Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Jews – Europe – Intellectual life'

The aim of this thesis is to examine the meanings and functions of paradox in the late Renaissance. My understanding of Renaissance paradox, in contrast to that of most critics and historians, rests entirely on contemporary definitions of the term, rather than on its present-day meaning. Paradoxes as they are envisaged in this study begin to appear in the wake of the humanist rediscovery and dissemination of Cicero's Paradoxa Stoicorum. In this work, paradoxes are characterized as 'admirabilia contraque opinionem omnium', a definition that draws attention to two important traits of paradox, repeatedly invoked in the Renaissance: its association with wonder, and its opposition to common opinion. This thesis examines the history of classical paradox as it was revived, expanded beyond the narrow confines of Stoic ethics, and adapted to new purposes so successfully that it became a recognisable genre of polemical writing, with hundreds of works in Latin and the vernacular being described as paradoxes. Previous studies of Renaissance paradox have centred almost exclusively on its literary and vernacular manifestations, and on the paradoxical encomium in particular. My own work charts the rise to prominence and the ensuing transformations of paradox in a range of disciplines: rhetoric and ethics, theology, law, medicine, and natural philosophy. I compare the different associations that paradoxes acquire in all these areas, and the argumentative strategies that they deploy. My analysis of specific examples of paradox is informed by the methods of both literary analysis and intellectual history. Paradoxes, I argue, offered their authors the possibility of departing from established norms and of voicing novel views in a period of intellectual unrest. In their challenge to received and common opinion, they paved the way for more radical ideas in the following century, and they have much to tell us about dissident ways of thinking in the late Renaissance.

In his Hebrew encyclopaedic compendium Midrash ha-Ḥokhmah, the thirteenth-century Toledan scholar Judah ben Solomon ha-Cohen reports of a correspondence, held in Arabic, that he had with an unnamed philosopher who belonged to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in Italy. The present work investigates the different ways in which this correspondence helped transmit knowledge between scholars from different cultural and geographical settings. First, a critical edition, translation, and analysis are rendered of the two problems discussed in the text, which concern the construction of the five regular polyhedra and the calculation of oblique ascensions. The correspondence is then placed within the framework of other accounts of scholars who reportedly received imperial inquiries. It is shown that its subject matter was of interest to both the court and the scholarly community, and can be linked to the work of Frederick's correspondents Leonardo Fibonacci in Italy and the school of Ibn Yunus in Mosul, and to the work of later scholars - Campanus of Novara and Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Maghribī. The unnamed philosopher, who is proved wrong in the correspondence, is in all likelihood Theodore of Antioch. An analysis of the terminology used in the Hebrew translation of the lost Arabic original shows that Judah created a unique mathematical and astronomical vocabulary, which changed during his working life. It is influenced by that of Jacob Anatoli, but Judah's terminology is generally much closer to that of his predecessor Ibn Ezra. It is then shown that the interreligious collaboration recorded in the correspondence is typical for the appropriation of Greek learning in the Middle Ages, but its placement within the framework of the Midrash ha-Ḥokhmah is influenced by interreligious polemics. Here, it serves to prove the superiority of the Jewish religion.

