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The Cult of Harrow: Montagu Butler, Sentiment, and Success, 1860–1885

Christopher Tyerman

in A History of Harrow School 1324–1991

In twenty-five years, Montagu Butler admitted more than 4,000 boys to Harrow School, securing its status as a national institution. When advising his successor on teaching the Upper Fourth in 1879, ... More

In twenty-five years, Montagu Butler admitted more than 4,000 boys to Harrow School, securing its status as a national institution. When advising his successor on teaching the Upper Fourth in 1879, John Smith suggested that during the first month of term each new boy should be asked to explain his family motto to the form; he never doubted they possessed one. Such extensive ties of association within the ruling elite provided the basis for Harrow's fame. Even appointments to Assistant Masterships were deemed of sufficient public interest to warrant gazetting in The Times. Sentiment thrived on success. Privileged by birth and wealth, Butler's Harrovians achieved much on their own account in those spheres most cherished by Victorian public schools: public service, the professions, the church, and academic life. Butler presided over one of the great powerhouses of the late 19th-century British Establishment during a Head Mastership that defined Harrow's reputation, character, and standing. Two of Butler legacies were the school songs and sports.Less

The Anglophile Academy

Elisa Tamarkin

in Anglophilia: Deference, Devotion, and Antebellum America

This chapter considers the importance of Anglophilia to college life in the nineteenth century and to the academic mystique that it sustains. Why has intellectual and university culture historically ... More

This chapter considers the importance of Anglophilia to college life in the nineteenth century and to the academic mystique that it sustains. Why has intellectual and university culture historically assumed pretensions toward Britain? Where do the English accents come from? Figures such as George Ticknor, Edward T. Channing, James Russell Lowell, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow shaped a philosophy of intellectualism in America that patterns not only the content and pedagogic practices of higher education but also the daily routines and social pleasures of academic life.Less

To Follow the Argument where it Leads: An Antiquarian View of the Aim of Academic Freedom at the University of Chicago

Richard A. Shweder

in Who's Afraid of Academic Freedom?

This chapter examines academic freedom at the University of Chicago, which proudly thinks of itself as a Socratic, free-thinking, and contentious institution. More specifically, it considers the ... More

This chapter examines academic freedom at the University of Chicago, which proudly thinks of itself as a Socratic, free-thinking, and contentious institution. More specifically, it considers the antiquarian view of academic freedom associated with two constitutional conservatives, both of them famous for their advocacy of judicial restraint: Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter and his former law clerk Alexander Bickel. The chapter explores the ancient Socratic ideal of freedom of thought and the application of the methods of critical reason as the ultimate ends of academic life. It also discusses the University of Chicago's conception of academic freedom as articulated in the Kalven committee report and whether faculty and administrative governance is a threat to academic freedom. It suggests that what makes a great university great is its commitment and willingness to nurture and protect the ardor and fearlessness of autonomous minds to follow the argument where it leads regardless of moral, political, or commercial interests or popular opinion.Less

Christian Scholarship and the Rules of the Academic Game

George M. Marsden

in The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship

This chapter argues that while it is certainly true that some religious believers wish to destroy the pluralistic academy, there are many other religious viewpoints, including some theologically ... More

This chapter argues that while it is certainly true that some religious believers wish to destroy the pluralistic academy, there are many other religious viewpoints, including some theologically conservative ones, which harbor no such desire. For instance, it is perfectly possible to hold an Augustinian view that faith in God, rather than faith in self or material contingency, should shape one's essential vision of reality and yet to support the rules of liberal society as a God-given means for accomplishing some limited but immensely valuable goals. The main problem is how to balance the advocacy implicit in all scholarship with academic standards that are scientific or “reasonable” in the sense of being accessible to people from many different ideological camps. Traditional religious viewpoints can be just as hospitable to scientifically sound investigation as many other viewpoints, all of which are ultimately grounded in some faith or other. Hence, religious perspectives ought to be recognized as legitimate in the mainstream academy so long as their proponents are willing to support the rules necessary for constructive exchange of ideas in a pluralistic setting.Less

Oxford from the Other Side of the Fence

Nicola Lacey

in A Life of H.L.A. Hart: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream

This chapter details H. L. A. Hart's post-war career. In September 1945, Herbert returned to an Oxford that was a cloistered, parochial, and largely masculine community. New College was not, in most ... More

This chapter details H. L. A. Hart's post-war career. In September 1945, Herbert returned to an Oxford that was a cloistered, parochial, and largely masculine community. New College was not, in most ways, substantially different from the small community of scholars he had left in 1929. It was surrounded by thirty-odd other such communities, only five of which were for women; and it operated within the framework of only a fragmentary university structure. The small number of Fellows at New College further contributed to an intense and emotionally complex network of social relationships which in many respects resembled a family more than a workplace.Less

Between the Times: October 1921–March 1930

Timothy Gorringe

in Karl Barth: Against Hegemony

When Barth had already started with his rewriting of the Romans, he was offered the possibility of receiving a Chair position at Göttingen in January 1921 that was confirmed in May of that year. ... More

