A Concise History of France

Price, Roger, A Concise History of France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp.xiii+491 RAE2008

Models of Backwardness versus Transformation in Eastern Europe. Review Article

This paper is critical analysis of book by Anna Sosnowska, "Zrozumieć zacofanie. Spory historyków o Europę Wschodnią (1947-1994)" [To Understand Backwardness: Historians' Deabates about Eastern Europe (1947-1994)]. Warszawa 2004.

Indian Architecture: Social and Political Challenges

The objective of this paper is to reassess the central factors which have shaped the Indian architecture. The author puts forward the concept of plurality introduced by Western art historians and argues that the diversity of the Indian architecture should not be explained in terms of religious differences, but in terms of the socio-economical situation in South Asia. He also elaborates on the Hindu caste system and its impact on the Indian architecture.

Filozofia antyczna wobec problemu interpretacji. Rozwój alegorezy od przedsokratyków do Arystotelesa

The present work examines the beginnings of ancient hermeneutics. More specifically, it discusses the connection between the rise of the practice of allegoresis, on the one hand, and the emergence of the first theory of figurative language, on the other. Thus, this book investigates the specific historical and cultural circumstances that enabled the ancient Greeks not only to discover the possibility of allegorical interpretation, but also to treat figurative language as a philosophical problem. By posing difficulties in understanding the enigmatic sense of various esoteric doctrines, poems, oracles and riddles, figurative language created the context for theoretical reflection on the meaning of these “messages”. Hence, ancient interpreters began to ponder over the nature and functions of figurative (“enigmatic”) language as well as over the techniques of its proper use and interpretation. Although the practice of allegorical interpretation was closely linked to the development of the whole of ancient philosophy, the present work covers only the period from the 6th to the 4th century B.C. It concentrates, then, on the philosophical and cultural consequences of allegoresis in the classical age. The main thesis advocated here has it that the ancient Greeks were in-clined to regard allegory as a cognitive problem rather than merely as a stylistic or a literary one. When searching for the hidden meanings of various esoteric doc-trines, poems, oracles and riddles, ancient interpreters of these “messages” assumed allegory to be the only tool suitable for articulating certain matters. In other words, it was their belief that the use of figurative language resulted from the necessity of expressing things that were otherwise inexpressible. The present work has been organized in the following manner. The first part contains historical and philological discussions that provide the point of departure for more philosophical considerations. This part consists of two introductory chapters. Chapter one situates the practice of allegorical interpretation at the borderline of two different traditions: the rhetorical-grammatical and the hermeneutical. In order to clearly differentiate between the two, chapter one distinguishes between allegory and allegoresis, on the one hand, and allegoresis and exegesis, on the other. While pointing to the conventionality (and even arbitrariness) of such distinctions, the chapter argues, nevertheless, for their heuristic usefulness. The remaining part of chapter one focuses on a historical and philological reconstruction of the most important conceptual tools of ancient hermeneutics. Discussing the semantics of such terms as allēgoría, hypónoia, ainigma and symbolon proves important for at least two crucial reasons. Firstly, it reveals the mutual affinity between allegoresis and divination, i.e., practices that are inherently connected with the need to discover the latent meaning of the “message” in question (whether poem or oracle). Secondly, these philological analyses bring to light the specificity of the ancient understanding of such concepts as allegory or symbol. It goes without saying that antiquity employed these terms in a manner quite disparate from modernity. Chapter one concludes with a discussion of ancient views on the cognitive value of figurative (“enigmatic”) language. Chapter two focuses on the role that allegoresis played in the process of transforming mythos into logos. It is suggested here that it was the practice of allegorical interpretation that made it possible to preserve the traditional myths as an important point of reference for the whole of ancient philosophy. Thus, chapter two argues that the existence of a clear opposition between mythos into logos in Preplatonic