Forms of Individuality and Literacy in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods
Forms of Individuality and Literacy in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods

Author: Franz-Josef Arlinghaus

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 9782503552897

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Through case studies of a broad variety of medieval and early modern sources, this volume discusses whether the roots of modern notions of individuality can be found in pre-modern Europe. Individuality is one of the central categories of modern society. Can the roots of modern individuality be found in pre-modern times? Or is our way of thinking about ourselves a very recent phenomenon? This book takes a theoretical approach to the problem, derived from Niklas Luhmanns system theory, in which different forms of individuality are linked to different structures of society in modern and pre-modern times. The papers in this volume approach this problem by discussing a broad variety of medieval and early modern sources, including charters and seals, letters, and naming-practices in a late medieval town. Self-representation is also considered, in housebooks and drawings. Textual studies include autobiography in German Humanism, and concepts of individuality and gender in late medieval literary texts

Forms of Individuality and Literacy in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods
Forms of Individuality and Literacy in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods

Author: Franz-Josef Arlinghaus

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9782503552200

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'Individuality' is one of the central categories of modern society. Can the roots of modern individuality be found in pre-modern times? Or is our way of thinking about ourselves a very recent phenomenon? This book takes a theoretical approach to the problem, derived from Niklas Luhmann's system theory, in which different forms of individuality are linked to different structures of society in modern and pre-modern times. The papers in this volume approach this problem by discussing a broad variety of medieval and early modern sources, including charters and seals, letters, and naming-practices in a late medieval town. Self-representation is also considered, in 'housebooks' and drawings. Textual studies include autobiography in German Humanism, and concepts of individuality and gender in late medieval literary texts.

The Christian Roots of Individualism
The Christian Roots of Individualism

Author: Maureen P. Heath

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-11-28

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 3030300897

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The modern West has made the focus on individuality, individual freedom, and self-identity central to its self-definition, and these concepts have been crucially shaped by Christianity. This book surveys how the birth of the Christian worldview affected the evolution of individualism in Western culture as a cultural meme. Applying a biological metaphor and Richard Dawkins’ definition of a meme, this work argues the advent of individualism was not a sudden innovation of the Renaissance or the Enlightenment, but a long evolution with characteristic traits. This evolution can be mapped using profiles of individuals in different historical eras who contributed to the modern notion of individualism. Utilizing excerpts from original works from Augustine to Nietzsche, a compelling narrative arises from the slow but steady evolution of the modern self. The central argument is that Christianity, with its characteristic inwardness, was fundamental in the development of a sense of self as it affirmed the importance of the everyday man and everyday life.

Approaches to the Medieval Self
Approaches to the Medieval Self

Author: Stefka G. Eriksen

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-09-21

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 3110664763

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The main aim of this book is to discuss various modes of studying and defining the medieval self, based on a wide span of sources from medieval Western Scandinavia, c. 800-1500, such as archeological evidence, architecture and art, documents, literature, and runic inscriptions. The book engages with major theoretical discussions within the humanities and social sciences, such as cultural theory, practice theory, and cognitive theory. The authors investigate how the various approaches to the self influence our own scholarly mindsets and horizons, and how they condition what aspects of the medieval self are 'visible' to us. Utilizing this insight, we aim to propose a more syncretic approach towards the medieval self, not in order to substitute excellent models already in existence, but in order to foreground the flexibility and the complementarity of the current theories, when these are seen in relationship to each other. The self and how it relates to its surrounding world and history is a main concern of humanities and social sciences. Focusing on the theoretical and methodological flexibility when approaching the medieval self has the potential to raise our awareness of our own position and agency in various social spaces today.

Early Modern Privacy
Early Modern Privacy

Author: Michaël Green

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-12-13

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 9004153071

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An examination of instances, experiences, and spaces of early modern privacy. It opens new avenues to understanding the structures and dynamics that shape early modern societies through examination of a wide array of sources, discourses, practices, and spatial programmes.