This thesis is an institutional history of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc. (JCR), an organization mandated by the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) to assume trusteeship over heirless Jewish cultural property that had been plundered by the Nazis and later centralized in depots in the American Zone of Germany in the wake of the Second World War. Formally established in 1947, until 1951 JCR functioned as the cultural arm of the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization (JRSO) and distributed hundreds of thousands of books, thousands of ceremonial objects, and Torah scrolls to Jewish communities around the world including the United States, Israel, West Germany, Britain, and Canada. Looking beyond its mandated mission, JCR was also involved in searching for caches of Jewish property in the Allied zones, microfilming manuscripts and archives in German public institutions, and negotiating the enactment of West German legislation to safeguard future discoveries of Jewish property.Salo Baron, professor of Jewish history at Columbia University, was JCR's founder and president; many of the foremost Jewish intellectuals of the day, including Hannah Arendt, Gershom Scholem, and Leo Baeck were associated with it. This study of JCR sheds light on numerous topics, not the least of which is the political activities of Jewish academics in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Further, the internecine struggles among Jewish organizations over which group best represented world Jewry as trustee of this property is highlighted along with the development of JCR from a research commission to a U.S.-recognized supervisory body. JCR's interactions with the State and War departments as well as with the American military government in Germany add to the discussion of Jewish influence during this period. The examination of JCR's activities in the American zone between 1948 and 1951 serves to underscore the diligent work that was carried out, but also the less than ideal conditions in which this work was done. The distribution process undertaken by JCR and its member organizations emphasizes the debate surrounding what it meant to culturally reconstruct the Jewish world after the Holocaust. Finally, a discussion of JCR's very limited activities, from 1952 to 1977 when it was finally dissolved, underscores the difficulties inherent in maintaining a relevant rationale and function in an ever-changing political landscape.
Cette these presente l'histoire institutionnelle de la Jewish CulturalReconstruction, Inc. (JCR), une organisation mandatee par le bureau dugouvernement militaire des Etats Unis (OMGUS) pour assumer la tutelle desbiens juifs culturels sans heritier, qui ont ete pilles par les nazis et plus tardcentralises dans les depots de la zone americaine en Allemagne apres la DeuxiemeGuerre mondiale. De sa creation officielle en 1947 a 1951, la JCR a fonctionnecomme l'antenne culturelle de la Jewish Restitution Successor Organization(JRSO). Elle a distribue des centaines de milliers de livres, des milliers d'objetsrituels et des rouleaux de Torah aux communautes juives dans le monde,notamment aux Etats-Unis, en Israel, en Allemagne de l'Ouest, en Grande-Bretagne et au Canada. Outre sa mission originelle, la JCR a egalement participea la recherche des caches de biens juifs dans les zones alliees, a enregistre surmicrofilms des archives et des manuscrits appartenant aux institutions publiquesallemandes et est egalement intervenue pour encourager une legislation ouestallemandeafin de sauvegarder les decouvertes a venir des biens juifs.

This thesis explores the diverse range of textual and visual architectural representations in twelfth-century didactic texts. It argues that these representations are not arbitrarily chosen frameworks for holding data; instead, architecture can perform a certain pedagogical role. In this role architectural representations mediate between imperceptible abstract concepts in the text and the tangible world of the reader. By focusing on the relationship between text and image this thesis argues that the two play a meaningful part in conveying intangible elements of the world to the reader. The thesis creates an alternative to the historiography on architecture and its representations by redirecting focus from the development of technical drawings and onto the intellectual context of the drawings, and ultimately questions why architecture, in particular, appears so frequently in didactic manuscripts of the period. The argument is framed by two points. First, it recognises the manifold ways in which architectural representations appear by focusing on three particular examples: quadrivial texts, Richard of Saint Victor's In visionem Ezechielis, and Honorius Augustodunensis' Gemma animae. These texts provide case studies to argue the primary point of thesis, namely, that architectural representations were used to provide tangible or kinaesthetic models to aid readers' understanding of difficult material. Second, the language and structure of the three studies reflect a dimensional framework that was used to articulate particular aspects of the drawings. The dimensional aspects of the drawings appear in texts as references to length, width, height, and the typological qualities of architecture. Overall the thesis has two important implications. First by recognising the important relationship between text and image it is possible to draw out the pedagogical aims and processes present in some twelfth-century didactic works. Second, common examples of architectural representations, such as Gospel canon tables, are recognised as part of a broader spectrum of heuristic images and diagrams.

In this essay I look at the significance of Inigo Jones's annotated copy of Andrea Palladio's I quattro libri dell'architettura in a time of momentous change in the habits of readers and writers, printers and publishers, architects and kings. Jones lived in Stuart England, a hinge period swinging between print culture and manuscript culture, science (mechanical philosophy) and magic (Neoplatonism, hermeticism, alchemy), humoural physiology and modern medicine. I examine his book as part of a change of social setting, looking outward from his study of Palladian architectural theory to developments in publishing and authorship, perspective and theatre design, graphic representation and anatomy, medicine and the history of the human body.

