Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck and the foundations of history and politics

This article explores the intellectual relations between Carl Schmitt and the German historian Reinhart Koselleck with a focus on the inspiration that Koselleck found in Schmitt's work in the early 1950s. The article goes beyond earlier contributions in the field by illuminating how the most important discursive features that Koselleck drew from Schmitt were utilized toward a very independent intellectual project. This project concerned an attempt to revise modern political thought by means of outlining a new concept of history. Koselleck's concept of history was to depart from all utopian notions of history as a singular, unified and goal-directed process. Instead, it aimed to outline certain fundamental existential structures of the human condition and to take account of the social relations existing among human beings in order to understand (historically) and contain (politically) the potential conflict in human societies. Hence Koselleck believed that his new concept of history would lead to a more responsible foundation of political order and decision making. Following an analysis of how Koselleck developed his project in a dialogue with the work of Schmitt and a number of other scholars, first of all Friedrich Meinecke and Martin Heidegger, the article presents a brief perspective on how his new concept of history was received in the 1950s and on how it came to provide his work with a certain analytical, thematic and argumentative unity.     

The Chronology of Kilwa Kisiwani,AD 800–1500

African Archaeological Review - In this article, we present the results of a recent program of high-resolution radiocarbon dating on the urban sequence at Kilwa Kisiwani in southern Tanzania,...     

Liberal intolerance in European education debates

The reaction against non‐western immigrants and especially Muslims has been analysed both in terms of an exclusionary civic nationalism and in terms of an assertive liberalism. Similar to exclusionary civic nationalism, assertive liberalism purports to defend liberal democratic principles and society against illiberal principles and forces predominantly represented by Muslims. This article argues that nationalism and liberalism are analytically distinguishable but difficult to disentangle empirically. It contends that a more detailed analysis of assertive liberalism can be obtained by subdividing it into four categories of liberal intolerance and demonstrates this by analysing six national debates on the accommodation of cultural and religious diversity in education. The analysis indicates that the nature of liberal intolerance understood as the combination of the four categories of liberal intolerance varies with the state tradition regarding religious neutrality of public institutions and the type of welfare state, but also that many liberal arguments for and against accommodation repeat themselves across national contexts.     

Ad horatii sat. I 4 et I 9

The traditional interpretation of lines 75–6 is supported both by the immediate context and by the novel presentation of the Laudamia myth. Lines 73–8 show a balanced pattern of thought which demands that hnes 75–6 should refer to a neglect of sacrifice. Throughout the myth there is a strong connection between passion and disaster, while Protesilaus himself appears as a sacrificial victim. This new approach makes sense only if lines 75–6 refer to ceremonial negligence by Laudamia and Protesilaus.     

‘Old wood’ effect in radiocarbon dating of prehistoric cremated bones?

Numerous reports of successful radiocarbon dating of cremated bones have emerged during the last decade. The success of radiocarbon dating cremated bones depends on the temperature during burning and the degree of recrystallisation of the inorganic bone matrix. During cremation bones undergo major morphological and mineralogical changes which have raised some interesting questions and discussion on the origin of the carbon source in archaeologically cremated bones. Recent laboratory experiments reveal that the properties of the combustion atmosphere play a significant role regarding the source carbon in cremated bones. Thus radiocarbon dating cremated bones is potentially dating the wood used for the cremation fire. Here we compare a high precision radiocarbon dated human bone with an associated dendrochronological age from an oak coffin. We find that the age discrepancy between the dendrochronological age and the cremated bone of 73 ± 26 ¹⁴C yr is best accounted for by the so called ‘old wood’ effect.     

Isotopic anthropology of rural German medieval diet: intra- and inter-population variability

This study investigates the diet of an eleventh century CE parish community located in northwestern Germany. We assessed the isotopic compositions of human (n = 24) and faunal (n = 17) bone collagen (δ ¹³C_col, δ ¹⁵N_col) and human structural carbonate (δ ¹³C_sc) using skeletal material recovered from the Dalheim cemetery. Traditional interpretation of the isotopic data indicates that Dalheim residents likely relied on a C₃ plant-based diet and consumed some terrestrial animal products without evidence of marine resource input in the diet. Bivariate and multivariate models used as an additional means to assess diet indicate minor consumption of C₄ plant foods in this community. The multivariate-isotope model identified regional similarities and differences in C₄ plant/marine food consumption and in dietary protein sources by comparing data from Dalheim with those of other medieval sites from the published literature. We did not observe sex differences in this population but differences in δ ¹⁵N_col suggest that juveniles consumed the lowest trophic level protein.