David L. McMahan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195183276
- eISBN:
- 9780199870882
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195183276.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book elucidates the complex cross-cultural genealogy of themes, ideas, and practices crucial to the creation of a new hybrid form of Buddhism that has emerged within the last 150 years. Buddhism ...
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This book elucidates the complex cross-cultural genealogy of themes, ideas, and practices crucial to the creation of a new hybrid form of Buddhism that has emerged within the last 150 years. Buddhism modernism is not just Buddhism that happens to exist in the modern world but a distinct form of Buddhism constituted by cross-fertilization with western ideas and practices. Using primarily examples that have shaped western articulations of Buddhism, the book shows how modern representations of Buddhism have not only changed the way the tradition is understood, but have also generated new forms of demythologized, detraditionalized, and deinstitutionalized Buddhism. The book creates a lineage of Buddhist modernism that includes liberal borrowing from scientific vocabulary in reformulations of Buddhist concepts of causality, interdependence, and meditation. It also draws upon Romantic and Transcendentalist conceptions of cosmology, creativity, spontaneity, and the interior depths of the human being. Additionally, Buddhist modernism reconfigures Buddhism as a kind of psychology or interior science, drawing both upon analytic psychology and current trends in neurobiology. In its novel approaches to meditation and mindfulness, as well as political activism, it draws heavily from western individualism, distinctively modern modes of world-affirmation, liberal political sensibilities, and modernist literary sources. The book also examines this uniquely modern Buddhism as it moves into postmodern iterations and enters the currents of global communication, media, and commerce.Less
This book elucidates the complex cross-cultural genealogy of themes, ideas, and practices crucial to the creation of a new hybrid form of Buddhism that has emerged within the last 150 years. Buddhism modernism is not just Buddhism that happens to exist in the modern world but a distinct form of Buddhism constituted by cross-fertilization with western ideas and practices. Using primarily examples that have shaped western articulations of Buddhism, the book shows how modern representations of Buddhism have not only changed the way the tradition is understood, but have also generated new forms of demythologized, detraditionalized, and deinstitutionalized Buddhism. The book creates a lineage of Buddhist modernism that includes liberal borrowing from scientific vocabulary in reformulations of Buddhist concepts of causality, interdependence, and meditation. It also draws upon Romantic and Transcendentalist conceptions of cosmology, creativity, spontaneity, and the interior depths of the human being. Additionally, Buddhist modernism reconfigures Buddhism as a kind of psychology or interior science, drawing both upon analytic psychology and current trends in neurobiology. In its novel approaches to meditation and mindfulness, as well as political activism, it draws heavily from western individualism, distinctively modern modes of world-affirmation, liberal political sensibilities, and modernist literary sources. The book also examines this uniquely modern Buddhism as it moves into postmodern iterations and enters the currents of global communication, media, and commerce.
Constanze Guthenke
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199231850
- eISBN:
- 9780191716188
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231850.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This book offers a fresh look at one of the most tenacious features of Romantic Hellenism: its fascination with modern Greece as material and ideal alike. It suggests that literary representations of ...
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This book offers a fresh look at one of the most tenacious features of Romantic Hellenism: its fascination with modern Greece as material and ideal alike. It suggests that literary representations of modern Greece, by both foreign and Greek writers, run on notions of a significant landscape. Landscape, as a critical term, is itself the product of the period when Greece assumed increasing importance as a territorial, political and modern entity. The implied authority of nature, in turn, follows its own dynamic and highly ambivalent logic of representation. Greece operated as a material symbol, one that shared the brittle structure of the Romantic image. To explicate this enabling structure this study draws on the critical writings of Herder, Schiller and the early Romantics, while grounding mainly German philhellenic writing in its cultural and political context. Main authors discussed are Friedrich Hölderlin and Wilhelm Müller, but also the first generation of Greek writers in the new nation state after 1821: Alexandros Rizos Rangavis, Panagiotis Soutsos, Andreas Kalvos and Dionysios Solomos. To enlist authors challenged to write from within the place of Greece allows not only a new take on the problematic imagery of Greece, but also gives a new dimension to the study of Hellenism as a trans-national movement.Less
This book offers a fresh look at one of the most tenacious features of Romantic Hellenism: its fascination with modern Greece as material and ideal alike. It suggests that literary representations of modern Greece, by both foreign and Greek writers, run on notions of a significant landscape. Landscape, as a critical term, is itself the product of the period when Greece assumed increasing importance as a territorial, political and modern entity. The implied authority of nature, in turn, follows its own dynamic and highly ambivalent logic of representation. Greece operated as a material symbol, one that shared the brittle structure of the Romantic image. To explicate this enabling structure this study draws on the critical writings of Herder, Schiller and the early Romantics, while grounding mainly German philhellenic writing in its cultural and political context. Main authors discussed are Friedrich Hölderlin and Wilhelm Müller, but also the first generation of Greek writers in the new nation state after 1821: Alexandros Rizos Rangavis, Panagiotis Soutsos, Andreas Kalvos and Dionysios Solomos. To enlist authors challenged to write from within the place of Greece allows not only a new take on the problematic imagery of Greece, but also gives a new dimension to the study of Hellenism as a trans-national movement.
