Reporting in Prose: Reconsidering Ways of Writing History

This article reconsiders history's ways of reporting in prose. Ways of analysing and writing history so as to evoke a past are contrasted with ways of analysing and writing history so as to frame theses about a past. Academic norms now favour theses. It was not always so. This article contrasts very early European theories about writing prose, including key writings by Johannine Christians and by Heraclitus. Influenced by Martin Heidegger's existentialist phenomenology, this article reasserts the worth of the evocative in history by attempting to reprise its philosophical foundations and by reconstructing the place of prose in the history of ideas.     

Continuity and Discontinuity: Narratives of the Yellow Emperor in Early Twentieth-Century History Textbooks

In the study of the origin of Chinese civilization, there has been considerable debate about the identity of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi). There have been two main approaches: One proposes that the memory of the Yellow Emperor was altered under the influence of nationalism in the twentieth century. The other argues that the memory has been passed down in a continuous, unaltered stream since ancient times. By examining the narratives about and images of Huangdi in history textbooks published during the early twentieth century, this article shifts the focus from Huangdi as a symbolic figure in the political world to one in which we examine his reception in the everyday world. Thus we will explore different Huangdis, taking up aspects of memory, continuity, and discontinuity.     

History of German Universities

This article has three main goals. Firstly, it intends to present the interesting but little-studied intellectual figure of Sir Francis Kynaston (1586ca.–1642), his educational enterprises, and his contributions to 17th-century English culture. Secondly, it aims to illustrate in detail his often neglected or, at best, misunderstood political ideas and connect them to the type of debates and controversies he was involved in at the end of the 1620s. In doing so, one of the principal objectives will be to revisit the traditional scholarly interpretations of Kynaston's place within the history of political thought in early modern England. In particular, attention will be paid to the language Kynaston employed to attack a specific political paradigm, that is parliamentarian “patriotism”. Finally, the essay will endeavour to show the interplay between Kynaston's educational project and cultural ideals, on one side, and his absolutist political doctrines and goals, on the other.     

现代化理论与德国近现代史研究——联邦德国史学界研讨情况

20世纪下半叶盛行的现代化理论是50年代的美国社会学家首先提出的。他们以当时的美国社会为模式,树立了一系列衡量传统社会向现代社会过渡的标准,为二战后的发展中国家提出了现代化的发展规划。在许多以此理论为指导的发展项目失败以后,英美社会学家倾向于将现代化理论历史化,研究的重点由现实中的发展中国家,转向现代西方的形成与发展史,即18世纪晚期以来(或更早一点,16世纪以来)欧洲与北美的历史。在六七十年代,联邦德国的社会学家与社会史学派将英美的现代化理论引进联邦德国史学界,特别是引进德国近现代史(即德国19世纪与20世纪上半叶的历史)的研究。     

先秦诸子论历史盛衰

先秦诸子承认历史盛衰变化是一种客观存在,这是其历史盛衰论产生的思想前提。先秦诸子还认识到盛衰变化和转化的必然性。对于决定历史盛衰的因素,先秦诸子从历史与哲学的高度进行了深刻、多维的思考,他们关于历史盛衰的总结和思考,对我国民族的历史思维及后世史学产生了深刻的影响。     

Women's International Thought in the Twentieth-Century Anglo-American Academy: Autobiographical Reflection,Oral History and Scholarly Habitus

Methodologies of textual and linguistic analysis have long held sway in Anglo-American practices of intellectual history. Such approaches tend to decouple the ideas being traced from the human subject, or scholar, producing the thought. Taking the lead from the rich theorising work done in feminist, gender, race and cultural histories, this article asks what changes in our understanding of intellectual histories of international thought when we connect the lived and bodily realities of the human subjects producing the ideas to the ideas themselves. In so doing, the article makes a case for the importance of fleshing out what the author calls ‘scholarly habitus’ and suggests the potential utility of oral history as a methodology for reconstructing ‘scholarly habitus’. The article will draw upon an oral history archive comprised of twenty interviews conducted with senior women International Relations scholars from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom to flesh out this argument. The article argues that oral history, as a medium for autobiographical practice, can reveal aspects of how gender, race and class shaped the scholarly practice and career trajectories of these women, as well as shed light on the historical dynamics of the discipline of International Relations as a whole.