the Warburg Library shaped his philosophy of culture and historical research. The article argues for the relevance of Cassirer's work in today's world and suggests a return to his interdisciplinary approach to historical research. [Extracted from the article]

This article provides a comprehensive overview of the intellectual history of Western civilization, highlighting key figures and events that have shaped the modern world. It explores contrasting philosophies such as Plato's emphasis on form and matter and Aristotle's focus on natural observation. The influence of Christianity, particularly in separating spiritual and political realms, is also discussed. The text delves into major historical conflicts, including the tension between Church and State supremacy in the Middle Ages, the impact of Germanic tribes on Western culture, the Scientific Revolution, the Protestant Reformation, the transition from Aristotelian to modern philosophy, the founding of America by Anglo-Protestants, and the Enlightenment Project's belief in a science of the social world. The article concludes by examining the role of the contemporary state and the differing views on limited government and big government. [Extracted from the article]

This paper focuses on the prominent German theologian Adolf von Harnack in his capacity as a public intellectual during the Weimar Republic. The few works of scholarship that address Harnack's Weimar years at any length are in German, and the barely extant Anglophone literature, severely outdated, largely neglects to evaluate adequately the evolution and scope of Harnack's pedagogical and theological positions as well as of the institutional power he commanded. Drawing principally from Harnack's writings, both personal and published, before World War I until his death in 1930, this essay seeks to chart his intellectual development during the final years of his life and to survey how he translated his liberal theological principles into loyalty to the Weimar constitution. Public intellectuals such as Harnack were able to serve the public good in multifaceted, unquantifiable ways without attaching themselves to a particular party or to an explicitly partisan cause. By examining Harnack's public and theological activity, I intend to provide a more holistic look at intellectual life in the Weimar Republic and to advocate for both a less restrictive definition of "public intellectual" and a broader conception of "political activism." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Russia as the true Europe" has become a popular idea in Russian political discourse and ideology production. However, it conflicts with another dominant commonplace idea: "Russia as non-Western" or "Russia as a unique, distinct civilization." Yet "Russia as the true Europe" is an idea that has circulated frequently, especially since the conservative turn of the Putin regime from 2012 onwards. Here, Russia is represented as the defender of "true Christian values," whereas the West has gradually abandoned this common ground. One key political thinker who has been instrumental in disseminating such ideas in post-Soviet Russia is Natal´ja Naročnickaja, who has developed this argument referring to classical Slavophile writings of the mid-nineteenth century. Slavophilism is a movement known for postulating a firm antithesis – a civilizational divide – between Russia and the West, but they also understood this conflict as having emerged historically. This article explores the genealogy of the idea of "Russia as the true Europe" by analysing the writings of Ivan Kireevskij and Aleksej Chomjakov. By implication, it makes also a contribution to the history of "Russia as a unique civilization," since it shows that there exists a tension in classical Slavophilism itself in seeing Russia both as Europe and non-Europe. Moreover, it demonstrates that despite apparent similarities between Slavophile thought and contemporary ideas there are significant discontinuities between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pictorialism emerged in the last quarter of the nineteenth century as a global aesthetic movement that argued for photography's artistic status on par with other plastic arts more powerfully than ever. Archives from South Asia demonstrate the movement's thriving life in the subcontinent with Calcutta emerging as a centre and its bilingual amateur photographer-writers as major participants simultaneously engaging in globally circulating specialist discourses on pictorialism and popular discussions of their practice aimed at public pedagogy. By looking into Bangla periodical press this paper investigates how Bengali pictorialists used popular Bangla magazines in the early twentieth century to establish their distinct voice regarding what counted as artistic photography as they engaged with a non-specialist mass readership. Mass-circulated Bangla articles were not vernacular translations of knowledge and practices produced in metropolitan locations and disseminated in transregional languages like English. Vernacular was an extension of Bengali amateur photographers' participation in global photography, as they remained grounded in their historical specificity. These amateur photographers were bilingual intellectuals who wrote in English for a global public and in Bangla for a Bangla-reading publics and refraining from translating culture as they moved across languages. Indeed, articulations in vernacular didn't mean a venularization of practice; they indicate plurality of belonging and affiliation that crafted the pictorialist aesthetic of the Bengali amateurs. By unpacking this intellectual history, this paper decenters the Euro-US-centric history of pictorialism towards writing an interconnected history of the artistic movement, while also complicating the category of modern Indian art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'governance' is one of the most widely applied concepts in education policy and research. Yet its meaning has changed over space and time both analytically and normatively. This history is a