B.W. Young
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199256228
- eISBN:
- 9780191719660
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199256228.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
The Victorians were preoccupied by the 18th century. It was central to many 19th-century debates, particularly those concerning the place of history and religion in national life. This book explores ...
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The Victorians were preoccupied by the 18th century. It was central to many 19th-century debates, particularly those concerning the place of history and religion in national life. This book explores the diverse responses of key Victorian writers and thinkers — Thomas Carlyle, John Henry Newman, Leslie Stephen, Vernon Lee, and M. R. James — to a period which commanded their interest throughout the Victorian era, from the accession of Queen Victoria to the opening decades of the 20th century. They were, on the one hand, appalled by the apparent frivolity of the 18th century, which was denounced by Carlyle as a dispiriting successor to the culture of Puritan England, and, on the other they were concerned to continue its secularizing influence on English culture, as is seen in the pioneering work of Leslie Stephen, who was passionately keen to transform the legacy of 18th-century scepticism into Victorian agnosticism. The Victorian interest in the 18th century was never a purely insular matter, and the history of 18th-century France, Germany, and Italy played a dominant role in the 19th-century historical understanding. A debate between generations was enacted, in which Romanticism melded into Victorianism. The Victorians were haunted by the 18th century, both metaphorically and literally, and the book closes with consideration of the culturally resonant 18th-century ghosts encountered in the fiction of Vernon Lee and M. R. James.Less
The Victorians were preoccupied by the 18th century. It was central to many 19th-century debates, particularly those concerning the place of history and religion in national life. This book explores the diverse responses of key Victorian writers and thinkers — Thomas Carlyle, John Henry Newman, Leslie Stephen, Vernon Lee, and M. R. James — to a period which commanded their interest throughout the Victorian era, from the accession of Queen Victoria to the opening decades of the 20th century. They were, on the one hand, appalled by the apparent frivolity of the 18th century, which was denounced by Carlyle as a dispiriting successor to the culture of Puritan England, and, on the other they were concerned to continue its secularizing influence on English culture, as is seen in the pioneering work of Leslie Stephen, who was passionately keen to transform the legacy of 18th-century scepticism into Victorian agnosticism. The Victorian interest in the 18th century was never a purely insular matter, and the history of 18th-century France, Germany, and Italy played a dominant role in the 19th-century historical understanding. A debate between generations was enacted, in which Romanticism melded into Victorianism. The Victorians were haunted by the 18th century, both metaphorically and literally, and the book closes with consideration of the culturally resonant 18th-century ghosts encountered in the fiction of Vernon Lee and M. R. James.
James Treadwell
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199262977
- eISBN:
- 9780191718724
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199262977.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
The book describes and analyses the condition of autobiographical writing in Britain during the Romantic period. As well as chapter-length studies of major autobiographical works by Coleridge, Byron, ...