This thesis explores the hitherto undocumented disestablishment and reconstruction of the Anglican Church of Ireland, c.1868-1870, and argues that this experience was formative in the emergence of Home Rule. Structurally, the Church’s General Synod served as a model for an autonomous Irish parliament. Moreover, disestablishment and reconstruction conditioned the political trajectories of the Protestants initially involved in the first group to campaign for a federal Irish parliament, the Home Government Association (HGA). More broadly, both the HGA and the governance of the independent Church—the General Synod—grew from the bedrock of the same associational culture. The HGA was more aligned with the public associations of Protestant-dominated Dublin intellectual life and the lay associational culture of the Church. Although the political vision advocated was different from the normal conservatism of many of its Protestant members, culturally it was entirely grounded in the recent Anglican experience.

This thesis analyses processes of discursive European identity formation in three cultural journals: Esprit, from France, the British New Left Review and the German Merkur during the time periods 1989-92, and, a decade later, during 2003-06. The theoretical framework which the thesis brings to bear on this analysis is that of the European Public Sphere. This model builds on Jürgen Habermas’s original model of a “public sphere”, and alleges that a sphere of common debate about issues of European concern can lead to a more defined and integrated sense of a European identity which is widely perceived as vague and inchoate. The relevancy of the public sphere model and its connection to the larger debate about European identity, especially since 1989, are discussed in the first part of the thesis. The second part provides a comparative analysis of the main European debates in the journals during the respective time periods. It outlines the mechanisms by which identity is expressed and assesses when, and to what extent, shared notions of European identity emerge. The analysis finds that identity formation does not occur through a developmental, gradual convergence of views as the European public sphere model envisages. Rather, it is brought about in much more haphazard back-and-forth movements. Moreover, shared notions of European identity between all the journals only arise in moments of perceived crises. Such crises are identified as the most salient factor which galvanizes expressions of a common, shared sense of European identity across national boundaries and ideological cleavages. The thesis concludes that the model of the EPS is too dependent on a partial view of how identity formation occurs and should thus adopt a more nuanced understanding about the complex factors that are at play in these processes. For the principled attempt to circumscribe identity formation as the outcome of communicative processes alone is likely to be thwarted by external events.

This study explores the rediscovery and development of a tradition of Ciceronian academic scepticism in British philosophy between c.1660-c.1760. It considers this tradition alongside two others, recently recovered by scholars, which were recognised by contemporaries to offer opposing visions of man, God and the origins of society: the Augustinian-Epicurean, and the neo-Stoic. It presents John Locke, Conyers Middleton and David Hume as the leading figures in the revival of the tradition of academic scepticism. It considers their works in relation to those of Anthony Ashley Cooper, third earl of Shaftesbury, and Bernard Mandeville, whose writings refashioned respectively the neo-Stoic and Augustinian-Epicurean traditions in influential ways. These five individuals explicitly identified themselves with these late Hellenistic philosophical traditions, and sought to contest and redefine conventional estimations of their meaning and significance. This thesis recovers this debate, which illuminates our understanding of the development of the ‘science of man’ in Britain. Cicero was a central figure in Locke’s attempt to explain, against Hobbes, the origins of society and moral consensus independent of political authority. Locke was a theorist of societies, religious and civil. He provided a naturalistic explanation of moral motivation and sociability which, drawing heavily from Cicero, emphasised the importance of men’s concern for the opinions of others. Locke set this within a Christian divine teleology. It was Locke’s theologically-grounded treatment of moral obligation, and his attack on Stoic moral philosophy, that led to Shaftesbury’s attempt to vindicate Stoicism. This was met by Mandeville’s profoundly Epicurean response. The consequences of the neo-Epicurean and neo-Stoic traditions for Christianity were explored by Middleton, who argued that only academic scepticism was consistent with Christian belief. Hume explored the relationship between morality and religion with continual reference to Cicero. He did so, in contrast to Locke or Middleton, to banish entirely moral theology from philosophy.