complicated one marked by both shifts and continuations in the politics of language and the development of unique intellectual histories and conceptual and empirical turns in the field of education. In this paper we systematically delineate the different meanings ascribed to governance within education with a focus on its polyvalence as a political project, empirical object and research analytic. Specifically, we highlight the various complementarities and tensions flowing from this rich and evolving language. We conclude by calling for more education researchers to reflect on this complicated history and attendant language as part of their framings and interpretations of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern scholarship discusses 'Buddhist influences' on the Patañjali's Yogasūtras (YS). Indeed, Patañjali borrowed key Buddhist concepts, particularly from Yogācāra. But this borrowing does not evince that the YS is just 'crypto-Buddhism'. In fact, during the first millennium CE, the YS was equally influential on Buddhist thinkers. I make this argument by focusing on YS 3.25, which discusses the yogic ability to see subtle (sūkṣma), hidden (vyavahita), and far-off (viprakṛṣṭa) objects. Tracing textual occurrences of these three words, I use this stable mimetic trope to demonstrate the influence of YS on Buddhist, Nyāya, and Vaiśeṣika writings. This influence is all the more interesting given that Buddhists explicitly disagree with many of the theoretical suppositions latent in YS 3.25. I demonstrate that despite this theoretical disagreement, Buddhists make ample use of YS 3.25. This paper thus complicates any clear direction of influence between Buddhist and Hindu traditions, and further questions the cogency of strict delineations between different philosophical schools. I also offer the method used in this paper as a novel approach to textual exegesis. By focusing on stable textual memes and tracing their occurrences across sources, we gain a powerful method to more deeply plumb India's rich intertextual intellectual history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symbiosis is an old idea with a contentious history. New genomic technologies and research paradigms are fueling a shift in some of its central tenets; we need to be humble and open-minded about what the data are telling us. Symbiosis is an old idea with a contentious history. New genomic technologies and research paradigms are fueling a shift in some of its central tenets; this Perspective argues that we need to be humble and open-minded about what the data are telling us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb's book, "Auden and the Muse of History," explores W.H. Auden's struggle with the meanings of history in his poetry and prose. Gottlieb argues that Auden resisted reducing history to conclusive narratives and grappled with the impossibility of ignoring a history that included the Holocaust and the Bomb. The book examines Auden's engagement with modernism, modern thought, and twentieth-century history, and highlights his skepticism towards historical narratives. Gottlieb's meticulous close readings of Auden's poetry and prose demonstrate his prosodic gifts and the complexity of his intellectual ends. The book also draws connections between Auden's work and other voices and schools of Critical Theory. Overall, "Auden and the Muse of History" offers a rich exploration of Auden's engagement with history and its implications for contemporary readers. [Extracted from the article]

This essay considers John Donne's influence in English puritan and nonconformist circles between 1650 and 1700, focusing especially on John Bunyan. Scholars in recent years have largely passed over Donne's readers in these circles; now is a good time to bring them back into focus. Puritans writing during the latter half of the seventeenth century show familiarity with Donne's sermons, letters, and poetry, especially his Holy Sonnets. Based on the ways Bunyan and others engaged with Donne's works, it appears that Donne could provide devotional resources to puritan readers in times of spiritual, emotional, or physical loss or struggle, and his metaphysical poetics are visible in Bunyan in particular and puritan meditation more diffusely. This study deepens scholarly understanding of literary and intellectual history by exploring continuities between authors often framed as standing not only on opposite sides of political and cultural divides, but also on different sides of a literary and epistemic revolution. [K.C.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long neglected, the history of relativism has been the topic of a number of surveys in recent years. These studies, however, have been ambivalent on whether relativism really existed in the eighteenth century. Following Isaiah Berlin's contention that the eighteenth-century witnessed the emergence of pluralism rather than relativism, historians have concluded that the Enlightenment at best prefigured nineteenth-century developments in relativistic thinking. In response, this article argues that relativism was a recognizable thesis in eighteenth-century Britain and France. Its principles and consequences were frequently articulated, either to be rejected or defended, by a wide range of philosophers and imaginative authors, from Ralph Cudworth and Ann Radcliffe to Julien Offray de la Mettrie and Alberto Radicati. This neglected chapter in the history of relativism, I argue, matters for several strands in eighteenth-century studies, as it inflected Enlightenment reflections on aesthetic and moral values, human hierarchies, and cross-cultural relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the "Iberconceptos" project, which aims to explore the historical uses and evolution of political concepts in the Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking world. It discusses the analytical peculiarities of the project, such as its geographical and linguistic scope, its relationship with mainstream conceptual history, and its focus on national cases within the broader Iberian context.