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The book describes and analyses the condition of autobiographical writing in Britain during the Romantic period. As well as chapter-length studies of major autobiographical works by Coleridge, Byron, and Lamb, it provides a wide-ranging account of the rapidly expanding field of published self-writing during the period. The book also demonstrates that the category of ‘autobiography’ emerged in the literary public sphere during these years, and that instances of autobiographical writing need to be read in relation to the conditions under which they were circulated and read. Part I deals with the emergence of a sense of genre: the idea of autobiography, as it made its way into the literary environment. Part II examines how the anxieties and restrictions attendant upon the idea of self-writing are reflected in published texts, which present themselves as autobiographies. Part III focuses on readings of autobiographical works, exploring some examples of their representations of the situation of self-writing, and considering what sort of readings are involved when we interpret a given text as an autobiography. Overall, the book emphasizes the uncertain and contested transactions between Romantic autobiographical writing and the literary public sphere.Less
The book describes and analyses the condition of autobiographical writing in Britain during the Romantic period. As well as chapter-length studies of major autobiographical works by Coleridge, Byron, and Lamb, it provides a wide-ranging account of the rapidly expanding field of published self-writing during the period. The book also demonstrates that the category of ‘autobiography’ emerged in the literary public sphere during these years, and that instances of autobiographical writing need to be read in relation to the conditions under which they were circulated and read. Part I deals with the emergence of a sense of genre: the idea of autobiography, as it made its way into the literary environment. Part II examines how the anxieties and restrictions attendant upon the idea of self-writing are reflected in published texts, which present themselves as autobiographies. Part III focuses on readings of autobiographical works, exploring some examples of their representations of the situation of self-writing, and considering what sort of readings are involved when we interpret a given text as an autobiography. Overall, the book emphasizes the uncertain and contested transactions between Romantic autobiographical writing and the literary public sphere.
Carl Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199259984
- eISBN:
- 9780191717413
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199259984.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This concluding chapter draws together the main threads of the preceding argument. It then speculates briefly on the extent to which the travel traditions established by Romantic travellers — and in ...
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This concluding chapter draws together the main threads of the preceding argument. It then speculates briefly on the extent to which the travel traditions established by Romantic travellers — and in particular the valorization of misadventure in travel — continue to influence practices and attitudes in modern travel and travel writing.Less
This concluding chapter draws together the main threads of the preceding argument. It then speculates briefly on the extent to which the travel traditions established by Romantic travellers — and in particular the valorization of misadventure in travel — continue to influence practices and attitudes in modern travel and travel writing.
Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184997
- eISBN:
- 9780191674426
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184997.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, European Literature
Having begun this study from the perspective of Romanticism, it is inevitable that the topic ultimately turns to Postmodernism. The various aspects of this study can all be viewed through a ...
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Having begun this study from the perspective of Romanticism, it is inevitable that the topic ultimately turns to Postmodernism. The various aspects of this study can all be viewed through a Postmodernist prism: the concept of ‘heterobiography’ which uses the designation of permeable boundary lines; the ‘logic of fratricide’ which supplants the logic of sameness and self-identity; the ‘pathos of authenticity’ which emerges from the loss of origins and destinations; the ‘poetics of cultural despair’ which positions writing as a Trojan Horse; the ‘romantic paradox’ which underlies the circularity of desire and subjectivity; and the foredoomed desire to bolster up the borderlines of masculinity in the attempt to ‘address the woman’. The very same questions which energize Conrad's fiction during the first two decades of the century have only begun to surface in the discourse of philosophy fifty years later.Less
Having begun this study from the perspective of Romanticism, it is inevitable that the topic ultimately turns to Postmodernism. The various aspects of this study can all be viewed through a Postmodernist prism: the concept of ‘heterobiography’ which uses the designation of permeable boundary lines; the ‘logic of fratricide’ which supplants the logic of sameness and self-identity; the ‘pathos of authenticity’ which emerges from the loss of origins and destinations; the ‘poetics of cultural despair’ which positions writing as a Trojan Horse; the ‘romantic paradox’ which underlies the circularity of desire and subjectivity; and the foredoomed desire to bolster up the borderlines of masculinity in the attempt to ‘address the woman’. The very same questions which energize Conrad's fiction during the first two decades of the century have only begun to surface in the discourse of philosophy fifty years later.
Stephen Mulhall
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198238508
- eISBN:
- 9780191679643
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238508.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Aesthetics
The author of the book presents a full-length philosophical study of the work of Stanley Cavell, best known for his highly influential contributions to the fields of film studies, Shakespearian ...
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The author of the book presents a full-length philosophical study of the work of Stanley Cavell, best known for his highly influential contributions to the fields of film studies, Shakespearian literary criticism, and the confluence of psychoanalysis and literary theory. It is not properly appreciated that Cavell's project originated in his interpretation of Austin's and Wittgenstein's philosophical interest in the criteria governing ordinary language, and is given unity by an abiding concern with the nature and the varying cultural manifestations of the sceptical impulse in modernity. This book elucidates the essentially philosophical roots and trajectory of Cavell's work, traces its links with Romanticism and its recent turn towards a species of moral pefectionism associated with Thoreau and Emerson, and concludes with an assessment of its relations to liberal-democratic political theory, Christian religious thought, and feminist literary studies.Less
The author of the book presents a full-length philosophical study of the work of Stanley Cavell, best known for his highly influential contributions to the fields of film studies, Shakespearian literary criticism, and the confluence of psychoanalysis and literary theory. It is not properly appreciated that Cavell's project originated in his interpretation of Austin's and Wittgenstein's philosophical interest in the criteria governing ordinary language, and is given unity by an abiding concern with the nature and the varying cultural manifestations of the sceptical impulse in modernity. This book elucidates the essentially philosophical roots and trajectory of Cavell's work, traces its links with Romanticism and its recent turn towards a species of moral pefectionism associated with Thoreau and Emerson, and concludes with an assessment of its relations to liberal-democratic political theory, Christian religious thought, and feminist literary studies.