Cette thèse a pour ambition de montrer dans quelle mesure la presse géorgienne de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle qui constitue une source historique précieuse sur cette période, permet de suivre l’évolution des transferts culturels européens et de cerner le profil social et politique des médiateurs géorgiens de ces transferts. Elle s’intéresse aux discours qui accompagnent l’introduction du mode de vie moderne et du progrès technique, aux réactions suscitées par le regard que les Européens portent sur la Géorgie, mais aussi à l’expérience que les Géorgiens rapportent de leurs séjours en Europe. En effet, ces voyages, qui leur permettent d’observer la vie politique et sociale européenne et d’établir des contacts avec les milieux intellectuels, s’inscrivent dans la perspective de contribuer, de retour dans leur patrie, au succès du projet politique auquel, désormais, ils s’identifient. Notre travail accorde une place importante à l’étude des mécanismes qui rendent possibles les flux d’importation dans le domaine de la littérature et des sciences : institution d’un champ intellectuel, élaboration d’une nouvelle terminologie, mise en place de critères de sélection des textes étrangers et stratégies discursives facilitant leur diffusion. En élucidant ces critères, qui conduisent à la sélection des textes et des auteurs européens ou au choix des références à l’Europe, nous nous attachons à analyser dans quelle mesure les transferts se font le reflet d’un contexte historique caractérisé par la formation d’une conscience nationale et d’idéologies concurrentes qui, dès les premières années du XXe siècle, conduiront la Géorgie de la révolution à l'indépendance
This dissertation aims to show in what measure the Georgian press of the second half of the nineteenth century, which constitutes a precious historical resource for study of this time period, allows us to follow the evolution of cultural transfers from Georgia to Europe and to understand the political and social profile of the Georgian mediators of these transfers. It manifests an interest in the discourses that accompany the introduction of modern living and technological progress in the country, in the reactions inspired by the European perspective on Georgia, and also in the experience that the Georgians bring back home after their travels in Europe. In fact, these travels allow them to observe European political and social life and to establish contacts with intellectual milieus in order to contribute, when they return to their country, to the success of the political projects with which they would identify. My work centers on the mechanisms that have made possible the flow of foreign cultural transmission in the fields of literature and science: the institution of an intellectual field, the elaboration of a new terminology, the establishment of selection criteria for foreign texts, and the establishment of discursive strategies facilitating the diffusion of such texts. In elucidating these criteria, which lead to the selection of European texts and authors or to the choice of references to Europe, I will analyze in what measure the transfers reflect a historical context characterized by the formation of a national consciousness and competing ideologies that, from the beginning years of the twentieth century, would lead Georgia from revolution to independence

It is now broadly accepted that Vaughan Williams's music betrays a more complex relation to national influences than has traditionally been assumed. It is argued in this thesis that despite the trends towards revisionism that have characterized recent work, Vaughan Williams's interest in and engagement with English folk materials and cultures remains only partially understood. Offering contextual interpretation of materials newly available in the field, my work takes as its point of departure the critical neglect surrounding Vaughan Williams's contradictory compositional debut, in which he denounced the value of folk song in English art music in an article published alongside his song 'Linden Lea', subtitled 'A Dorset Folk Song'. Reconstructing the under-documented years of the composer's early career, it is demonstrated that Vaughan Williams's subsequent 'conversion' and lifelong attachment to folk song emerged as part of a broader concern with the intelligible and participatory quality of song and its performance by the human voice. As such, it is argued that the ways in which this composer theorized an idea of 'song' illuminate a powerful perspective from which to re-consider the propositions of his project for a national music. Locating Vaughan Williams's writings within contemporaneous cultural ideas and practices surrounding 'song', 'voice', and 'Englishness', this work brings such contexts into dialogue with readings of various of the composer's works, composed both before and after the First World War. It is demonstrated in this way that the rehabilitation of Vaughan Williams's music and reputation profitably proceeds by reconstructing a complex dialogue between his writings; between various cultural ideas and practices of English music; between the reception of his works by contemporaneous critics; and crucially, by considering the propositions of his music as explored through analysis. Ultimately, this thesis contends that Vaughan Williams's music often betrays a complex and self-conscious performance of cultural ideas of national identity, negotiating an optimistic or otherwise ambivalent relationship to an English musical tradition that is constructed and referenced through a particular idea of song.