Summary: Dreams were a subject of interest to philosophers thinking about the connection between the mind and the body in the nineteenth century. Many scholars have pointed out that the mind and the body were intimately linked and affected each other. Although science was on its way to becoming more technical and numbers focused in its investigatory practices, medical students and other physician‐philosophers investigated the nature of sleep and dreams. Medical students and advanced researchers speculated on the nature of consciousness and mused on where the mind travels to during the sleep processes. Other romantic figures like Dr Polydori speculated on the nature of sleep walking in their medical dissertations. Dreams also had a powerful moral and motivational component, as dreams and activities in dreams, drove people like Benjamin Rush to embrace abolition. Other promoters of abolition used the nature of dreams to discusses the dreadfulness and suffering of slavery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of history of science has evolved and diversified over the past few decades, encompassing not only the natural sciences, medicine, and mathematics, but also the social sciences, humanities, and the study of the relationship between science and technology. The discipline has embraced inter- and transnational perspectives, as well as postcolonial and decolonial aspects. The history of science has become an interdisciplinary field, exploring the relationship between science and other forms of knowledge. This special issue aims to highlight the diversity and vibrancy of current research topics and approaches in the histories of science, including the history of the humanities, social sciences, mathematics, communication practices, digital history, and the role of technology. The contributions also demonstrate the connections between histories of science and other fields of historical research, such as gender history, colonial history, media history, and environmental history. [Extracted from the article]

This article opens with autobiographical reflections outlining how the author came to study the histories of race, racism, and whiteness in Canada; namely, through a biographical examination of Canadian academic and public intellectual Watson Kirkconnell. The article then discusses the author's engagement with the scant Canadian literature on race science/scientific racism. After defining whiteness and discussing its relationships with gender and class, the article provides suggestions for future research on race and whiteness in Canada; in particular, the need for definitional, temporal, and geographical specificity; the need for original archival research and collaboration with archivists; and the importance of biographical research. Drawing connections between the past and present, the article concludes by stressing the importance of this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When in 1868, Alfred von Kremer (1828–89) in his Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen des Islams ("History of the Ruling Ideas of Islam") introduced al-Suhrawardī for the first time to a Western readership, he presented him as a freethinking Sufi devoted to "theosophy." In a long chapter on Sufism, al-Suhrawardī appears under the heading "anti-Islamic tendencies." Von Kremer characterized al-Suhrawardī's thought as a balanced mixture of three sources: Neoplatonic philosophy, a Zoroastrian theory of light, plus Islamic monotheism. "According to the Arab biographers, his teaching was aimed at the destruction of the existing religion, which, however, they say of anyone who dared to oppose the ruling orthodox party." Expressing views that openly contradict the ruling religion, von Kremer wrote, meant putting one's life in danger. In accordance with that explanation, al-Suhrawardī died as "a martyr for his convictions" after the all too powerful group of orthodox scholars obtained his death sentence from Saladin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought" by Steinmetz, which explores the relationship between colonialism and the development of sociology as an academic discipline. The book argues that colonialism played a significant role in shaping sociological knowledge and influenced the work of prominent sociologists. It also examines the historical context of colonial sociology, tracing its evolution from a shared field of knowledge to an institutionalized subfield after World War II. The article highlights the importance of interdisciplinary research in understanding colonial sociological knowledge production and suggests further studies in different national contexts. [Extracted from the article]