Jan Olof Bengtsson
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199297191
- eISBN:
- 9780191711374
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199297191.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter summarizes the main results reached in Chapters 2 to 4, drawing general conclusions from them with reference to the current historical accounts discussed in Chapter 1. It also returns to ...
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This chapter summarizes the main results reached in Chapters 2 to 4, drawing general conclusions from them with reference to the current historical accounts discussed in Chapter 1. It also returns to the broader cultural and historical perspectives, seeking briefly to ascertain and assess in their light the proper meaning of ‘early personalism’, the origins, development, and nature of which have been described in the preceding chapters.Less
This chapter summarizes the main results reached in Chapters 2 to 4, drawing general conclusions from them with reference to the current historical accounts discussed in Chapter 1. It also returns to the broader cultural and historical perspectives, seeking briefly to ascertain and assess in their light the proper meaning of ‘early personalism’, the origins, development, and nature of which have been described in the preceding chapters.
David Kyuman Kim
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195319828
- eISBN:
- 9780199785667
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195319828.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter focuses on so-called projects of regenerating agency in late modernity and postmodernity. It begins by recapping Taylor's diagnosis of the problem of agency in modernity: a diagnosis ...
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This chapter focuses on so-called projects of regenerating agency in late modernity and postmodernity. It begins by recapping Taylor's diagnosis of the problem of agency in modernity: a diagnosis that turns out to be a revised version of the secularization thesis. It then moves to Taylor's suggested therapy for the problem of agency, namely, his invocation of the aesthetic and poetic as epiphanic, that is, as a revelation of held moral orientations, ideals, values, and ends. Taylor's treatment of the epiphanic is critiqued through a discussion of the relationship between the sublime and agency. It is argued that Taylor's invocation of the epiphanic as sublime remains a gesture, that is, a promising movement and hope for a glimpse of transcendence. The promise of the epiphanic and the sublime for projects of regenerating agency becomes clearer when interpreted as part of the ends and aims of the disciplines of self-cultivation and self-transformation.Less
This chapter focuses on so-called projects of regenerating agency in late modernity and postmodernity. It begins by recapping Taylor's diagnosis of the problem of agency in modernity: a diagnosis that turns out to be a revised version of the secularization thesis. It then moves to Taylor's suggested therapy for the problem of agency, namely, his invocation of the aesthetic and poetic as epiphanic, that is, as a revelation of held moral orientations, ideals, values, and ends. Taylor's treatment of the epiphanic is critiqued through a discussion of the relationship between the sublime and agency. It is argued that Taylor's invocation of the epiphanic as sublime remains a gesture, that is, a promising movement and hope for a glimpse of transcendence. The promise of the epiphanic and the sublime for projects of regenerating agency becomes clearer when interpreted as part of the ends and aims of the disciplines of self-cultivation and self-transformation.
Monika Baár
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199581184
- eISBN:
- 9780191722806
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199581184.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Peripheral cultures have been largely absent from the European canon of historiography. The principal aim of this book is to contribute to redressing the balance. It does so by offering an insight ...
