On the 23 of February, Liisa Bourgeot from the University of Helsinki gave a talk entitled
“Gustav Shpet, Russian phenomenology, time and history”.
The talk was followed by a small reception.
Author Archives: Jorge Varela
Liisi Keedus on Karl Barth
Liisi Keedus has published an article on the political thought of Swiss theologian Karl Barth, entitled “‘The snake biting its own tail’: Karl Barth on the modern promise of politics”. The piece appears in the International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, and is available here.
Between the Times Summer School 11-15 July 2022
TRANSNATIONAL INTELLECTUAL HISTORY: COMPARATIVE METHODS
DATES: 11-15 JULY 2022
The course outlines, discusses, and evaluates the methods for studying intellectual history transnationally. It focuses on the inter-relationship between political, cultural, and intellectual history, and the transference and re-signification of ideas. We ask how best to study the circulation of knowledge, and the reasons for integration, rejection – or ignorance of – certain lines of thought transnationally. We also look at how disciplines like philosophy, semiotics, politics, literary studies, translation studies, etc. can provide tools for intellectual historians. The course addresses general methodological issues and compares the insights of different approaches, yet is also strongly based on historical case studies and tailored to students’ on-going research.
The course gives the students the opportunity to present their own study projects and problems, and to receive feedback in seminars, one-to-one tutorials, and through essay evaluation. The course also strongly promotes and encourages informal communication and exploration of ideas among the participants.
The course is organised in cooperation with the project “Between the Times – Embattled Temporalities and Political Imagination in Inter-War Europe,” based at the School of Humanities.
Course instructors are intellectual historians, cultural historians, literary theorists and philosophers, whose research specializes on conceptual history (e.g. history of concepts of “sovereignty”, “progress”, “revolution”, “violence”, “West”), history of 20th century political thought (e.g. in Central and Eastern Europe, Germany, France, Jewish thought, liberalism and its critics), study of processes of intellectual transfer (e.g. reception and translation studies, emigre studies), political ideologies in European modernisms and avant-gardes, and comparative European intellectual history, among other themes.
WHY THIS COURSE?
– All teachers are innovative researchers, internationally recognised in their respective fields.
– Besides providing general lectures and seminars, the course aims to address each student’s particular research work in proposing methodological options and best practice.
– The course promotes informal communication and exploration of ideas, making time for topically related tours and get-togethers.
TEACHERS
Keynotes: Assoc. Prof. Eva Piirimäe, Prof. Georgios Varouxakis
Other teaching/supervising academic staff:
Dr. Tommaso Giordani
Prof. Liisi Keedus
Dr. Henry Mead
Dr. Piret Peiker
TIMETABLE
TBC
PARTICIPANTS
PhD students and dedicated MA students whose postgraduate research focuses on, or draws upon intellectual history.
Minimum bachelor’s degree; knowledge of the English language B2 level or above.
Together with the application, please send your CV and a short (100 words) motivation letter, describing your research project and how you expect it would benefit from this course. The deadline is 1May 2022.
Group size: maximum 15 students. Participants will be selected based on their CV and motivation letter.
CREDIT POINTS
Upon full participation and completion of course work students will be awarded 6 ECTS points and a certificate of completion.
In order to complete the course, student needs to:
– Actively participate in discussions
– Do a presentation
– Complete a final essay related to student’s work in progress (3000-5000 words)
COURSE FEE
50 EUR.
Course participants are provided free Tallinn University Dormitory double room accommodation for up to 10 nights.
CONTACT
tss@tlu.ee, peiker@tlu.ee
Tommaso Giordani on Quinn Slobodian’s “Globalists”
Tommaso Giordani has published a review of Quinn Slobodian’s Globalists for Jacobin Italia. It is available here.
Tommaso Giordani on Zeev Sternhell and Fascism
Tommaso Giordani has published an article in the Autumn issue of Il Pensiero Storico en
titled “Zeev Sternhell, l’antilluminismo, ed il fascismo come possibilità ricorrente“. Written in the Italian language, the article examines the centrality of the Enlightenment/anti-Enlightenment distinction in Zeev’s Sternhell’s work, arguing that it constitutes the conceptual core of the Israeli historian’s oeuvre. A shortened version of the same argument can be found in English in Ideology, Theory, Practice, the blog of the Journal of Political Ideologies, under the title “Fascism as a recurring possibility: Zeev Sternhell, the anti-Enlightenment, and the politics of an intellectual history of modernity“.
Piret Peiker on Eastern European Literature
Piret Peiker’s article “East European Literature from the Postcolonial Perspective” (“Ida-Euroopa kirjandus postkoloniaalsest vaatenurgast) was published in the anthology edited by Johanna Ross and Epp Annus Art Created for Several Masters: Soviet Colonialism and Estonia (“Mitmele isandale loodud kunst. Sotskolonialism ja Eesti”).Tartu: Tartu University Press, pp. 165-166.
The article focuses on the depiction of history and human agency in the East European Bildungsromane in the interwar and postwar periods. It uses postcolonial theory as its main approach.
You can find it in the below link (in Estonian):
Open Philosophy Seminar, 02.10.20
Henry Mead will give a paper in the Open Philosophy seminar series at Tallinn University on 02.10.20 (Room S-240). Title and Abstract below:
Modernist Temporalities: Fictions, Myths, and the ‘Religious Attitude’
This paper first considers Frank Kermode’s account of modernist apocalyptic thinking in The Sense of an Ending (1967) as a reference point for temporality studies, noting its distinctions between secular chronicity, epiphanic kairos, and intermediate forms identifiable in modern literature. Using this theory as a frame, the paper focuses on T.E. Hulme, whose essays capture a type of modernist ‘clerical scepticism’, as Kermode puts it, in treating assertions about progress or historical crisis as humanly-constructed ‘fictions’. The paper then traces Hulme’s analysis of early 20th century thought, moving from forms of positivist progress to a vitalist perspectivism – and considers his ‘religious attitude’ in his late writing, in relation to Kermode’s categories of ‘myth’ and ‘supreme fiction’.
Henry Mead on Modernist Anti-Humanism
Henry Mead has published an article, ‘The typewriter mind: modernism, populism and antihumanism’, in Textual Practice, 34.9 (Sep 2020), 1549-1573, DOI 10.1080/0950236X.2020.1808293 (open access here).
Tommaso Giordani on presentism
Tommaso Giordani has published an extended book review of Marek Tamm and Laurent Olivier’s book “Rethinking Historical Time” in the European Review of History. The review is available here.
Beyond the End of History? Chronicle of Higher Education
https://www.chronicle.com/article/beyond-the-end-of-history?cid=gen_sign_in