When Barth had already started with his rewriting of the Romans, he was offered the possibility of receiving a Chair position at Göttingen in January 1921 that was confirmed in May of that year. After the demise of the Weimar Republic, Barth was then expelled from Germany. General Ludendorff — who initiated 1918's spring offensive — informed the Kaiser that suing for peace would be necessary by the end of September in that year. Although there were attempts at maintaining a liberalized monarchy, various events kept this from being achieved. As we look into the different significant impacts brought about by the war, this chapter attempts to illustrate how Barth shared a German indignation during the Ruhr occupation, how Barth had made various observations regarding the German academic life during the period, and how Barth's theology is located against not only the intellectual and cultural background, but also against political events.Less

Separation: September 1926–January 1927

BONNIE S. McDOUGALL

in Love-Letters and Privacy in Modern China: The Intimate Lives of Lu Xun and Xu Guangping

Xu Guangping re-opened the correspondence, expressing misgivings about their separation, which she described as being for only a year, and already began to think about how Lu Xun might make his way ... More

Xu Guangping re-opened the correspondence, expressing misgivings about their separation, which she described as being for only a year, and already began to think about how Lu Xun might make his way from Amoy to Canton. The single topic above all that occupied their attention in the letters that followed was whether and when Lu Xun would come to Canton. The letters from 1926 and early 1927 discussed the tense political and military situation as the Northern Expedition proceeded; the problems they encountered in their workplace; Lu Xun's difficulty in adjusting to academic life as a full-time member of staff; the climate; their need for privacy, living in a residential campus; and their daily habits, health, and clothing. Above all, they were preoccupied by the future of their own relationship.Less

“Reminiscences of School Life”: Six College Memoirs

Stephanie Y. Evans

in Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850–1954: An Intellectual History

This chapter discusses several African American women's reflections and memoirs on their college experiences from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s wherein the then prevailing macrostory of ... More

This chapter discusses several African American women's reflections and memoirs on their college experiences from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s wherein the then prevailing macrostory of institutions, geographic patterns, administrative dynamics, and national contexts are mirrored and reflected. In this chapter, the profiles of Fanny Jackson Coppin, Mary Church Terrell, Zora Neale Hurston, Lena Beatrice Morton, Rose Butler Browne, and Pauli Murray are studied to illustrate a clear image of the college and academic life of African American women in their battle against inferiority harbored by racism and sexism.Less

What is ‘impact’? Learning from examples across the professional life course

Tina Haux

Catherine Needham, Elke Heins, and James Rees (eds)

in Social Policy Review 30: Analysis and Debate in Social Policy, 2018

The inclusion of research impact in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework in the UK (REF2014) was greeted with scepticism by the academic community, not least due to the challenges of defining and ... More

The inclusion of research impact in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework in the UK (REF2014) was greeted with scepticism by the academic community, not least due to the challenges of defining and measuring the nature and significance of impact. A new analytical framework of the nature of impact is developed in this chapter and it distinguishes between policy creation, direction, discourse and practice. This framework is then applied to the top-ranked impact case studies in the REF2014 from the Social Work and Social Policy sub-panel and the ESRC Early Career Impact Prize Winners in order to assess impact across the life-course of academics.  Less

Legal History

Paul Brand

in A Century of British Medieval Studies

This chapter examines twentieth-century British scholarship on medieval English legal history. Legal history has long been a marginal subject within British academic life, falling somewhat clumsily ... More

This chapter examines twentieth-century British scholarship on medieval English legal history. Legal history has long been a marginal subject within British academic life, falling somewhat clumsily between the two stools of law and history, although it is an essential part of both subjects. There were very few English medieval legal historians at work during the twentieth century and this is unlikely to change for the better in the future.Less

Art and Science

C. T. McIntire

in Herbert Butterfield: Historian as Dissenter

This chapter focuses on a traumatic period in Butterfield's academic life—the academic year 1922–1923. Within the intimacies of the college, Temperley took charge of him and began to turn him into a ... More

This chapter focuses on a traumatic period in Butterfield's academic life—the academic year 1922–1923. Within the intimacies of the college, Temperley took charge of him and began to turn him into a historian. In the Cambridge of those years, the importance of the college surpassed that of the university. In the humanities, the college was the primary employer, and the writing of prize essays and election to a college fellowship were sufficient to set a person apart for the academic life. It was still unthinkable, and ungentlemanly, for a first-rate student in the humanities to study for the Ph.D., even though Cambridge had begun to offer such studies in history. Amidst the tension within Cambridge created by the movement towards the professionalization of the discipline of history, Butterfield inhabited an ambiguous space. Temperley acted to make him into a professional historian while the college continued to make him into a gentleman.Less

Revolutionary Consciousness

Cary Nelson

in The Critical Pulse: Thirty-Six Credos by Contemporary Critics

In this chapter, the author describes some of his books that highlight historical realities absent from contemporary consciousness. These include Repression and Recovery: Modern American Poetry and ... More

In this chapter, the author describes some of his books that highlight historical realities absent from contemporary consciousness. These include Repression and Recovery: Modern American Poetry and the Politics of Cultural Memory, 1910–1945 (1989) aimed at flooding readers' consciousnesses with a wide range of interesting and vital poetry; and Revolutionary Memory: Recovering the Poetry of the American Left (2001), which embraces poetry on fliers handed out at public events, on broadsides displayed in public, and in scrapbooks assembled by individual readers, all of which gives deeper insight into the social and political functions poetry has served. He also discusses his works in higher education, and argues that the mix of scholarship and activism that shapes his academic life is central to his credo.Less