This article contributes to an ongoing revival of interest in the intellectual history of the German Vormärz, and to an emerging body of scholarship on the influential political philosopher and Bible scholar Bruno Bauer (1809–1882). While, during much of the twentieth century, Bauer was remembered primarily for his relationship with the Young Marx, more recent scholarship has attempted to examine his work on its own terms, and to consider his unique contributions to the history of republicanism and radicalism in particular. But to date, no one has provided a systematic and synoptic account of his theology during the crucial years of 1838 to 1843. This article aims to fill that gap in the literature. It argues that Bauer's political thought cannot be understood independently of his theology, his church and religious histories, and his Bible criticism. In doing so, it provides new insights into the significance of theology for the polemical debates of the Vormärz more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Body and Machine in Classical Antiquity" is a collection of twelve essays that explore the development of machine-body analogies in ancient texts. The essays cover a wide range of topics, including ancient biology, disabilities, automata, and medical technologies. While the focus is on ancient authors, the collection also extends into the eighteenth century, highlighting the shift from analogies to a mechanized conception of the human body. The essays provide valuable insights into ancient conceptions of the body and offer new perspectives on under-researched topics. However, the collection is criticized for omitting Plato and his work, the Timaeus. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on the collaborative effort to complete and publish Laura's book "Rhythmical Subjects" following her diagnosis with pancreatic cancer. Topics discussed include the editorial process after Laura's passing, the significance of her research on rhythm in nineteenth and twentieth-century intellectual and artistic culture, and the broader implications of her work for understanding interdisciplinary connections in the humanities.

This article explores the ways in which debates about urban policy became a space for members of the literate Turkish public to negotiate the boundary between state and society during a period of dramatic social transformation in the 1930s. Inspired by circulating urbanist discourses, Turkish reformers reimagined society from street level up by passing a series of laws which empowered municipalities and abolished the neighborhood muhtar and council of elders, the basic units of local administration since 1829. Eleven years later, however, these offices were reconstituted and absorbed into municipal bureaucracy where they became the focus of heated party politics and struggles across Turkey. The debates which brought about this transformation, I argue, were ultimately about how far into daily life the authority of the government should extend and in what ways Turkey was able to adopt international standards of urbanism in a time of economic and political uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Krister Stendahl's article, "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West", argues that Paul has a "robust conscience" both before and after his conversion. Martin Luther misinterprets this as a "plagued conscience" in accordance with his own religious experience, and this misinterpretation can be traced back even to Augustine. This paper examines the context for the ancient Greek and Hellenistic theory of conscience, in order to understand Augustine's transformation of Paul's doctrine of justification by faith and the consequent discovery of the concept of introspective conscience in Western intellectual history. This paper also clarifies aspects of Augustine's "plagued conscience", which it analyses across two stages: the first after the descent of grace but before the conversion of a believer, and the second after conversion. In the first stage, Augustine implies a continuous spiritual conflict between good will and evil will within the inner self; however, in the second stage, the inner self experiences a deeper spiritual struggle, owing to its certainty of God's predestined plan alongside its uncertainty over personal salvation. The concept of introspective conscience has shaped the deep consciousness of sin for many Western Christians. This paper compares Pauline and Augustinian conscience with the same concept in the Confucian author Mencius. For Mencius, conscience is self-sufficient even in the earliest stages of its development and does not require the support of God's grace or the power of Heaven. The constant expansion of Mencius's operative conscience is sufficient for self-cultivation and the correction of the distorted world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This interview with the intellectual historian Gary Wilder explores the philosophical and methodological theses in his overall work, particularly focusing on his 2022 book Concrete Utopianism. The conversation explores such themes as relationships among solidarity, filiality, and freedom; the forces and fears of normative claims; the definition of an image; and the place of the flesh in a critical Marxism, among others. This is the second conversation in a series initiated by Salma Shamel (PhD candidate at New York University) with anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and media theorists whose work is located at the intersection of intellectual history, critical theory, and historical change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reconstructs Palestinian utopian discourse from the British mandate period, by focusing on understudied political manifestos and fiction, authored by members of the Palestinian Arab elite. The essay shows that through the lens of utopianism emerges a distinct Palestinian ecumenical discourse on trans-sectarian religion, language unification, bi-nationalism, reform in relations between men and women, and social justice. While this discourse was not necessarily popular, it was shared and articulated in both explicit and latent manners by some of the most