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This volume is designed to bridge a gap in the current theoretical debate about the nature, scope and relevance of postmodern perspectives in the humanist and social sciences in Eastern and Western Europe. While the debate has been reasonably comprehensive and certainly abrasive in Western European and Anglophone countries, it has signally failed to incorporate the viewpoints of Eastern European scholars and intellectuals. Even the current appropriation of Mikhail Bakhtin as a prophet of the postmodern is, paradoxically, a monologic engagement with his thought rather than a dialogic encounter of cultures. Doubtless different historical experiences, ideology and social aspirations go some way to account for the weariness of Eastern Europe with postmodern challenge and its glad embrace by Western scholars. The volume comprises some fifteen essays by leading historians, literary theorists and social scientists from Western and Eastern Europe and America. It has a threefold aim: firstly, to illuminate the distinctiveness of current Western and Eastern European theorizing about history and society; secondly, to reveal points of tension and disagreement, and, finally, to open up a space for a meeting of seemingly incompatible worlds.
In stark contrast to previous scholarship about citizenship as a construct, this groundbreaking book covers the full spectrum of literature on citizenship theory, including the state and structure of identity, the individual and the public, and the enduring issues of civic engagement and collective discourse. It examines some of the complex challenges faced by citizens and policy makers and explores the existing procedural and institutional mechanisms that undermine democratic political accountability as well as its legitimation. Drawing from classical conceptions of citizenship in the early Greco-Roman eras to the more contemporary critical social theory and postmodernist contentions, the work casts a wide net that covers complex issues including rights and obligation, the doctrine of state sovereignty and authority, equality, the principle of majority rule, citizen participation in governance, public versus self-interest, ideas of justice, immigration and cultural identity, global citizenship, and the evolution of hybrid communities that challenge traditional notions of state-citizenship identity. With meticulous detail and powerful analysis, author Kalu N. Kalu unceasingly places citizenship as the central thesis of this project, illuminating its intellectual richness on the one hand, and demonstrating the ongoing challenges in both conceptualization and practice, on the other.
What does postmodernism mean for the future of history? Can one still write history in postmodernity? To answer questions such as these, Ernst Breisach provides the first comprehensive overview of postmodernism and its complex relationship to history and historiography. Placing postmodern theories in their intellectual and historical contexts, he shows how they are part of broad developments in Western culture. Breisach sees postmodernism as neither just a fad nor a universal remedy. In clear and concise language, he presents and critically evaluates the major views on history held by influential postmodernists, such as Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and the new narrativists. Along the way, he introduces to the reader major debates among historians over postmodern theories of evidence, objectivity, meaning and order, truth, and the usefulness of history. He also discusses new types of history that have emerged as a consequence of postmodernism, including cultural history, microhistory, and new historicism. For anyone concerned with the postmodern challenge to history, both advocates and critics alike, On the Future of History will be a welcome guide.
“No one looking for a well-informed introduction to . . the key views of history adopted by professional historians . . could find a better one than this.” ―Richard J. Evans, author of In Defence of History A broad perspective on historical thought and writing, with a new epilogue. In this book, now published in ten languages, a preeminent intellectual historian examines the profound changes in ideas about the nature of history and historiography. Georg G. Iggers traces the basic assumptions upon which historical research and writing have been based, and describes how the newly emerging social sciences transformed historiography following World War II. The discipline’s greatest challenge may have come in the last two decades, when postmodern ideas forced a reevaluation of the relationship of historians to their subject and questioned the very possibility of objective history. Iggers sees the contemporary discipline as a hybrid, moving away from a classical, macrohistorical approach toward microhistory, cultural history, and the history of everyday life. The new epilogue, by the author, examines the movement away from postmodernism towards new social science approaches that give greater attention to cultural factors and to the problems of globalization. “The book has all the virtues one associates with Georg Iggers—lucidity, detachment, balance, and the ability to reveal the relation between trends in historical writing and their political and cultural contexts.” —Peter Burke, Cambridge University
'A well-crafted, sensitive, reflective and constructive book. It is highly recommended.' --Development Policy Review
Based on nearly a decade of scholarship, this is a highly focused book on the implications of postmodernism for the construction and assessment of theory and practice in educational administration. Current ideas of practice are deconstructed, from the notions of sound research to the use of national standards in the preparation of educational leaders along with ways of examining and resolving the theory-practice gap. Part One of the book contains chapters dealing with the rise of postmodernism and describes its broad-based dissent from a century of thought in the field, including a penetrating examination of whether the concept of a field itself is viable. Part Two of the book explores the many ramifications of postmodernism to practice, beginning with ideas concerning educational research. These chapters tackle the tough issues of the efficacy of the Interstate Leaders Licensure Standards (ISLLC) and the national exam as examples of job deskilling and deprofessionalization in the guise of raising standards of preparation of future educational leaders. Other chapters deal with deconstructing the popular managerial ideas contained in Stephen Covey's works and dispute Joe Murphy's call for a new center of gravity in the field as reinforcing the status quo. Finally, the book tackles the issue of the theory-practice gap and indicates that new and progressive theories which anticipate problems of practice are what is required to deal with this persistent issue. The book contains many helpful exhibits in understanding the issues concerning theory and practice, as well as a glossary of terms most commonly found in postmodern discourse. This book is designed for college and university programs engaged in the preparation of educational leaders for ele-mentary/secondary schools and college administrative positions.
In recent years, Richard Kearney has emerged as a leading figure in the field of continental philosophy, widely recognized for his work in the areas of philosophical and religious hermeneutics, theory and practice of the imagination, and political thought. This much-anticipated—and long overdue—study is the first to reflect the full range and impact of Kearney's extensive contributions to contemporary philosophy. The book opens with Kearney's own "prelude" in which he traces his intellectual itinerary as it traverses the three imaginaries explored in the volume: the dialogical, the political, and the narrative. The interviews that follow the first section allow readers to listen in on conversations between Kearney and some of the most interesting and respected thinkers of our time—Noam Chomsky, Charles Taylor, Jacques Derrida, Paul Ricouer, and Martha Nussbaum—as they reveal new and unexpected aspects of their thought on stories and mourning, ethics and narrative, terror and religion, intellectuals and ideology. The next section, on the political imaginary, looks at Kearney's distinctive contribution to the political situation in Ireland and in Europe more generally; and in the last, on narrative, writers including David Wood, Terry Eagleton, and Mark Dooley focus on Kearney's novels as instances of narrative theory put into literary practice. Concluding with Kearney's postscript, an essay on "Traversals and Epiphanies in Joyce and Proust," the volume comes full circle, encompassing the full extent of Richard Kearney's engagement and offerings as a philosopher,
Learn how to reach a new generation in a rapidly changing world with the unchanging gospel.
This book offers some suggestions as to ways forward from this dilemma. Drawing on the new intellectual frameworks of critical pedagogy, feminism and postmodernism and their impact upon educational theory, practice and research, the book focuses on the changing contexts of adult education. By building on the notion of going beyond the limits of certain current adult education orthodoxies, the authors try to provide alternatives for practice. The final three chapters deal with research, focusing on a critical macro-analysis of mainstream paradigms, a review of alternative approaches, and a more micro-analysis centering on the role of the socially-located self in the research process.
There is no doubt, journalism faces challenging times. This book argues that we have to rethink journalism fundamentally. Rather than just focus on the symptoms of the 'crisis of journalism', this collection tries to understand the structural transformation journalism is undergoing.