This thesis examines the increasing sophistication of sixteenth-century French literary engagement with Virgil's Aeneid. It argues that successive forms of engagement with the Aeneid should be viewed as a single process that gradually adopts increasingly complex literary strategies. It does this through a series of four different forms of literary engagement with the Aeneid: translation, continuation, rejection and reconciliation. The increasing sophistication of these forms reflects the writers' desire to interact with the original Aeneid as political epic and Roman foundation narrative, and with the political, religious and literary contexts of early modern France. The first chapter compares the methods of and motivations behind all of the sixteenth-century translations of the Aeneid into French; it thus demonstrates shifts in successive translators' interpretations of Virgil's work, and of its application to sixteenth-century France. The next three chapters each analyse adaptation of Virgil's poem in a major French literary work. Firstly, Ronsard's Franciade is analysed as an example of French foundation epic that simultaneously draws upon and rejects Virgil's narrative. Ronsard's poem is read in the light of Mapheo Vegio's “Thirteenth Book” of the Aeneid, or Supplementum, which continues Virgil's narrative and carries it over into a Christian context. Next, Agrippa d'Aubigné's response to Virgilian epic in Les Tragiques is shown to have been mediated by Lucan's Pharsalia and its anti- epic and anti-imperialist interpretation of the Aeneid. D'Aubigné's inversion of Virgil is highlighted through comparison of attitudes to death and resurrection in Les Tragiques, the Aeneid and Vegio's Antoniad. Finally, Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas' combination, in La Sepmaine and La Seconde Sepmaine of the hexameral structure of Genesis with Virgil's narrative of reconciliation after civil war is shown to represent the most sophisticated understanding of and most complex interaction with the Aeneid in sixteenth-century France.

Defence date: 15 July 2002
Examining board: Prof. Bo Stråth, European University Institute (Supervisor) ; Prof. Peter Becker, European University Institute, Florence ; Prof. Georg Iggers, Buffalo University ; Prof. Ilan Pappe, University of Haifa ; Prof. Harald Runblom, University of Uppsala
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

Defence Date: 26/02/2009
Examining Board: Prof. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (European University Institute); Prof. Alan Forrest (Universiy of York); Prof. Wessel Krul (University of Groningen); Prof. Jay Winter (Yale University)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
The thesis argues that a European cultural history existed in those years that have been considered as the dawn of the ‘Age of Nationalism’. Although, early nineteenth-century pantheons can superficially be divided in two groups, a state-based and a culture-oriented selection, the dissertation shows that the division is more subtle as pantheon commissioners faced numerous similar problems. How could a canon, being a series of exemplary men, be selected that would flag rather than challenge the commissioner’s position as central symbolic reference and ‘national historian’? How to glorify men in cultures still thoroughly attached to conventional forms of Christianity and, even more challenging, in churches dedicated to, in Christian Europe universal, saints? Did a difference exist between pantheons located in Protestant, Catholic or bi-confessional countries, either in the range of exemplary men or in the balance between ancient and Christian symbolism traditionally used in political iconography?20 What style, roughly divided between Neoclassicism and romantic Gothic, was considered most suitable to give visual form to the ideas of a pantheon commissioner or appeal best to the target collective? How could elites, in an age in which the public sphere had started to open up, promote their pantheons through newspapers, provided this is what they wanted? These questions, which will be tackled in relation to every pantheon discussed in the thesis, can be classified under three headings: (i) the relationship between the exemplary men and the commissioner who formed the principal reference point of a pantheon, (ii) the rapport between religious and pagan/secular commemorative rituals as well as a pantheon’s aesthetics and (iii) the balance between nation and region or, more broadly, between political core and periphery. The dissertation is an account of the early nineteenth-century European journey of an ancient, but transformed, concept and its interaction with contemporary political culture. It is the story of how a pantheonic ideal type - roughly defined as a temple in which tribute is paid to the nation’s greatest men for the sake of stimulating emulation of their lives and actions - was adjusted to befit different recipient audiences. Simultaneously, the dissertation shows how, despite the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, the mechanism underlying ancien régime political symbolism and the importance it attached to notions of sanctity survived well into the nineteenth century.21 Moreover, it shows how public pantheons raised prior to 1848 remained, the veil of nationalist rhetoric notwithstanding, socio-politically and culturally eclectic stages intended to reproduce elites. Nor was the community of the dead itself always a democratic collective; occasionally, a commissioner actively sought to differentiate between his exemplary men. The question is, of course, whether did this not defeat the pantheonic principle by making some men more exemplary, and important, than others. As a result, the thesis argues that instead of appreciating early nineteenth-century pantheons as stages where collective ideas were communicated or performed, these monuments should be regarded as both cause and outcome of a ‘struggle for social domination’ and political power played out in a time of great societal transition and continued warfare between (infant) nation-states.22 Finally, the dissertation is the story of how the public pantheons of early nineteenth-century Europe interacted and how, seen in conjunction, they formed a network of power relations that has been downplayed by historians who focus on national peculiarities. Whichever ideological or cultural angle commissioners approached their pantheons from, the basic tenet of every early nineteenth-century public pantheon discussed in the thesis was the same: to phrase the interests of the Self through the vocabulary of the national Other at a time traditional forms of political or social authority eroded. The existence of an inherently conservative bend queries the modernity of these pantheons.