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Peripheral cultures have been largely absent from the European canon of historiography. The principal aim of this book is to contribute to redressing the balance. It does so by offering an insight into the complexities of historical writing in nineteenth‐century East‐Central Europe and by ascertaining this tradition's place within the European historiographical heritage. At the core of the book lies a comparative analysis of the life‐work of five prominent scholars: Joachim Lelewel (Polish); Simonas Daukantas (Lithuanian); František Palacký (Czech); Mihály Horváth (Hungarian) and Mihail Kogălniceanu (Romanian). Rather than approaching these scholars' historical achievements from a narrow perspective, the book accommodates them in the context of their promotion of a unified vision of national culture. It discusses their accomplishments in the fields of language and literature, their pursuits in publishing journals and primary sources, and their contribution to the institutionalization and professionalization of the historical discipline.Through the reconstruction of these scholars' shared intellectual background and an in‐depth analysis of their historical narrative the author puts forward the claim that the five historians' professional and political agenda, influenced predominantly by liberalism and Romanticism, shared far more with their contemporaries elsewhere than has previously been assumed and thus renders them genuine representatives of a common European tradition.Less
Peripheral cultures have been largely absent from the European canon of historiography. The principal aim of this book is to contribute to redressing the balance. It does so by offering an insight into the complexities of historical writing in nineteenth‐century East‐Central Europe and by ascertaining this tradition's place within the European historiographical heritage. At the core of the book lies a comparative analysis of the life‐work of five prominent scholars: Joachim Lelewel (Polish); Simonas Daukantas (Lithuanian); František Palacký (Czech); Mihály Horváth (Hungarian) and Mihail Kogălniceanu (Romanian). Rather than approaching these scholars' historical achievements from a narrow perspective, the book accommodates them in the context of their promotion of a unified vision of national culture. It discusses their accomplishments in the fields of language and literature, their pursuits in publishing journals and primary sources, and their contribution to the institutionalization and professionalization of the historical discipline.Through the reconstruction of these scholars' shared intellectual background and an in‐depth analysis of their historical narrative the author puts forward the claim that the five historians' professional and political agenda, influenced predominantly by liberalism and Romanticism, shared far more with their contemporaries elsewhere than has previously been assumed and thus renders them genuine representatives of a common European tradition.
Isaiah Berlin
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199249893
- eISBN:
- 9780191598807
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019924989X.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This is the first of the three Storrs Lectures that Berlin gave at Yale University in 1962. It is part of the version of intellectual history that he developed to underwrite his views about politics. ...
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This is the first of the three Storrs Lectures that Berlin gave at Yale University in 1962. It is part of the version of intellectual history that he developed to underwrite his views about politics. This focused especially on the fourth century B.C., the Renaissance and the Romantic movement. The contribution of the Greeks, in this respect, was the discovery that the life and destiny of the individual did not need to be necessarily conceived in terms of his society.Less
This is the first of the three Storrs Lectures that Berlin gave at Yale University in 1962. It is part of the version of intellectual history that he developed to underwrite his views about politics. This focused especially on the fourth century B.C., the Renaissance and the Romantic movement. The contribution of the Greeks, in this respect, was the discovery that the life and destiny of the individual did not need to be necessarily conceived in terms of his society.
Lawrence A. Scaff
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691147796
- eISBN:
- 9781400836710
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691147796.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Population and Demography
Max Weber, widely considered a founder of sociology and the modern social sciences, visited the United States in 1904 with his wife Marianne. The trip was a turning point in Weber's life and it ...
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Max Weber, widely considered a founder of sociology and the modern social sciences, visited the United States in 1904 with his wife Marianne. The trip was a turning point in Weber's life and it played a pivotal role in shaping his ideas, yet until now virtually the only source of information about the trip was Marianne Weber's faithful, but not always reliable, 1926 biography of her husband. The book carefully reconstructs this important episode in Weber's career, and shows how the subsequent critical reception of Weber's work was as American a story as the trip itself. The book provides new details about Weber's visit to the United States—what he did, what he saw, whom he met and why, and how these experiences profoundly influenced Weber's thought on immigration, capitalism, science and culture, Romanticism, race, diversity, Protestantism, and modernity. It traces Weber's impact on the development of the social sciences in the United States following his death in 1920, examining how Weber's ideas were interpreted, translated, and disseminated by American scholars such as Talcott Parsons and Frank Knight, and how the Weberian canon, codified in America, was reintroduced into Europe after World War II.Less
Max Weber, widely considered a founder of sociology and the modern social sciences, visited the United States in 1904 with his wife Marianne. The trip was a turning point in Weber's life and it played a pivotal role in shaping his ideas, yet until now virtually the only source of information about the trip was Marianne Weber's faithful, but not always reliable, 1926 biography of her husband. The book carefully reconstructs this important episode in Weber's career, and shows how the subsequent critical reception of Weber's work was as American a story as the trip itself. The book provides new details about Weber's visit to the United States—what he did, what he saw, whom he met and why, and how these experiences profoundly influenced Weber's thought on immigration, capitalism, science and culture, Romanticism, race, diversity, Protestantism, and modernity. It traces Weber's impact on the development of the social sciences in the United States following his death in 1920, examining how Weber's ideas were interpreted, translated, and disseminated by American scholars such as Talcott Parsons and Frank Knight, and how the Weberian canon, codified in America, was reintroduced into Europe after World War II.