philosophy is highly questionable in light of the indisputable fact that the Presocratics, Sophists and Cynics were profoundly convinced about the cognitive value of mythos (this conviction was also shared by Plato and Aristotle, but their attitude towards myth was more complex). Consequently, chapter two argues that in Preplatonic philosophy, myth played a function analogous to the concepts discussed in chapter one (i.e., hidden meanings, enigmas and symbols), for in all these cases, ancient interpreters found tools for conveying issues that were otherwise difficult to convey. Chapter two concludes with a classification of various types of allegoresis. Whilst chapters one and two serve as a historical and philological introduction, the second part of this book concentrates on the close relationship between the development of allegoresis, on the one hand, and the flowering of philosophy, on the other. Thus, chapter three discusses the crucial role that allegorical interpretation came to play in Preplatonic philosophy, chapter four deals with Plato’s highly complex and ambivalent attitude to allegoresis, and chapter five has been devoted to Aristotle’s original approach to the practice of allegorical interpretation. It is evident that allegoresis was of paramount importance for the ancient thinkers, irrespective of whether they would value it positively (Preplatonic philosophers and Aristotle) or negatively (Plato). Beginning with the 6th century B.C., the ancient practice of allegorical interpretation is motivated by two distinct interests. On the one hand, the practice of allegorical interpretation reflects the more or less “conservative” attachment to the authority of the poet (whether Homer, Hesiod or Orpheus). The purpose of this apologetic allegoresis is to exonerate poetry from the charges leveled at it by the first philosophers and, though to a lesser degree, historians. Generally, these allegorists seek to save the traditional paideia that builds on the works of the poets. On the other hand, the practice of allegorical interpretation reflects also the more or less “progressive” desire to make original use of the authority of the poet (whether Homer, Hesiod or Orpheus) so as to promote a given philosophical doctrine. The objective of this instrumental allegoresis is to exculpate philosophy from the accusations brought against it by the more conservative circles. Needless to say, these allegorists significantly contribute to the process of the gradual replacing of the mythical view of the world with its more philosophical explanation. The present book suggests that it is the philosophy of Aristotle that should be regarded as a sort of acme in the development of ancient hermeneutics. The reasons for this are twofold. On the one hand, the Stagirite positively values the practice of allegoresis, rehabilitating, thus, the tradition of Preplatonic philosophy against Plato. And, on the other hand, Aristotle initiates the theoretical reflection on figurative (“enigmatic”) language. Hence, in Aristotle we encounter not only the practice of allegoresis, but also the theory of allegory (although the philosopher does not use the term allēgoría). With the situation being as it is, the significance of Aristotle’s work cannot be overestimated. First of all, the Stagirite introduces the concept of metaphor into the then philosophical considerations. From that moment onwards, the phenomenon of figurative language becomes an important philosophical issue. After Aristo-tle, the preponderance of thinkers would feel obliged to specify the rules for the appropriate use of figurative language and the techniques of its correct interpretation. Furthermore, Aristotle ascribes to metaphor (and to various other “excellent” sayings) the function of increasing and enhancing our knowledge. Thus, according to the Stagirite, figurative language is not only an ornamental device, but it can also have a significant explanatory power. Finally, Aristotle observes that figurative expressions cause words to become ambiguous. In this context, the philosopher notices that ambiguity can enrich the language of a poet, but it can also hinder a dialectical discussion. Accordingly, Aristotle is inclined to value polysemy either positively or negatively. Importantly, however, the Stagirite is perfectly aware of the fact that in natural languages ambiguity is unavoidable. This is why Aristotle initiates a syste-matic reflection on the phenomenon of ambiguity and distinguishes its various kinds. In Aristotle, ambiguity is, then, both a problem that needs to be identified and a tool that can help in elucidating intricate philosophical issues. This unique approach to ambiguity and figurative (“enigmatic”) language enabled Aristotle to formulate invaluable intuitions that still await appropriate recognition.

