Alexander the Great, the dahlia, and the tortoise

Some of the problems of establishing the cause of the death of Alexander the Great are like the attempts to find causes other than hysteria for Anna O.'s symptoms. The more general problem of using plausibility as a criterion of the truth of such reconstructions are illustrated by the arguments embedded in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia.     

Alexander the Great,the Dahlia,and the Tortoise

Some of the problems of establishing the cause of the death of Alexander the Great are like the attempts to find causes other than hysteria for Anna O.’s symptoms. The more general problem of using plausibility as a criterion of the truth of such reconstructions are illustrated by the arguments embedded in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia.     

Milton,the passions,and the knowing body

ABSTRACT

This paper challenges the notion that Galenic humouralism stripped the early modern body of agency and argues that some accounts of early modern materialism were connected to epistemology. It evidences how Milton’s passions are inscribed with the shocking language of agency and moral responsibility to overturn the assumption of “passive”, unconscious passions. It explores two pictures of passions in connection with knowledge: passions as obstacles to knowledge, and passions as sources as knowledge. Both images recast the material body as a knowing agent, but do so with complications. Agency-ridden passions complicate a straightforward notion of agency, and seem to leave early moderns with the option of blaming their passions instead of themselves for deception. Frequent references to internal passions in political discourses also suggests an unsettling degree of comfort with subjectivity in making knowledge-statements, but it is a version of subjectivity that seems far more public than private.     

Intellectuals,nationalism, and the arts

In this article we argue that the role of intellectuals was essential (1) in the formation of Finnish cultural policy and (2) for the development of national cultural administration and public arts subsidy system in the country in the period leading up to the Second World War. The actions of the intellectuals can be considered as political choices in a contingent socio‐political realm, and arts as an essential part of the signifying system. In Finland, intellectuals remained active in the intertwining areas between the state and civil society. We highlight the impact of their actions especially through a study of archival materials obtained from the State Arts Boards. At these Boards, the intellectuals served as representatives of their own fields of arts in general, and of certain professional and civic associations and societies in particular. These intellectuals acted in various roles depending on the subject matter at hand, and as a result the decisions made by the boards reflected predominantly the interests of some groups over those of others.     

Religion, Society, and the Historian

In a secularized age, the study of past religion encounters problems both of empathy and categorization, and the student who derives his understanding from current belief and practice may be in a worse position than the detached observer. Yet historians have never before taken religion so seriously, while wider interest in the history of Christianity is growing. "Religious History" is sometimes said to have taken the place of "Ecclesiastical History." But both disciplines flourish, and the difference between them has been overstated. Historians can learn from social scientists questions about religion which, confined within the safe boundaries of period, they have not always had to face. The social functions of religion have been threefold, religion acting as a precipitant, a bond, and a source of legitimation. It has been said (by an anthropologist) that the study of religion has recently lived off the conceptual capital of its ancestors. The understandings of the social meaning of religion advanced by three of these "ancestors," Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, are examined. Only Max Weber is found to provide helpful guidance to the social historian of religion, particularly with his key concept of "elective affinity."     

Auerbach,Madness, and the East

ABSTRACT

Erich Auerbach’s lack of interest in engaging with non-Western contexts and literatures has often led critics to identify varying degrees of Eurocentric bias in his work. This perception of bias obfuscates the depths of Auerbach’s thought regarding the non-European, who does have a central place in Auerbach’s overall vision, not only of philology and Western literature, but also of humanism and historical progress generally. This articles accounts for the centrality of the non-European in Auerbach’s notion of realism.     

Philosophy,Theology, and the Humanities

Summary

This paper addresses the relation between the natural sciences and the humanities with reference to the work of Ian Hunter. It discusses the history of, role of philosophy in, and value of the humanities; the question of historicism; the issue of critique; and the role of theology in the humanities, all matters raised by Hunter's work. The paper suggests that a reinvented humanities might pay more attention to philosophy and the sciences, including theology. It asks how far such a perspective is compatible with Ian Hunter's pioneering work on the humanities and intellectual history. The paper concludes that a middle position, one between Hunter's historicising and an emphasis on naturalistic constraints, may be possible.     

Islands,the Anthropocene,and Decolonisation

The Anthropocene is deployed as incontrovertible fact, yet its foundations merit strong critique to challenge how particular voices and locations are absented, silenced, or enrolled in the fallacies that attend this epochal framework. Other placed, grounded, and scale-sensitive explanations exist for present and future state scenarios, including on islands—often the focus of apocalyptic thinking. Dealing with historical and contemporary struggles to decolonise is more powerful than engaging with a reified framework that is part of ongoing colonial-imperial excesses, uneven development, and racial capitalism. This work considers how four of us, as instigating authors, worked with five others, as collaborating authors, to understand academic works, activism, and artistic expressions of island life and concerns. Our aim was to learn about how and why their efforts to prioritise decolonisation is at the heart of what is needed to shore up island peoples’ futures.     

History,Hitler, and the Holocaust

EBERHARD JACKEL. Hitler in History. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1984. Pp. 115; GERALD FLEMINO. Hitler and the Final Solution. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1984. Pp. 219; MALCOLM c. MACPHERSON. The Blood of His Servants. New York: The New York Times Book Co., Inc., 1984. Pp. 310; ISABELLA LEITNER. Fragments of Isabella: A Memoir of Auschwitz. New York: Cowell Publishers, 1978. Pp. 112; JAMES BENTLEY. Martin Niemöller 1891–1984. New York: Free Press, 1984. Pp. 253; SAUL s. FRIEDMAN. The Oberammergau Passion Play: A Lance Against Civilization. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984. Pp. 270; DAVID s. WYMAN. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Pp. 445; WALTER N. BANNING. The Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry. Torrance, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1983. Pp. 239.     

Beyond Continents,Colours, and the Cold War: Yugoslavia,Algeria, and the Struggle for Non-Alignment

While historians are paying greater attention to the role of the post-colonial Third World in international affairs, there is a tendency to focus on North–South relations and the discourse of the 1955 Bandung Conference. Relying principally on Yugoslav and Algerian archival sources, this paper re-emphasises the dynamic historicity of ‘Third Worldism’ and the significance of ‘South–South’ connections. It explores the evolution of the Third World movement in the decade following Bandung, when smaller countries and non-state movements exerted greater influence while larger actors, such as India and China, quarrelled. The founding of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961 represented a victory for smaller actors who took a more provocative and subversive approach to international relations, to the extent that NAM was a means for the weak to wage the cold war on their terms. Over the following half-decade, Non-Alignment supplanted Afro-Asianism as the primary organisational concept for the Third World, confirming that the Third World was a political project with a potentially unbounded membership rather than the expression of a non-Western, non-white identity.     

Science, the Cold War, and the American State

Harvey M. Sapolsky. Science and the Navy: The History of the Office of Naval Research .
Stuart W. Leslie. The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford .
Robert A. Divine. The Sputnik Challenge: Eisenhower's Response to the Soviet Satellite .
D iplomatic H istory , Vol. 20, No. I (Winter 1996).