influential Palestinians of the period. This discourse was therefore a meaningful, progressive, indigenous political alternative to the colonial and imperial sectarian order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay (re-) introduces the concept of the migration state and its significance for migration studies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, discussing its intellectual history and relationship to Hollifield's wider body of work. The authors lay out the main features of the ideal-typical liberal democratic migration state before discussing the extent to which it can be used to describe and theorise a wider variety of migration states, paying attention to the particularities of state development across different cases and regions, but also looking forward to how imperial and colonial legacies may shape future state responses to managing migration and mobility. Drawing on the individual contributions to this special issue, we suggest three theoretical and conceptual moves that can enrich our understanding of contemporary migration states: historicisation, decolonisation, and disaggregation. We discuss how the articles in this special issue engage with the migration state concept in ways that incorporate developments in migration studies over the past twenty years, using the concept to push the field in new temporal and comparative directions that open up the possibility of a more global approach to understanding migration. The essay concludes by looking at the future of the migration state and suggests areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study addresses the problems related to the historical emergence and development of the Arab intellectual since the end of the nineteenth century, and questions the Arab intellectual experience throughout this complex path due to cultural and political tensions, and the aspects of presence and absence that characterized the behavior of the intellectual during this era. The study points that the Arab intellectual underwent a set of transformations that did not establish a kind of accumulation at the theoretical level, due to ideological polarization that characterized his performance. The study also shows how the man of reform, who formed the first manifestation of the Arab intellectual, from whom emerged corresponding and discordant types of Arab intellectuals, tested a set of ideological options that all poured into renaissance and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a history of the 'Kaldor-Hicks' concept of economic efficiency from its European birth in the 1930s to its American resurgence in the 1970s to its widespread implementation in the Global South by the early twenty-first century. While philosophers, economists and legal theorists have written widely about Kaldor-Hicks – global-minded intellectual historians have not. As a result, scholars have yet to place its creation, dissemination and ascendency into a broader historical context or examine the reasons behind its global spread. As this paper will demonstrate through the rise of cost–benefit analyses based on 'willingness to pay' metrics, while Kaldor-Hicks efficiency was invented by neoclassical economists in the late 1930s, its ascent to policy dominance is part-and-parcel of the neoliberal revolution of the past half century. Linking the history of economic thought with the rise of global neoliberalism, this paper demonstrates how Kaldor-Hicks efficiency emerged as a central pillar of a new, interventionist, wealth-maximizing and market-based form of depoliticized technocratic governance that not only marginalizes distributive concerns but actively exacerbates the problem of global inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing 'global' intellectual histories involves historicising the transnational lives of key concepts. In this article, we argue that interdependence became a key concept in global inequality debates of the 1970–1980s. While ideas about interstate dependency have a long history, interdependence saw a remarkable breakthrough from the late 1960s onwards, partly in tandem with a liberal global egalitarianism, calling for the moral duties of 'rich nations' to alleviate poverty in 'poor nations.' Interdependence took centre stage in writings on international affairs and inequality within and between nations in the 1960s–1980s, both in the US and in Ghana. We first examine the work of American foreign policy intellectual Robert Tucker, and the conservative backlash against liberal global egalitarianism in late 1970s US. We then investigate writings on African regionalism by Ghanaian political economist S.K.B. Asante in the 1980s. A critique of interdependence shaped debates on global inequality, distribution, and justice amongst both American and African intellectuals. Coming from different perspectives and places, both Asante and Tucker were critical of the descriptive value of the concept of 'an interdependent world.' Interdependence was an ambiguous notion, which could be used to 'cover-up' persisting power structures in a world of very unequal nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the widespread impact of dependency theory in Latin America during the 1960s by exploring two important cultural productions from the period: Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino's film Hour of the Furnaces (1968) and Eduardo Galeano's book Open Veins of Latin America (1971). The article