The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World
The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World

Author: Alessandro Arcangeli

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-09-01

Total Pages: 569

ISBN-13: 1000097919

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The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is a comprehensive examination of recent discussions and findings in the exciting field of cultural history. A synthesis of how the new cultural history has transformed the study of history, the volume is divided into three parts – medieval, early modern and modern – that emphasize the way people made sense of the world around them. Contributions cover such themes as material cultures of living, mobility and transport, cultural exchange and transfer, power and conflict, emotion and communication, and the history of the senses. The focus is on the Western world, but the notion of the West is a flexible one. In bringing together 36 authors from 15 countries, the book takes a wide geographical coverage, devoting continuous attention to global connections and the emerging trend of globalization. It builds a panorama of the transformation of Western identities, and the critical ramifications of that evolution from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, that offers the reader a wide-ranging illustration of the potentials of cultural history as a way of studying the past in a variety of times, spaces and aspects of human experience. Engaging with historiographical debate and covering a vast range of themes, periods and places, The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is the ideal resource for cultural history students and scholars to understand and advance this dynamic field.

Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages
Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages

Author: John O. Ward

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-12-24

Total Pages: 724

ISBN-13: 9004368078

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Classical Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: The Medieval Rhetors and Their Art 400-1300, with Manuscript Survey to 1500 CE is a completely updated version of John Ward’s much-used doctoral thesis of 1972, and is the definitive treatment of this fundamental aspect of medieval and rhetorical culture. It is commonly believed that medieval writers were interested only in Christian truth, not in Graeco-Roman methods of ‘persuasion’ to whatever viewpoint the speaker / writer wanted. Dr Ward, however, investigates the content of well over one thousand medieval manuscripts and shows that medieval writers were fully conscious of and much dependent upon Graeco-Roman rhetorical methods of persuasion. The volume then demonstrates why and to what purpose this use of classical rhetoric took place.

The Diary
The Diary

Author: Batsheva Ben-Amos

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2020-03-10

Total Pages: 492

ISBN-13: 0253046963

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The diary as a genre is found in all literate societies, and these autobiographical accounts are written by persons of all ranks and positions. The Diary offers an exploration of the form in its social, historical, and cultural-literary contexts with its own distinctive features, poetics, and rhetoric. The contributors to this volume examine theories and interpretations relating to writing and studying diaries; the formation of diary canons in the United Kingdom, France, United States, and Brazil; and the ways in which handwritten diaries are transformed through processes of publication and digitization. The authors also explore different diary formats, including the travel diary, the private diary, conflict diaries written during periods of crisis, and the diaries of the digital era, such as blogs. The Diary offers a comprehensive overview of the genre, synthesizing decades of interdisciplinary study to enrich our understanding of, research about, and engagement with the diary as literary form and historical documentation.

Learning and Literacy in Medieval England and Abroad
Learning and Literacy in Medieval England and Abroad

Author: Sarah Rees Jones

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13:

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How did people know what they knew, and learn what they learnt? As Derek Pearsall's introduction makes clear this is the primary focus of this collection of essays published in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the foundation of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York. The learning materials included range from grammar books to mystery plays, and from court records to monastic chronicles, as well as liturgical and devotional texts. But the essays are not only concerned with texts alone, but with the broader and often fluid social environments in which learning took place. Many of the papers therefore question the validity of some distinctions habitually used in the discussion of medieval culture, such as the opposition between orality and literacy, between Latin and the vernacular or between secular and religious. All but one of the contributors are literary scholars and historians who completed their post-graduate work at the University of York. They are Joyce Hill, John Arnold, Linda Olsen, Janet Burton, Patricia Cullum, Katherine Kerby-Fulton, Deborah Cannon, Pamela King, and Stacey Gee. Katherine Zieman, although not a York graduate, is a most welcome contributor to the volume.

Religious Individualisation
Religious Individualisation

Author: Martin Fuchs

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-12-16

Total Pages: 1086

ISBN-13: 3110580934

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This volume brings together key findings of the long-term research project ‘Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective’ (Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, Erfurt University). Combining a wide range of disciplinary approaches, methods and theories, the volume assembles over 50 contributions that explore and compare processes of religious individualisation in different religious environments and historical periods, in particular in Asia, the Mediterranean, and Europe from antiquity to the recent past. Contrary to standard theories of modernisation, which tend to regard religious individualisation as a specifically modern or early modern as well as an essentially Western or Christian phenomenon, the chapters reveal processes of religious individualisation in a large variety of non-Western and pre-modern scenarios. Furthermore, the volume challenges prevalent views that regard religions primarily as collective phenomena and provides nuanced perspectives on the appropriation of religious agency, the pluralisation of religious options, dynamics of de-traditionalisation and privatisation, the development of elaborated notions of the self, the facilitation of religious deviance, and on the notion of dividuality.