Polskie nazwiska mieszkańców Drohobycza końca XVIII i początku XIX wieku na tle wschodniosłowiańskim

Wydział Neofilologii: Instytut Filologii Rosyjskiej. Zakład Ukrainistyki

O naruszaniu podstawowych zasad postępowania naukowego. “Wzgórze przeznaczenia archeologii” górą skandalu

„We are paying a high price for the increasingly unequivocal equation drawn between knowledge and science and ordinary market product. The ideal of perfectly unrestrained cognition, the true mother of science, is threatened by the mass drive towards practical use and application of knowledge, a looming departure into nothingness. Politicians and managers of scientific life are guilty of considerable contribution in corrupting respectable university structures, and thus undermining culture of science and scholarly ethics. (…). Acquisition of funds, sponsorship, media presence, popularisation or even striving for commercial gain are recognised by politicians and scientific consultants, but most of all they are accepted by the university management as objectives worthy of effort, not to say the foremost goals of science. University rectors are nowadays interested primarily in the amounts of acquired moneys. The outcomes of research thus financed is subject to virtually no control, nor does it arouse any interest, unless it turns out to be fit to be announced in the media as a sensation, thereby serving the ‘prestige’ of the university”.

Ochrona i konserwacja zasobu w archiwach państwowych w Polsce

Wydział Historyczny

Ballineaspigmore and Bishopstown House

Ballineaspig, anglicised Bishopstown, consists of two townlands which are Ballineaspigmore and Ballineaspigbeg. Taken together, both townlands oc­cupy an area identifiable in modern day terms as lying approximately be­tween the old Glasheen National School on the east side and what was, until recently, the University Farm Curraheen Road on the west. A townland is the smallest administrative land division in Ireland. Historians and other scholars are as yet inconclusive about the origins of these divisions. They are certainly as old as the seventeenth century. The townland with which this booklet is concerned is known as Ballineaspigmore. It extends west from the new Regional Hospital at Wilton and includes modern housing estates such as Uam-Var, Benvoirlich and Firgrove. The simplest translation of the townland name is the large land division of the bishop. To clarify a popular misconception, Bishopstown does not derive its name from the fact that in the early eighteenth century a bishop of Cork built his country residence there. The name is much older and can be found in sources dating back to the sixteenth century.

The Whitby life of Gregory the Great: exegesis and hagiography

The eight-century Whitby Vita Gregorii is one of the earliest examples of Anglo-Saxon hagiography, and is the earliest surviving life of Gregory the Great (590-604). The work has proved itself an anomaly in subject matter, style and approach, not least because of the writer’s apparently arbitrary insertion of an account of the retrieval of the relics of the Anglo-Saxon King Edwin (d.633). There has, however, been relatively little research on the document to date, the most recent concentrating on elements in the Gregorian material in the work. The present thesis adapts a methodology which identifies patristic exegetical themes and techniques in the Vita. That is not only in material originating from the pen of Gregory himself, which is freely quoted and cited by the writer, but also in the narrative episodes concerning the Pope. It also identifies related exegetical themes underlying the narrative of the Anglo-Saxon material in the document, and this suggests that the work is of much greater coherence then has previously been thought. In the course of the thesis some of the Vita Gregorii’s major patristic themes are compared with Bede and other insular writers in the presentation of topics that have been of considerable interest to insular historians in recent years. That is themes including: the conversion and salvation of the English people; the ideal pastor; monastic influence on formation of Episcopal spiritual authority; relations between king and bishop. The thesis also includes a re-evaluation of the possible historical context and purpose of the work, and demonstrates the value of a proper understanding of the Vita’s spiritual nature in order to achieve this. Finally the research is supported by a new structural analysis of the entire Vita Gregorii as an artefact formed within literary traditions.

The Irish House of Lords, 1780-1800: politics and ideology

This thesis covers the Irish House of Lords in the last two decades of its life. A number of important themes run through the work - the regency crisis, patronage, the management of the Lords, the relationship between the Lords and Commons. These themes, explored from different angles, are vital to an understanding of the political role of the upper house in the 1780s and 1790s. This study is confined to the Lords as a political institution and thus its judicial role as final court of appeal, which was restored to it in 1782, will not be explored here. The thesis consists of two parts. Part one examines the structure and powers of the House of Lords while part two looks at the parties and policies of the house. Chapter one discusses the British constitution as imposed upon Ireland. Chapter two suggests the reasons why constitutional changes were introduced in 1782, and looks at the contribution made by the Irish House of Lords in securing these changes. Chapter three explores the various channels of influence which the peers enjoyed. Chapter four explores the sometimes tense relationship between Lords and Commons. Chapter five examines management of the House of Lords by Dublin Castle. Part two, begins at chapter six. This chapter explores the leadership of both parties within the Lords. Chapter seven looks at how patronage was used to reward those who were loyal to the government. Chapter eight explores the influence of the Whig opposition. Chapter nine looks at the controversial attempts made by Pitt and his ministry during the 1790s to win the support of catholics and turn them from the lure of French ideas, and of the response of the peers to these attempts. Chapter ten is concerned with the relationship between the peers of the House of Lords and the lords lieutenant during the 1790s. Chapter eleven looks at the Union and the House of Lords and attempts to answer the question historians have long asked: why did the Irish parliament and the House of Lords in particular, look favourably on the proposed union of the two kingdoms and the end of their own institution? The House of Lords in the closing decades of the eighteenth century was an institution within which the wealth and power of the kingdom could be found. Its members were politically active, both inside and outside the house. It contained a majority who saw the Crown as the source of stability, but it was a living and evolving political organism and therefore it contained men who believed that the Crown should have its influence limited. This evolution is also demonstrated in its desire for political change in 1782 and 1788. Its last, and perhaps most radical decision, was to vote for its own demise in 1900.

