Intellectual History

"In these two related articles the history of social work in late Victorian England is understood by aligning it not with self-consciously held ideologies of, say, bourgeois capitalism, patriarchy, evangelical Protestantism, or liberal humanism, but with the complex cultural system of modernity. It is hoped to problematize both the genealogy and the substance of early social work that now so decisively shapes our interpretations of the influences of late Victorian philanthropy. The history of social work has to be treated seriously if we are to properly understand the present day situation in terms of modernity and investigate its orientation more thoroughly. This first paper offers a history of social work which draws attention to the imbrications of a secular modernity and how its governing ideas, texts and discourses of the time influence philanthropy. It examines dominant modernist themes that had a significant impact on the emergence of social
work and the important role of the Charity Organization Society. It is suggested that these themes form part of a shared European heritage. Whilst the influences of modernity on social work are likely to have been uneven, there were common conditions faced by people in Europe and shared developments that gave way to the rise of social work in the nineteenth century.

Keywords: Modernity; DiscursiveCultural Framing of Social Work; Late Victorian England; Charity Organization Society: Moral Idealism; Character; Science of Charity: The Social Question; Classification; Self-Improvement"

"The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (OGHRA) is a ground-breaking international and interdisciplinary enterprise on the impact of the thought and work of Augustine of Hippo (AD 354 - 430). Arguably the most influential early Christian thinker in the Western part of the Roman Empire, Augustine's impact has reached further than the religious domain and he has become a veritable icon of western culture.

OGHRA maps this influence not just in theology, his traditional area of prominence, but far beyond, taking into account fields such as political theory, ethics, music, education, semiotics, literature, philosophy, psychotherapy, religion, and popular culture. Beginning with a detailed introduction, it offers chapter-length discussions and contextualization on the general characteristics of Augustine's reception in various periods, as well as on specific themes as wide-ranging as Islam and gender. OGHRA also surveys the material transmission and intellectual reception of almost all of Augustine's extant works, documented in the light of recent research. The largest part of the volumes comprises around 600 entries which describe, analyse, and evaluate Augustine's influence on a broad variety of key figures and themes through the ages.

Edited by Karla Pollmann (Editor-in-Chief), in collaboration with Willemien Otten (Editor) and twenty co-editors, it contains high quality scholarship from over 400 international experts. Offering precise information, with references to both primary and secondary sources, this reference work is unique in the breadth of material covered. It aims to survey the legacy of Augustine and make it available both to specialists and readers from other fields who may be unfamiliar with the scope of his impact.

1: Karla Pollmann: The Proteanism of Authority
2: The Making of Authority
David Lambert: Patterns of Augustine's Reception, 430-700: a Synthesis
Willemien Otten: The Reception of Augustine in the Early Middle Ages (700-1200): Presence, Absence, Reverence, and Other Modes of Appropriation
Eric Saak: Augustine and his Late Medieval Appropriations (1200-1500)
3: Philology and Doctrinal Debate
Jeremy Thompson: The Medieval Manuscript Tradition of Augustine's works: An Overview from 400-1200
Eric Saak: The Augustinian Renaissance: Textual Scholarship and Religious Identity in the Later Middle Ages (1200-1500)
Arnoud Visser: Augustine in Renaissance Humanism
Irena Backus: The 'Confessionalization' of Augustine in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation
4: Augustine Beyond Theology and Back
Jean-Louis Quantin & Scott Mandelbrote: Augustine in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Mark Elliott: Augustines in the Long Nineteenth Century's Theology
Maarten Wisse: The First Modern Person? Twentieth-Century Theological Reception of Augustine
5: Other Augustine
Peter Liebregts: 'Late have I loved you': Augustine and Modern Literature
David Wilhite: Augustine in Black and African Theology
Kari Børresen: Challenging Augustine in Feminist Theology and Gender Studies
Daniel König: Augustine and Islam
The Works of Augustine
Individuals and Themes
List of Contributors"

The Croatian-born Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520–1575) was a Lutheran theologian and reformer who spent most of his adult life in the German-speaking territories of the Holy Roman Empire, playing an important role within the Evangelical churches and in the confessionalization of his day. Luka Ilic establishes that Flacius’ theology became increasingly radicalized with time and examines aspects of this process through following two parallel tracks. One trajectory focuses on the development of Flacius’ theological thought, while the other one discusses the pivotal influences and major turning points in his life, such as being exiled from different cities. Although Flacius did enjoy some measure of success and even attracted a considerable number of followers for shorter periods of time, his radicalized theology ultimately led to his public downfall and marred his legacy. Flacius’ relationships with the most important Wittenberg figures, Luther and Melanchthon, are also explored, along with the vast personal and professional networks Flacius built up in imperial cities, all of which shaped his theological development. One of the dominant claims is that Flacius’ understanding of original sin and of grace were the lynchpin for much of his opus. At the same time, the findings demonstrate that Flacius was a multifaceted individual with interest and competences in a number of different academic fields.

