Think Piece – Page 37

Indefatigable Polyphony, or Alexander Kluge’s Narration in Complete Thoughts

by guest contributor William Stewart Consider the oeuvre of the German filmmaker, writer, theorist, and general aesthete Alexander Kluge (b. 1932), and the word indefatigable springs to mind. The scale of Kluge’s work—thematics as much as sheer expanse and literal… Continue Reading →

The Historian Rudolf Hospinian

by guest contributor William Theiss The 1517 book On Gems by Erasmus Stella, a doctor and mythologist from Leipzig, never enjoyed a wide readership—though two hundred years later it was enough in demand to merit a reprint. It takes its… Continue Reading →

November 30, 2016 0

Ideas of Attachment: What the “Postcritical Turn” Means for the History of Ideas

by contributing editor Daniel London

November 28, 2016 5

An Intellectual History of Their Own?

by guest contributor John Pollack ‘Tis the season. Not that season—but rather, the curious period in the United States between the holidays of “Columbus Day” and “Thanksgiving” when, at least on occasion, the issues confronting America’s Native peoples receive a… Continue Reading →

November 23, 2016 2

Pushing at the Seams: US Intellectual History

by guest contributor John Gee Intellectual historians, I’ve heard it said, are people who argue about what intellectual history is. The field of US intellectual history has been marked in recent years both by growth—one might even say rebirth—and by… Continue Reading →

November 18, 2016 2

Mandatory Reading: The Novel and the College Course in the Early American Republic

by guest contributor Rob Koehler Like a lot of college students today, Daniel Tompkins (1774-1825) spent much of his four years at the newly named Columbia College [now University] writing essays. Foreshadowing his later political commitments as New York Governor… Continue Reading →

November 16, 2016 1

Religion in Late-Nineteenth Century American Life?

by contributing editor Yitzchak Schwartz Henry Adams (1838-1918) returned home from his Grand Tour in 1860 and came of age in American elite society as the American bourgeoisie underwent the most profound cultural, social and intellectual shifts it had experienced… Continue Reading →

November 14, 2016 1

Social Media in an Analog Age: The Henry Subscription (1898-1899)

by guest contributor Elizabeth Everton In a 2009 interview, Twitter’s founder, Jack Dorsey, drew upon the dictionary definition of “tweet” – “a short burst of inconsequential information” – to characterize his creation. Ten years after Twitter’s inception, few would persist… Continue Reading →

November 9, 2016 3

“They’re Going to Be Bused, Whether You Like it or Not”: Urban Whites and the Surprising Origins of Metropolitan School Desegregation

by guest contributor Michael Savage In the United States, segregated metropolitan areas are a national phenomenon, with heavily minority inner-cities typically ringed by much wealthier and predominantly white autonomous suburbs. According to 24/7 Wall St., America’s three most segregated cities… Continue Reading →

November 7, 2016 0

Keeper of Language Games: G.H. von Wright at 100

by guest contributor David Loner This past month I attended a symposium held at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge in memory of the Finnish logician and Cambridge professor of philosophy G.H. von Wright (1916-2003), who this June would have been 100…. Continue Reading →

November 4, 2016 0

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