Defence date: 21 June 2007
Examining Board: Prof. Martin van Gelderen, EUI (Supervisor) ; Prof. Edward Arfon Rees, EUI ; Prof. Johann P. Sommerville, University of Wisconsin at Madison ; Prof. Peter Lake, Princeton University.
Open Access Full-text file was withdrawn on 5 July 2011 upon request by author.
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
This thesis is divided in seven chapters exploring the works of Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653) in the context of seventeenth-century European culture. It addresses a series of important questions regarding his oeuvre that have been hitherto ignored or, at best, left unanswered. Thus, the project attempts to provide a response to the following points: how has Filmer been read since the seventeenth century right up to modern historiography? Has his thought been mainly interpreted in a caricatured way? Secondly, who was the ‘real biographical’ Sir Robert Filmer? Thirdly, what do we know about the much commented upon but scarcely studied Patriarcha, namely about the document itself? When was it conceived and in connection with what milieu of publications? Did it respond to a particular target and, if so, what was the offending text or political language in question? What elements urged Sir Robert to compose his writing? Moreover, to what extent were Filmer’s ideas compatible with those of his contemporaries? Did he shape his principles in conjunction to the discourses of other authors? Did his doctrines of absolute monarchical power exert any influence or, at least, can it be said that he had some theoretical heirs in the eighteenth century? Finally, did Sir Robert put pen to paper exclusively to discuss political issues or did he formulate concepts and ideas on other relevant subjects debated within the republic of letters?

The thrust of this work is to study Israelite pre-exilic writing of religious literature. The beginning of literacy is considered from an archaeological perspective; especially, in the pre-exilic Israelite community. The study of scribes and their services assist in the quest for understanding pre-exilic religious writing in Israel. The Bible attests to pre-exilic religious writing despite the often inferred ‘anachronism.’ The issue of post-exilic composition of all Old Testament books is a matter of debate as opposed to pre-exilic writing of some religious sources which is a matter that can be historically verified.
Biblical & Ancient Studies
M.A. (Biblical Archeology)

Defence date: 5 July 1996
Examining Board: Prof. Dr. Dominique Julia, Paris/Florenz (Supervisor) ; Prof. Dr. Winfried Schulze, München (Supervisor) ; Prof. Dr. Michael Müller, Florenz ; Prof. Dr. Michael Herbsmeier, Odense ; Prof. Dr. Marcello Verga, Florenz
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