"In sixteenth-century Europe, Augustine was received as one of the most prominent religious and philosophical authorities, yet the various parties appropriated his thought in different, often contrasting ways. Augustine was claimed as a thoroughly Lutheran, Catholic, or Calvinist thinker, and even hailed as the ideal Erasmian pastor. These wildly contrasting receptions raise crucial questions about the significance of Augustine's thought in the Reformation period. They also show the complex relationship between religious change and the new intellectual culture of Renaissance humanism.

Drawing on a variety of printed and manuscript sources, Arnoud Visser breaks new ground in three ways. He systematically grounds Augustine's theological reception in the history of reading and the material culture of books and manuscripts. He does not confine his examination to particular confessional parties or specific geographic boundaries, but offers a cross-confessional account of Augustine's appropriation in early modern Europe. Finally, he provides crucial insight into the nature of intellectual authority in the early modern period.

Central in this study are the production, circulation and consumption of Augustine's works. Visser examines the impact of the new art of print, the rise of humanist scholarship, and the emerging confessional divisions on Augustine's reception. He shows how editors navigated a wealth of patristic information by using search tools and anthologies, and explains how individual readers used their copies and how they applied their knowledge in public debates. Reading Augustine in the Reformation argues that emerging confessional pressures did not restrict intellectual life, as has often been claimed, but promoted exciting new areas and modes of scholarship."

"The primary historical claim of this paper is that contests over railway spine in late 19th c.-early 20th c. Great Britain and America can only be properly understood in context of the ascent of ideas of mechanical objectivity at the same time.  This paper demonstrates how the vehemence of the debate on the subject of railway spine turned on the importance of locating the material pathologies that grounded for both physicians and patients the legitimacy of the disease.  Although the significance of a patho-anatomical foundation for railway spine has not been lost on medical historians, this paper argues that precisely why that foundation mattered so much for both professionals and the laity cannot be apprehended without accounting for the increasing influence of ideas of mechanical objectivity in the late Victorian period.  The paper builds on prior work regarding the importance of this idea of objectivity in detecting the ‘truth’ of various kinds of pain without lesion during the same period.  Drawing on a variety of British and American primary sources including original medical accident reports, medical treatises and journals, popular media, trade industry pamphlets, and legal cases, the paper documents that on both sides of the debate, physicians, lawyers, and juries alike invested anatomical lesions with major epistemic and evidentiary significance.  Such lesions, the natural objects of disease, were regarded among both lay and expert as sites of truth, which regard is a central criterion of emerging concepts of mechanical objectivity at exactly the same time.  In establishing its thesis, the paper pays special attention to the veridical function of 19th c. scientific imaging techniques such as the photograph and the X-ray in determining the ‘truth’ regarding claims of railway spine.  The paper concludes that while the rise of theories of psychoneurosis is explicable in part as a reaction to the inability to locate the relevant lesions, the significance of such lesions in reifying traumatic neurosis persists in Great Britain and America well into the 20th c.
 

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session, learners will be able to:

1. Define mechanical objectivity in its 19th c. context;

2. Explain the conceptual connections between mechanical objectivity and railway spine in 19th c. Britain and America; and

3. Describe the epistemic and evidentiary significance for both lay and professional of patho-anatomical lesions in detecting the truth of claims of railway spine in 19th c. Britain and America."

Presentación del dossier: Sociabilidades culturales en Buenos Aires, 1860-1930: círculos, sociedades, ateneos y cafés. Asumiendo el desafío de contribuir al estudio de las sociabilidades culturales, y con el objetivo de mostrar determinados aspectos de la vida letrada porteña en un período de mediano plazo que abarca las décadas comprendidas entre 1860 y 1930, los aportes de este dossier comparten una serie de preguntas sobre los ámbitos y espacios de la vida letrada porteña. Algunas especificaciones sobre el dossier y sus contenidos. En primer lugar, cabe destacar que un conjunto de interrogantes ha servido como guías para pensar en las sociabilidades culturales; entre ellos: ¿qué pretendían estas asociaciones?, ¿cómo percibían sus fundadores y miembros la vida cultural del país?, ¿cuáles fueron sus objetivos?, ¿qué referencias extranjeras funcionaron como modelos de la sociabilidad cultural porteña? Entonces, basándose en investigaciones realizadas en la última década -los autores y las autoras que participan han realizado sus investigaciones doctorales en distintas disciplinas en los últimos años- los textos presentados comparten algunas lecturas y cierta sensibilidad.

"The fourth conference on the history of the humanities, "The Making of the Humanities IV", will take place in Rome from 16 till 18 October 2014.

Goal of the Conference
This is the fourth of a biennially organized conference that brings together scholars and historians interested in the comparative history of the humanities (philology, art history, historiography, linguistics, logic, literary studies, musicology, theatre studies, media studies, a.o.).

Theme of the 2014 Conference: Connecting Disciplines
We welcome papers on the history of the humanities that focus on any period or region. The theme of the 2014 conference will be Connecting Disciplines, with a special interest in comparing methods and patterns across disciplines -- both within and between regions (e.g. China and Europe).

Deadline for abstracts: 1 June 2014
"