Farmers, agriculture and politics in the Irish Free State area, 1919-1936

Given the economic and social importance of agriculture in the early years of the Irish Free State, it is surprising that the development of organisations representing farmers has not received the attention it deserves from historians. While the issues of government agricultural policy and the land question have been extensively studied in the historiography, the autonomous response by farmers to agricultural policies and the detailed study of the farmers’ organisations has simply been ignored in spite of the existence of a range of relevant primary sources. Farmers’ organisations have only received cursory treatment in these studies; they have been presented as passive spectators, responding in a Pavlovian manner to outside events. The existing historiography has only studied farmers’ organisations during periods when they impinged on national politics, epecially during the War of Independence and the Economic War. Therefore chronological gaps exist which has led to much misinterpretation of farmers’ activities. This thesis will redress this imbalance by studying the formation and continuous development of farmers’ organisations within the twenty-six county area and the reaction of farmers to changing government agricultural policies, over the period 1919 to 1936. The period under review entailed many attempts by farmers to form representative organisations and encompassed differing policy regimes. The thesis will open in 1919, when the first national organisation representing farmers, the Irish Farmers’ Union, was formed. In 1922, the union established the Farmers’ Party. By the mid- 1920’s, a number of protectionist agricultural associations had been formed. While the Farmers’ Party was eventually absorbed by Cumann na nGaedheal, local associations of independent farmers occupied the resultant vacuum and contested the 1932 election. These organisations formed the nucleus of a new national organisation; the National Farmers’ and Ratepayers’ League. The agricultural crisis caused by both the Great Depression and the Economic War facilitated the expansion of the league. The league formed a political party, the Centre Party, to contest the 1933 election. While the Centre Party was absorbed by the newly-formed Fine Gael, activists from the former farmer organisations led the campaign against the payment of annuities and rates. Many of them continued this campaign after 1934, when the Fine Gael leadership opposed the violent resistance to the collection of annuities. New farmer organisations were formed to co-ordinate this campaign which continued until 1936, the closing point of the thesis.

The political and economic context of Keynes’s 1933 Finlay lecture: transforming a business practitioner’s ways of knowing

This thesis is structured in the format of a three part Portfolio of Exploration to facilitate transformation in my ways of knowing to enhance an experienced business practitioner’s capabilities and effectiveness. A key factor in my ways of knowing, as opposed to what I know, is my exploration of context and assumptions. By interacting with my cultural, intellectual, economic, and social history, I seek to become critically aware of the biographical, historical, and cultural context of my beliefs and feelings about myself. This Portfolio is not exclusively for historians of economics or historians of ideas but also for those interested in becoming more aware of how these culturally assimilated frames of reference and bundles of assumptions that influence the way they perceive, think, decide, feel and interpret their experiences in order to operate more effectively in their professional and organisational lives. In the first part of my Portfolio, I outline and reflect upon my Portfolio’s overarching theory of adult development; the writings of Harvard’s Robert Kegan and Columbia University’s Jack Mezirow. The second part delves further into how meaning-making, the activity of how one organises and makes sense of the world and how meaning-making evolves to different levels of complexity. I explore how past experience and our interpretations of history influences our understandings since all perception is inevitably tinged with bias and entrenched ‘theory-laden’ assumptions. In my third part, I explore the 1933 inaugural University College Dublin Finlay Lecture delivered by economist John Maynard Keynes. My findings provide a new perspective and understanding of Keynes’s 1933 lecture by not solely reading or relying upon the text of the three contextualised essay versions of his lecture. The purpose and context of Keynes’s original longer lecture version was quite different to the three shorter essay versions published for the American, British and German audiences.