Michael Slote
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199790821
- eISBN:
- 9780199919185
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199790821.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Most people think that the difficulty of balancing career and personal/family relationships is the fault of present‐day society or is due to their own inadequacies. But in this major new book, ...
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Most people think that the difficulty of balancing career and personal/family relationships is the fault of present‐day society or is due to their own inadequacies. But in this major new book, eminent moral philosopher Michael Slote argues that the difficulty runs much deeper, that it is due to the essential nature of the divergent goods involved in this kind of choice. He shows more generally that perfect virtue and perfect human happiness are impossible in principle, a view originally enunciated by Isaiah Berlin, but much more thoroughly and synoptically defended here than ever before. Ancient Greek and modern‐day Enlightenment thought typically assumed that perfection was possible, and this is also true of Romanticism and of most recent ethical theory. But if, as Slote maintains, imperfection is inevitable, then our inherited categories of virtue and personal good are far too limited and unqualified to allow us to understand and cope with the richer and more complex life that characterizes today's world. And The Impossibility of Perfection argues in particular that we need some new notions, new distinctions, and even some new philosophical methods in order to distill out some of the ethical insights of recent feminist thought and arrive at a fuller and more realistic picture of ethical phenomena.Less
Most people think that the difficulty of balancing career and personal/family relationships is the fault of present‐day society or is due to their own inadequacies. But in this major new book, eminent moral philosopher Michael Slote argues that the difficulty runs much deeper, that it is due to the essential nature of the divergent goods involved in this kind of choice. He shows more generally that perfect virtue and perfect human happiness are impossible in principle, a view originally enunciated by Isaiah Berlin, but much more thoroughly and synoptically defended here than ever before. Ancient Greek and modern‐day Enlightenment thought typically assumed that perfection was possible, and this is also true of Romanticism and of most recent ethical theory. But if, as Slote maintains, imperfection is inevitable, then our inherited categories of virtue and personal good are far too limited and unqualified to allow us to understand and cope with the richer and more complex life that characterizes today's world. And The Impossibility of Perfection argues in particular that we need some new notions, new distinctions, and even some new philosophical methods in order to distill out some of the ethical insights of recent feminist thought and arrive at a fuller and more realistic picture of ethical phenomena.
David L. McMahan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195183276
- eISBN:
- 9780199870882
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195183276.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
Buddhism has created a place for itself in the modern ecology of ideas and practices by placing itself within and between three key discourses of modernity: those of scientific naturalism, ...
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Buddhism has created a place for itself in the modern ecology of ideas and practices by placing itself within and between three key discourses of modernity: those of scientific naturalism, Romanticism and Transcendentalism, and Christianity. Specifically, it aligned itself with scientific rationalism over against conservative, missionary forms of Christianity, while borrowing from Christianity’s more liberal and mystical elements. Nevertheless, it has also been critical of positivistic and scientistic modes of rationalism, and in articulating this critique it has drawn on the Romantic-Transcendentalist cosmology and their stress on the value of interior experience. This chapter shows how foundational Buddhist modernists like Soen Shaku and Dwight Goddard re-configured Buddhist concepts in the languages of rationalism, Romanticism, and Christianity, carving out a space for Buddhism in the tensions between these discourses.Less
Buddhism has created a place for itself in the modern ecology of ideas and practices by placing itself within and between three key discourses of modernity: those of scientific naturalism, Romanticism and Transcendentalism, and Christianity. Specifically, it aligned itself with scientific rationalism over against conservative, missionary forms of Christianity, while borrowing from Christianity’s more liberal and mystical elements. Nevertheless, it has also been critical of positivistic and scientistic modes of rationalism, and in articulating this critique it has drawn on the Romantic-Transcendentalist cosmology and their stress on the value of interior experience. This chapter shows how foundational Buddhist modernists like Soen Shaku and Dwight Goddard re-configured Buddhist concepts in the languages of rationalism, Romanticism, and Christianity, carving out a space for Buddhism in the tensions between these discourses.
David L. McMahan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195183276
- eISBN:
- 9780199870882
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195183276.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This chapter investigates the articulation of Buddhism in terms of Romanticism and Transcendentalism by examining how Buddhism has come to be conceived as having a special link to art and creativity. ...