seeks to understand how ideas of an unequal world brought about by dependency analysis in the 1960s structured the arguments found in both the film and the book. It aims to clarify what ideas from dependency analysis were adopted by Solanas, Getino and Galeano and how these were 'translated' into a language accessible to the general public. Although neither the book nor the film employed the term 'global inequality' explicitly, much of the language used in these cultural productions is thematically linked to the idea of global inequality. This article thus aims to shed a new light on the intellectual history of global inequality at a time of high contestation of inequality in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavy inequalities mark Ecuador. Ecuadorian sociology was always aware of this. Inequality is a central political language of academic sociology in Ecuador and the main field of contact with global sociology, politics, and other local traditions. This is why the treatment of inequality by sociologists in Ecuador shows in an exemplary manner the conceptual shifts taking place – including the local relation to global tendencies in the sense of a global intellectual history. Early Ecuadorian sociology was based on the pre-classics of sociology and their organicist understanding of society: inequality appeared related to morals, education, and work. The main problem was the artificial barriers in society that hindered the participation of indigenous peoples in society, thus producing a social divide. This reading fit well with the political language of that time, allowing for paternalistic reformism that did not put actual social structures into doubt. The 1950s and 1960s condense the development of the sociological debates on inequality, introducing a push for modernisation. However, the concrete possibilities to open Ecuadorian sociology to global debates could not be used. The more contemporary class analysis was finally replaced by a strictly Marxist approach in the 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper envisages how the concept of 'Inequality' has been perceived by the Trade Unionists in late colonial Bengal. Informed by the ideology of Communism, these activists penned down a myriad of insightful analytical tracts, primarily in vernaculars, ranging from propaganda pamphlets to articles in the party organs. Their critique of Imperialism, and how it precipitates economic and socio-political inequalities was grafted in the ethos of class struggle. Through delineating their stark ideological differences with Gandhian mass politics, and by focusing on their intellectual endeavours concerning various structural inequalities of class, religion, caste, and gender it aims at charting out the indigenous response to the global doctrine of Communism. Often overlooked as conventional intellectuals, their literature brings to fore an alternative discourse on anti-colonialism in South Asia, overwhelmed by the theme of Nationalism. This paper is a methodological probe in doing intellectual history from below, adding to the edifice of the existing scholarship on Decolonisation, Communism, and Inequality in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal's solution to global inequality was to move Beyond the Welfare State (1960) and national boundaries to create a 'welfare world.' Built on a vision to globalize or scale-up the Swedish approach, Myrdal's proposal was rejected by both international technocrats and impoverished nations. This article examines the Swedish intellectual tradition on inequality, considering both how it contributed to the emergence of the Swedish welfare state and later to Myrdal's welfare world. By examining the roots of Myrdal's proposal, as well as its international reception, this article contributes to several different strands of intellectual history. First, it illustrates how dissonance about a concept such as inequality can emerge when its use is context dependent. Second, the paper explores how an idea that is purported to be international in nature can fail to make sense or 'travel' in the international realm, e.g. the 'non-globalization' of a concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political and economic discussions of inequality have boomed since the second half of the twentieth century, but concepts of equality and inequality are far older. Understanding the longer intellectual history of inequality helps deepen understandings of how the concept has changed over time, as well as across different societies, and how concepts of equality have been pre-figured to accommodate concepts of inequality. Concepts of equality have been informed by culturally relative theories of justice and beliefs about institutions that can help rationalise situations of inequality. This article examines how Scholastic examinations of equality in Europe during the Middle Ages came to focus both on the importance of property and proportionality, the need to differentiate between people of different status, and how this was developed by the so-called Second Scholastics during the emergence of the Spanish Empire in the sixteenth century and helped lay the foundations for the concepts of inequality that came to structure global imperialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How have intellectuals from around the world thought about inequality in the world? In light of the call for a less Eurocentric history of