The political philosophy of Miki Kiyoshi: A close reading of the philosophical foundations of cooperative communitarianism

The thesis is a historical and philological study of the mature political theory of Miki Kiyoshi (1897-1945) focused on Philosophical Foundations of Cooperative Communitarianism (1939), a full translation of which is included. As the name suggests, it was a methodological and normative communitarianism, which critically built on liberalism, Marxism and Confucianism to realise a regional political community. Some of Miki’s Western readers have wrongly considered him a fascist ideologue, while he has been considered a humanist Marxist in Japan. A closer reading cannot support either view. The thesis argues that the Anglophone study of Japanese philosophy is a degenerating research programme ripe for revolution in the sense of returning full circle to an original point. That means returning to the texts, reading them contextually and philologically, in principle as early modern European political theory is read by intellectual historians, such as the representatives of Cambridge School history of political thought. The resulting reading builds critically on the Japanese scholarship and relates it to contemporary Western and postcolonial political theory and the East Asian tradition, particularly neo-Confucianism. The thesis argues for a Cambridge School perspective radicalised by the critical addendum of geo-cultural context, supplemented by Geertzian intercultural hermeneutics and a Saidian ‘return to philology’. As against those who have seen radical reorientations in Miki’s political thought, the thesis finds gradual progression and continuity between his neo-Kantian, existentialist, Marxian anthropology, Hegelian and finally communitarian phases. The theoretical underpinnings are his philosophical anthropology, a structurationist social theory of praxis, and a critique of liberalism, Marxism, nationalism and idealism emphasising concrete as opposed to abstract theory and the need to build on existing cultural traditions to modernise rather than westernise East Asia. This post-Western fusion was imagined to be the beginning of a true and pluralistic universalism.

Nurturing Change: Lilly Martin Spencer's Images of Children

This dissertation is the first full-length study to concentrate on American genre painter Lilly Martin Spencer's images of children, which constituted nearly one half of her saleable production during the height of her artistic career from 1848 to 1869. At this time, many young parents received advice regarding child rearing through books and other publications, having moved away from their families of origin in search of employment. These literatures, which gained in popularity from the 1830s onward, focused on spiritual, emotional, and disciplinary matters. My study considers four major themes from the period's writing on child nurture that changed over time, including depravity and innocence, parent/child bonding, standards of behavior and moral rectitude, and children's influence on adults. It demonstrates how Spencer's paintings, prints, and drawings featuring children supported and challenged these evolving ideologies, helping to shed light not only on the artist's reception of child-rearing advice, but also on its possible impact on her middle-class audience, to whom she closely catered. In four chapters, I investigate Spencer's images of sleeping children as visual equivalents of contemporary consolation literature during a time of high infant and child mortality rates; her paintings of parent/child interaction as promoting separation from mothers and emotional bonding with fathers; her prints of mischievous children as both considering changing ideals about children's behavior and comforting Anglo-American citizens afraid of what they saw as threatening minority groups; and her pictures with Civil War and Reconstruction subject matter as contending with the popular concept of the moral utility of children. By framing my interpretations of Spencer's output around key issues in the period's dynamic child-nurture literature, I advance new comprehensive readings of many of her most well-known paintings, including Domestic Happiness, Fi, Fo, Fum!, and The Pic Nic or the Fourth of July. I also consider work often overlooked by other art historians, but which received acclaim in Spencer's own time, including the lithographs of children made after her designs, and the allegorical painting Truth Unveiling Falsehood. Significantly, I provide the first in-depth analysis of a newly rediscovered Reconstruction-era painting, The Home of the Red, White, and Blue.

TEACHING AMERICAN CIVIL WAR MUSIC IDSTORY WITH MODERN EDITIONS OF PERIOD MUSIC FOR FULL CONCERT BAND

This dissertation explores a method of teaching the history of Civil War music and musicians through modern full-band editions of original brass band music. In the study of music history the period of the Civil War is rarely discussed, or at best, mentioned only if a student takes a specific course on the history of bands and happens to look deeply into the background of some of the early band pioneers such as Patrick Gilmore, who served in the Union Army as a bandmaster. The history of the musicians, bands, and music performed during the Civil War deserves study to provide a way for students and audiences to learn this history. This project includes lesson plans that can be used with the arrangements of the period music as well as select published music that is also representative of the period. Included with the historical information are four arrangements of original brass band music now scored for full concert band. Each arrangement includes a section scored for brass only with optional brass band parts. Historical information is provided on the Civil War period bands and how each side used them, on the composers of the music, and also on the individual compositions. The historical information can be used to supplement the lesson plans to teach the history, as well as for program notes for audiences. The research involved locating information on both Union and Confederate bands available in books, other dissertations, articles, and interviews with Civil War music historians. The original brass band music is scored for full band. This method will allow teachers and conductors to highlight this period of wind band history and to share it with both students and audiences. Included with this project are photos and video footage taken during a visit with the 1st Brigade Band of Watertown, Wisconsin, an historical organization dedicated to recreating the music and performances of an actual Civil War era band.