Defence date: 22 April 2016
Examining Board: Professor Martin van Gelderen (EUI/ Lichtenberg-Kolleg, The Göttingen Institute for Advanced Studies, Supervisor); Professor Ann Thomson (EUI, Second reader); Professor Knud Haakonssen (University of Erfurt), Doctor Timothy Stanton (University of York)
This thesis deals with the thought of Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754) from the perspective of intellectual history; its aim, to think about the enlightenment anew. The historical problem, to which the thesis offers an answer, is twofold. What was the nature of Holberg's thought in relation to the enlightenment and how can it be said to have constituted an early Northern enlightenment more specifically? To the extent that we can talk historically of a specific early Northern enlightenment, it cannot, of course, be reduced to the case of Holberg. Yet, this thesis argues that any proper understanding of the question whether there was a particular early Northern enlightenment, as one amongst a multitude of enlightenments, must necessarily begin from an understanding of the thought of Holberg, the most prominent writer in the early eighteenth century. Describing Holberg as an eclectic thinker, the main argument of the thesis is that the early Northern enlightenment is best understood in light of Holberg's engagement with a wide range of intellectual traditions, both secular and religious. Thus, the thesis aims to reconstruct the trajectories of Holberg's thought and to situate his thinking about monarchism, religion, and moral philosophy in relation to a broader range of European enlightenments. It aims to show that the key to understanding the early Northern enlightenment is to be found in the connection between the thought of Ludvig Holberg and the multiple enlightenments with which he was engaged. In addressing such issues, the thesis sets an essentially revisionist agenda: the enlightenment of Holberg is best understood as an eclectic blend of Lutheranism, Arminianism, and modern natural law.

The author (of the book) examines the religious musical traditions of Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, especially from the regions situated within the borders of pre-WWII Poland. These traditions are presented in a broader historical context, from the biblical times until today, as well as a geographical context, with the author outlining the main musical idioms of the Jewish Diaspora. The source basis comprises sound material collected during field research carried out in Poland and other Eastern European countries (between 2002 and 2013).

Defence Date: 24/04/2009
Examining Board: Professor Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Enrique Ucelay-Da Cal, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Second Supervisor); Professor Michael Keating, European University Institute; Professor Anne-Marie Thiesse, EHESS
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
Dans le premier chapitre je définirai mon approche de la question nationale en m’appuyant sur certaines théories classiques du nationalisme. Je m’attacherai longuement sur le lien entre langue et nation, que je mettrai en perspective historique. En particulier, j’examinerai le cadre conceptuel et philosophique dans lequel l’idée politique de nation a vu le jour, à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Et je le ferai en ayant toujours présent à l’esprit l’évolution des études linguistiques, notamment à partir du début du XIXe siècle. Dans le deuxième chapitre, après avoir traité des idées linguistique en France depuis le XVIIIe siècle, je considérerai le contexte français dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle. Je porterai une attention particulière à la politique culturelle française depuis la Révolution de 1789, et notamment aux politiques linguistiques des différents gouvernements. Je parlerai donc des enquêtes linguistiques et ethnologiques qui accompagnent l’intérêt nouveau pour les traditions populaires, mais aussi de leur dimension politique. J’expliquerai comment elles emboîtent le pas à la quête des origines nationales. Finalement, j’aborderai le renouveau qui caractérise l’historiographie française depuis les années 1820 pour montrer comment l’histoire du Midi de la France s’insère dans le grand tableau de l’histoire nationale. Après ces chapitres de préliminaires historiques et théoriques, avec le troisième chapitre, on abordera l’émergence de la question de la langue d’oc à travers les travaux d’une lignée d’historiens, antiquaires, lexicographes, etc. qui depuis le XVIIIe siècle relancent l’intérêt pour les 'langues du Midi' en France. Je parlerai de Raynouard, le fondateur des études de langue romane, et de ses successeurs qui ont dessiné le cadre théorique dans lequel s’inscrira le débat pendant presque tout le siècle. Débat qui mettra en jeu de nom de la langue : langue romane, langue d’oc, provençal, et dans lequel la renaissance provençale promue par le groupe des félibres joue un rôle capital. Je parlerai longuement de son principal protagoniste, Frédéric Mistral, dont la personnalité, le génie poétique et le talent d’organisateur poussent le provençal sur le premier plan de la scène littéraire française. Dans le quatrième chapitre, je franchirai la frontière pyrénéenne pour découvrir comment la question linguistique et nationale a été abordée en Catalogne. Le choix de m’occuper de la question linguistique catalane est dû à plusieurs raisons : tout d’abord à la proximité linguistique et culturelle que ce pays voisin a avec les pays de langue d’oc. En deuxième lieu, au fait que, quelques années durant, les Provençaux et les Catalans ont partagé intérêts, revendications et rêves d’une confédération de peuples latins. Enfin, à la curiosité de voir comment le débat sur la langue catalane a été résolu en faveur d’une vision résolument nationale de la langue, de sorte qu’elle devient à la fois fondement et instrument de revendications politiques. Dans le cinquième chapitre je ferai retour en France et je m’arrêterai surtout dans le Languedoc, où la création de la Société des Langues Romanes à Montpellier donne une tournure différent au débat sur la langue d’oc. Créée presque trente ans après le Félibrige, la SLR fait sortir la discussion sur la langue du domaine poétique : ses intérêts linguistiques et philologiques la prédisposent en fait à des conceptions de la langue et à des projets de normalisation, surtout orthographique, antagonistes à ceux du Félibrige. Toujours en Languedoc, mais cette fois-ci à Toulouse, une autre initiative voit le jour visant à mettre en question la prééminence des Provençaux au sein du Félibrige : la Lauseto, organe des félibres rouges et apôtre de la 'Cause languedocienne', engage une véritable opposition idéologique au félibrige catholique et légitimiste de matrice provençale. Je terminerai le chapitre par une petite 'promenade' en Italie, où la questione della lingua est au centre d’un débat animé qui nous servira de point de comparaison. Dans le sixième chapitre je resituerai le débat dans le cadre étatique français. Je passerai d’abord rapidement en revue la longue question de la décentralisation culturelle. J’analyserai l’état de l’enseignement supérieur en France, je traiterai du débat sur la réforme universitaire, pour passer ensuite à l’institution académique des études philologiques et à leur importance pour le processus de construction d’un imaginaire national français. Dans ce contexte, je m’arrêterai longuement sur les querelles linguistiques qui divisent les linguistes de la SLR et les philologues de la Romania, sur leur opposition idéologique et sociologique. J’achèverai le chapitre sur la constitution des études de dialectologie en France. L’épilogue, finalement, où je traiterai de l’échec du mouvement renaissentiste de langue d’oc et de son 'repli' sur une idée latine utopique.