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This chapter investigates the articulation of Buddhism in terms of Romanticism and Transcendentalism by examining how Buddhism has come to be conceived as having a special link to art and creativity. D. T. Suzuki, a key figure in this conception, amalgamated German idealist and American Transcendentalist cosmological concepts with Buddhist ones and presented the Japanese poets, Zen monks, and samurai warriors as deeply and religiously attentive to nature in ways similar to the English Romantics and American Transcendentalists. His conception of spiritual freedom as a spontaneous, emancipatory consciousness that transcends rational intellect and social convention drew heavily on these figures. The idea caught on with other influential figures like Lama Govinda and Sangharakshita and has inspired a plethora of popular books, as well as programs in meditation and creativity in monasteries and universities.Less
This chapter investigates the articulation of Buddhism in terms of Romanticism and Transcendentalism by examining how Buddhism has come to be conceived as having a special link to art and creativity. D. T. Suzuki, a key figure in this conception, amalgamated German idealist and American Transcendentalist cosmological concepts with Buddhist ones and presented the Japanese poets, Zen monks, and samurai warriors as deeply and religiously attentive to nature in ways similar to the English Romantics and American Transcendentalists. His conception of spiritual freedom as a spontaneous, emancipatory consciousness that transcends rational intellect and social convention drew heavily on these figures. The idea caught on with other influential figures like Lama Govinda and Sangharakshita and has inspired a plethora of popular books, as well as programs in meditation and creativity in monasteries and universities.
Murray G. H. Pittock
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263037
- eISBN:
- 9780191734007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263037.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This lecture discusses Robert Burns, a poet who dwelt on the early phase of the poem ‘Resolution and Independence’. It examines the critical introspection that has tended to exclude Burns from an ...
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This lecture discusses Robert Burns, a poet who dwelt on the early phase of the poem ‘Resolution and Independence’. It examines the critical introspection that has tended to exclude Burns from an increasingly narrow definition of Romanticism since 1945. The lecture presents an argument that Burns' concerns are in many respects not those of the ‘peasant poet’ or a particularist Scottish writer, but in dialogue with the other major British Romantic poets. Finally, it demonstrates that Burns' self-consciousness, poetic flexibility, and playful use of category and genre demand a deeper understanding of the nature of British Romanticism and of the scope of his achievement within it.Less
This lecture discusses Robert Burns, a poet who dwelt on the early phase of the poem ‘Resolution and Independence’. It examines the critical introspection that has tended to exclude Burns from an increasingly narrow definition of Romanticism since 1945. The lecture presents an argument that Burns' concerns are in many respects not those of the ‘peasant poet’ or a particularist Scottish writer, but in dialogue with the other major British Romantic poets. Finally, it demonstrates that Burns' self-consciousness, poetic flexibility, and playful use of category and genre demand a deeper understanding of the nature of British Romanticism and of the scope of his achievement within it.
Monika Baár
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199581184
- eISBN:
- 9780191722806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199581184.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Chapter 2, ‘Romantic Historiography in the Service of Nation‐Building’, discusses the historians' expectations of historical writing and explores how their ambitions related to those of the ...
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Chapter 2, ‘Romantic Historiography in the Service of Nation‐Building’, discusses the historians' expectations of historical writing and explores how their ambitions related to those of the representatives of Enlightenment‐style general history and representatives of Romantic national history elsewhere. These goals included the democratization of the content, the democratization of the medium and the democratization of the audience. They sought to write histories in a pragmatic, impartial manner and believed that history was magistra vitae. Relating the five scholars'goals to mainstream developments, the chapter demonstrates that there existed a general blueprint of national history‐writing in this period, one which emphasized the ancient, continuous, unified and unique nature of national history. Lastly, a comparison is undertaken between self‐congratulatory accounts in mainstream historiography and the historians' change‐oriented emancipatory rhetoric.Less
Chapter 2, ‘Romantic Historiography in the Service of Nation‐Building’, discusses the historians' expectations of historical writing and explores how their ambitions related to those of the representatives of Enlightenment‐style general history and representatives of Romantic national history elsewhere. These goals included the democratization of the content, the democratization of the medium and the democratization of the audience. They sought to write histories in a pragmatic, impartial manner and believed that history was magistra vitae. Relating the five scholars'goals to mainstream developments, the chapter demonstrates that there existed a general blueprint of national history‐writing in this period, one which emphasized the ancient, continuous, unified and unique nature of national history. Lastly, a comparison is undertaken between self‐congratulatory accounts in mainstream historiography and the historians' change‐oriented emancipatory rhetoric.