ideas as well as recent debates about global inequality, this article introduces a special issue on the global intellectual history of an unequal world. The issue supplements the already available scholarship in at least four ways: it delves further into other kinds of inequalities than first and foremost economic inequality; it historicises key concepts in the intellectual history of an unequal world; it incorporates fine-grained analysis of indigenous languages and concepts; it extends the analysis of historical inequality vocabularies to how inequalities were critiqued. Moreover, this introduction sheds lights on possible methodological approaches for an intellectual history of global inequality. There is a need to go against a modular approach to the history of ideas to embrace the dialectic between the specific situatedness of our topics of research and 'global' contexts. Questions of transfer, circulation, connections, or diffusion of ideas need to be asked on an empirical case to case basis. We therefore propose location, temporality and legitimisation/critique as key analytical concepts when exploring historical thinking on an unequal world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ethiopian empire retained its political independence through the European Scramble for Africa. The imperial elites oversaw the transformation of the empire into a territorially-bounded state, part of an international system of states regulated by international law and by international institutions such as the League of Nations, and later the UN. Ethiopian intellectuals were keenly aware that Ethiopia had joined this international system from a subordinated position and that its sovereignty remained at risk. The struggle for sovereignty was fought not only at a diplomatic level, but also at a narrative level. Afäwärḳ Gäbrä-Iyyäsus's 1908 Traveller's Guide to Abyssinia and Käbbädä Mikael's 1949 Ethiopia and Western Civilisation pushed back against the European depiction of Ethiopia as intrinsically inferior and intrinsically unable to develop. Both Afäwärḳ and Käbbädä rejected the rigid determinism of stagist models of development, and argued that Ethiopia and Europe were natural allies by virtue of their shared Christian heritage. Global power hierarchies rigidified Ethiopia's domestic power hierarchies. The article shows how the way in which Afäwärḳ and Käbbädä defended Ethiopia's place in an unequal world had important consequences on their vision of domestic nation building, resulting in hierarchical assimilationist policies that marginalised Ethiopia's non-Christian citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the modern history of Yunnan, a landlocked province in the southwest of China, the Kunming — Haiphong Railway profoundly shaped its geographic, political, and socioeconomic landscapes. Yunnan based artist Cheng Xinhao's recent art and research projects To the Ocean investigates modernity and (post)coloniality of Yunnan through intellectual reflections on the history of the Kunming — Haiphong Railway, bodily experience with the current railroad, and spiritual conversations with himself about childhood memories and geographical imaginations. By analyzing Cheng's visual works and writings in the project To the Ocean, this essay focuses on Cheng's three encounters on the Kunming — Haiphong Railway — the Wujiazhai Railway Bridge, Bisezhai Station, and China-Vietnam Railway Bridge — to elaborate the iterative power of colonial modernity, socialist revolution, and postsocialism in shaping the landscapes of the Tonkin — Yunnan cross-border area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Religious Reform in the Late Ottoman Empire: Institutional Change and the Professionalization of the Ulema" by Erhan Bektaş is a comprehensive study that examines the role and status of the Ottoman ulema in the late nineteenth century. The book challenges the prevailing narrative that portrays the ulema as backward and resistant to reform, instead highlighting their intellectual, educational, and professional capacities. Through extensive research using Ottoman and Meşihat Archives, Bektaş argues for the continuity and importance of the ulema's power during this period. The book offers valuable insights into Ottoman intellectual and cultural thought and is recommended for scholars interested in nineteenth-century Ottoman intellectual history. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses two book reviews from the Intellectual History Review. The first review is of a book titled "Colonial Capitalism" by Ince, which examines the relationship between capitalism, liberalism, and imperialism in the British imperial world. The reviewer praises the book for its methodological ingenuity but suggests that it could have included a wider range of liberal thinkers. The second review is of a book titled "Posterity: Inventing Tradition from Petrarch to Gramsci" by Rubini, which explores the intellectual tradition that emerged in Italy from Petrarch to Gramsci. The reviewer highlights the book's focus on the deliberate making of tradition and its engagement with the works of various writers. [Extracted from the article]

This article questions whether past experience with nationalisms rooted in history, language, custom and religion will be much of a guide to pseudo-nationalisms that arise in a globalized age with increasingly 'liquid' societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]