All bodies of critical discourse on any given literary canon seek visibility through self- celebration, subversion of competing critical ideas and identification with supposedly popular, scientific and incisive critical theories. Thus, the literary-critical quest for significance and visibility is, in essence, a quest for „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ in the discussion of aspects of a given literary corpus. This research explores the politics of „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ in „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟. It unfolds in the context of the realisation that as a body of critical discourse on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟, „white critical thought‟ does not only emerge in an intellectual matrix in which it shares and competes for „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ with other bodies of critical thought on the literary episteme in question; it also develops in the ambit of Euro-African cultural politics of hegemony and resistance. Thus, the research sets out to identify the ways in which „white critical thought‟ affirms and perpetuates or questions and negates European critical benchmarks and cultural models in the discussion of selected aspects of „the black Zimbabwean novel‟. The investigation considers the fissures at the heart of „white critical thought‟ as a critical discourse and the myriad of ways in which it interacts with competing critical discourses on the „the black Zimbabwean novel‟. It derives impetus from the fact that while other versions of critical thought on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ have received extensive metacritical discussion elsewhere, „white critical thought‟ remains largely under-discussed. This phenomenon enables it to solidify into a settled body of critical thought. The metacritical discussion of „white critical thought‟ in this research constitutes part of the repertoire of efforts that will help check the solidification of critical discourses into hegemonic bodies of thought. The research makes use of Afrocentric and Postcolonial critical tenets to advance the contention that while „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ is fraught with fissures and contradictions that speak directly to its complexity and resistance to neat categorisation, it is largely vulnerable to identification as part of the paraphernalia of European cultural and intellectual hegemony in African literature and its criticism, given its tendency to discuss the literature outside the context of critical theories that emerge from the same culture and history with the literary corpus in question.
African Languages
D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)