Mary-Ann Constantine and Gerald Porter
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262887
- eISBN:
- 9780191734441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262887.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter discusses the broken forms of fragments and Romanticism. The Ossian fragments, which can be found in the poems of ‘Ossian’, are first examined. Most of the discussion focuses on these ...
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This chapter discusses the broken forms of fragments and Romanticism. The Ossian fragments, which can be found in the poems of ‘Ossian’, are first examined. Most of the discussion focuses on these poems, such as the inclusion of bards and centaurs. The concept of the literary fragment is discussed, as well as singing the poems of ‘Ossian’ while at work.Less
This chapter discusses the broken forms of fragments and Romanticism. The Ossian fragments, which can be found in the poems of ‘Ossian’, are first examined. Most of the discussion focuses on these poems, such as the inclusion of bards and centaurs. The concept of the literary fragment is discussed, as well as singing the poems of ‘Ossian’ while at work.
Martin McLaughlin, Letizia Panizza, and Peter Hainsworth (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264133
- eISBN:
- 9780191734649
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264133.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Petrarch was Italy's second most famous writer (after Dante), and indeed from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries he was much better known and more influential in English literature than Dante. ...
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Petrarch was Italy's second most famous writer (after Dante), and indeed from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries he was much better known and more influential in English literature than Dante. His Italian love lyrics constituted the major influence on European love poetry for at least two centuries from 1400 to 1600, and in Britain he was imitated by Chaucer, the Elizabethans, and other lyric poets up until the end of the eighteenth century. With Romanticism Dante ousted Petrarch from his pre-eminent position, but in our post-Romantic age, attention has now started to swing back to Petrarch. This volume is a survey of Petrarch's literary legacy in Britain. Starting with his own views of those whom he called the ‘barbari Britanni’, the volume then explores a number of key topics: Petrarch's analysis of the self; his dialogue with other classical and Italian authors; Petrarchism and anti-Petrarchism in Renaissance Italy; Petrarchism in England and Scotland; and Petrarch's modern legacy in both Italy and Britain. Many important texts and poets are considered, including Giordano Bruno, Leopardi, Foscolo, Ascham, Sidney, Spenser, and Walter Savage Landor.Less
Petrarch was Italy's second most famous writer (after Dante), and indeed from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries he was much better known and more influential in English literature than Dante. His Italian love lyrics constituted the major influence on European love poetry for at least two centuries from 1400 to 1600, and in Britain he was imitated by Chaucer, the Elizabethans, and other lyric poets up until the end of the eighteenth century. With Romanticism Dante ousted Petrarch from his pre-eminent position, but in our post-Romantic age, attention has now started to swing back to Petrarch. This volume is a survey of Petrarch's literary legacy in Britain. Starting with his own views of those whom he called the ‘barbari Britanni’, the volume then explores a number of key topics: Petrarch's analysis of the self; his dialogue with other classical and Italian authors; Petrarchism and anti-Petrarchism in Renaissance Italy; Petrarchism in England and Scotland; and Petrarch's modern legacy in both Italy and Britain. Many important texts and poets are considered, including Giordano Bruno, Leopardi, Foscolo, Ascham, Sidney, Spenser, and Walter Savage Landor.
Peter van der Merwe
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198166474
- eISBN:
- 9780191713880
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198166474.003.0015
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter deals with those strains in 19th-century music that would seem to be furthest removed from the vernacular discussed in the previous chapter. It begins with a general discussion of ...
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This chapter deals with those strains in 19th-century music that would seem to be furthest removed from the vernacular discussed in the previous chapter. It begins with a general discussion of musical nationalism and its relation to Romanticism, then proceeds to the mainly Teutonic symphonic tradition, which was generally at odds the tendencies of the time but sometimes in harmony with them. Finally, Wagner's musical language and its relation to the vernacular is analyzed.Less
This chapter deals with those strains in 19th-century music that would seem to be furthest removed from the vernacular discussed in the previous chapter. It begins with a general discussion of musical nationalism and its relation to Romanticism, then proceeds to the mainly Teutonic symphonic tradition, which was generally at odds the tendencies of the time but sometimes in harmony with them. Finally, Wagner's musical language and its relation to the vernacular is analyzed.
