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Historical Understanding (historical + understanding)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	83%

Selected Abstracts

Beyond Radical Interpretation: Individuality as the Basis of Historical Understanding

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, Issue 4 2009
Serge Grigoriev
First page of article [source]

1. NARRATIVE FORM AND HISTORICAL SENSATION: ON SAUL FRIEDLÄNDER'S THE YEARS OF EXTERMINATION,

HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 3 2009
ALON CONFINO
ABSTRACT Saul Friedländer's magnum opus, The Years of Extermination, has been received worldwide as an exemplary work of history. Yet it was written by a historian who in the last two decades has strenuously asserted the limits of Holocaust representation. At the center of this essay is a problem of historical writing: how to write a historical narrative of the Holocaust that both offers explanations of the unfolding events and also suggests that the most powerful sensation about those events, at the time and since, is that they are beyond words. I explore Friedländer's crafting of such a narrative by considering, first, the role of his attempt in The Years of Extermination to explain the Holocaust and, second, the narrative form of the book. The book is best seen, I argue, not primarily as a work of explanation but as a vast narrative that places an explanation of the Holocaust within a specific form of describing that goes beyond the boundaries of the historical discipline as it is usually practiced. This form of describing goes beyond the almost positivist attachment to facts that dominates current Holocaust historiography. By using Jewish individual testimonies that are interspersed in the chronological history of the extermination, Friedländer creates a narrative based on ruptures and breaks, devices we associate with works of fiction, and that historians do not usually use. The result is an arresting narrative, which I interpret by using Johan Huizinga's notion of historical sensation. Friedländer sees this narrative form as specific to the Holocaust. I view this commingling of irreducible reality and the possibility of art as a required sensibility that belongs to all historical understanding. And in this respect, The Years of Extermination only lays bare more clearly in the case of the Holocaust what is an essential element in all historical reconstruction. [source]

History and Story: Unconventional History in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and James A. Michener's Tales of the South Pacific

HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 4 2002
Madhumalati Adhikari
"Literary history" is a cross between conventional (scientific) history and pure fiction. The resulting hybrid provides access to history that the more conventional sort does not (in particular, a sense of the experiences of the historical actors, and the human meaning of historical events). This claim is demonstrated by an analysis of two novels about World War II, The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, and Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener. These two very different novels in English are by writers themselves very different from each other, writers from different times, different social and political backgrounds, and different points of view. Their novels examine the effects of the Second World War and the events of 1942 on the human psyche, and suggest how human beings have always searched for the silver lining despite the devastation and devaluation of values. Both novels resist any kind of preaching, and yet the search for peace, balance, and kindness is constantly highlighted. The facts of scientific history are woven into the loom of their unconventional histories. The sense of infirmity created by the formal barriers of traditional history is eased, and new possibilities for historical understanding are unveiled. [source]

The "ANRC has Withdrawn its Offer": Paul Kirchhoff, Academic Freedom and the Australian Academic Establishment,

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND HISTORY, Issue 3 2006
Geoffrey Gray
The main focus of examinations of intellectual suppression and censorship of scholars and academics in Australia has been on the post-1945 period, particularly the Cold War. The interwar years have, in comparison, received little attention, resulting in a lack of historical understanding of the development of censorious structures and traditions in Australia. In this paper I discuss the exclusion of Paul Kirchhoff, a German anthropologist, a member of the German Communist Party and a Jew, from undertaking anthropological research in Australia, including its external territories, between 1931 and 1932. Kirchhoff applied for a research grant from the Australian National Research Council (ANRC) which, although awarded, was withdrawn once the Executive Committee was informed by the Australian government that the British MI5 considered him a security risk. His membership of the Communist Party was the reason put forward. This case also underlines the transnational aspect of security services and the international reach of academic anthropology. Kirchhoff was a victim of the ANRC's sympathetic collaboration with the Commonwealth Attorney-General's office to stifle academic and civil freedom. [source]

Richard II and the Succession to the Crown

HISTORY, Issue 303 2006
IAN MORTIMER
The discovery and publication by Michael Bennett of Edward III's entailment of the crown upon his male descendants has raised many questions about the succession in Richard II's reign, very few of which have been examined by scholars. In addition, the supposed declaration by Richard that Roger Mortimer was the heir to the throne has continued to divide opinion. Two hypotheses have recently been put forward by scholars working independently to suggest that in the 1390s Richard pursued a deliberate policy of creating confusion as to the identity of his successor. A close examination of contemporary records and the continuation of the Eulogium Historiarum reveals that Richard II's declaration of the inheritance was made in parliament in 1386 and not 1385. This allows it to be re-contextualized within the crisis of that year and to form the basis of a more accurate appraisal of the succession question in the later 1380s and 1390s. The conclusion has considerable importance for historical understandings of Henry of Bolingbroke's part in the Appellants' crisis of 1387,8, relations between Richard and the Lancastrians in the 1390s, and the inheritance of the throne in 1399. [source]

High Conflict Divorce, Violence, and Abuse: Implications for Custody and Visitation Decisions

JUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT JOURNAL, Issue 4 2003
CLARE DALTON
ABSTRACT Today, judges are faced with the daunting task of determining the best interests of the child and making appropriate custody awards to that end. The best interests of children becomes a critical question when domestic violence is involved; yet, determining what constitutes domestic violence is often debated. Research is often divided on what constitutes domestic violence. One body of research focuses on conflict, another focuses on domestic violence. What the first group identifies as intense emotional distress and disagreement, the other identifies as abuse. Judges making custody determinations in such cases are faced with the difficult challenge of distinguishing between a divorce with "high conflict" and a domestic violence case with ongoing abuse. This article will summarize the legal, philosophical, and historical understandings of the "high conflict" family and its potential impact on children. It will also provide practical judicial guidelines for making the important distinction between high conflict and domestic violence and subsequently crafting appropriate and safe child custody awards. [source]