Archaeology of Babel

Archaeology of Babel PDF Author: Siraj Ahmed
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503604047
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
For more than three decades, preeminent scholars in comparative literature and postcolonial studies have called for a return to philology as the indispensable basis of critical method in the humanities. Against such calls, this book argues that the privilege philology has always enjoyed within the modern humanities silently reinforces a colonial hierarchy. In fact, each of philology's foundational innovations originally served British rule in India. Tracing an unacknowledged history that extends from British Orientalist Sir William Jones to Palestinian American intellectual Edward Said and beyond, Archaeology of Babel excavates the epistemic transformation that was engendered on a global scale by the colonial reconstruction of native languages, literatures, and law. In the process, it reveals the extent to which even postcolonial studies and European philosophy—not to mention discourses as disparate as Islamic fundamentalism, Hindu nationalism, and global environmentalism—are the progeny of colonial rule. Going further, it unearths the alternate concepts of language and literature that were lost along the way and issues its own call for humanists to reckon with the politics of the philological practices to which they now return.

Archaeology of Babel

Archaeology of Babel PDF Author: Siraj Ahmed
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503604047
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
For more than three decades, preeminent scholars in comparative literature and postcolonial studies have called for a return to philology as the indispensable basis of critical method in the humanities. Against such calls, this book argues that the privilege philology has always enjoyed within the modern humanities silently reinforces a colonial hierarchy. In fact, each of philology's foundational innovations originally served British rule in India. Tracing an unacknowledged history that extends from British Orientalist Sir William Jones to Palestinian American intellectual Edward Said and beyond, Archaeology of Babel excavates the epistemic transformation that was engendered on a global scale by the colonial reconstruction of native languages, literatures, and law. In the process, it reveals the extent to which even postcolonial studies and European philosophy—not to mention discourses as disparate as Islamic fundamentalism, Hindu nationalism, and global environmentalism—are the progeny of colonial rule. Going further, it unearths the alternate concepts of language and literature that were lost along the way and issues its own call for humanists to reckon with the politics of the philological practices to which they now return.

Encyclopedia of Historical Archaeology

Encyclopedia of Historical Archaeology PDF Author: Charles E. Orser Jnr
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134608624
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
A-Z organised Entries are written by an international team of 127 experts in the field Includes 29 b+w illustrations including 23 half-tones Contains cross references, suggestions for further reading and a comprehensive index

Homeric Questions

Homeric Questions PDF Author: Jan Paul Crielaard
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004673423
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Contents: Ruijgh, C.J.: D'Homère aux origines proto-mycéniennes de la tradition épique. Analyse dialectologique du lange homérique, avec un excursus sur la création de l'alphabet grec. Bakker, E.J.: Noun-epithet Formulas, Milman Parry, and the Grammar of Poetry. Jong, I.J.F. de: Homer as Literature: Some Current Areas of Research. Wees, H. van: Princes at Dinner: Social Event and Social Structure in Homer. Singor, H.W.: Eni Prôtoisi Machesthai: Some Remarks on the Iliadic Image of the Battlefield. Crielaard, J.P.: Homer, History and Archaeology: Some Remarks on the Date of the Homeric World. Stampolidis, N.C.: Homer and the Cremation Burials of Eleutherna. Crouwel, J.H.: Chariots in Homer and in Early Iron Age Greece. Crielaard, J.P.: A 'Dutch' Discoverer of Homer's Tomb.

Philology

Philology PDF Author: James Turner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069116858X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 574

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Book Description
A prehistory of today's humanities, from ancient Greece to the early twentieth century Many today do not recognize the word, but "philology" was for centuries nearly synonymous with humanistic intellectual life, encompassing not only the study of Greek and Roman literature and the Bible but also all other studies of language and literature, as well as history, culture, art, and more. In short, philology was the queen of the human sciences. How did it become little more than an archaic word? In Philology, the first history of Western humanistic learning as a connected whole ever published in English, James Turner tells the fascinating, forgotten story of how the study of languages and texts led to the modern humanities and the modern university. The humanities today face a crisis of relevance, if not of meaning and purpose. Understanding their common origins—and what they still share—has never been more urgent.

Tracing the Indo-Europeans

Tracing the Indo-Europeans PDF Author: Birgit Anette Olsen
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789252717
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Recent developments in aDNA has reshaped our understanding of later European prehistory, and at the same time also opened up for more fruitful collaborations between archaeologists and historical linguists. Two revolutionary genetic studies, published independently in Nature, 2015, showed that prehistoric Europe underwent two successive waves of migration, one from Anatolia consistent with the introduction of agriculture, and a later influx from the Pontic-Caspian steppes which without any reasonable doubt pinpoints the archaeological Yamnaya complex as the cradle of (Core-)Indo-European languages. Now, for the first time, when the preliminaries are clear, it is possible for the fields of genetics, archaeology and historical linguistics to cooperate in a constructive fashion to refine our knowledge of the Indo-European homeland, migrations, society and language. For the historical-comparative linguists, this opens up a wealth of exciting perspectives and new working fields in the intersections between linguistics and neighbouring disciplines, for the archaeologists and geneticists, on the other hand, the linguistic contributions help to endow the material findings with a voice from the past. The present selection of papers illustrate the importance of an open interdisciplinary discussion which will gradually help us in our quest of Tracing the Indo-Europeans.

Artifact and Artifice

Artifact and Artifice PDF Author: Jonathan M. Hall
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226313382
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Is it possible to trace the footprints of the historical Sokrates in Athens? Was there really an individual named Romulus, and if so, when did he found Rome? Is the tomb beneath the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica home to the apostle Peter? To answer these questions, we need both dirt and words—that is, archaeology and history. Bringing the two fields into conversation, Artifact and Artifice offers an exciting excursion into the relationship between ancient history and archaeology and reveals the possibilities and limitations of using archaeological evidence in writing about the past. Jonathan M. Hall employs a series of well-known cases to investigate how historians may ignore or minimize material evidence that contributes to our knowledge of antiquity unless it correlates with information gleaned from texts. Dismantling the myth that archaeological evidence cannot impart information on its own, he illuminates the methodological and political principles at stake in using such evidence and describes how the disciplines of history and classical archaeology may be enlisted to work together. He also provides a brief sketch of how the discipline of classical archaeology evolved and considers its present and future role in historical approaches to antiquity. Written in clear prose and packed with maps, photos, and drawings, Artifact and Artifice will be an essential book for undergraduates in the humanities.

Traces of the Past

Traces of the Past PDF Author: Karen Bassi
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472119923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
An innovative multidisciplinary study of the relationship between visual perception and temporal meaning in ancient Greek literature and history writing

Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy

Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy PDF Author: Ada Cohen
Publisher: ASCSA
ISBN: 0876615418
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
This volume contains 20 papers that explore ancient notions and experiences of childhood around the Mediterranean, from prehistory to late antiquity.

History and Its Objects

History and Its Objects PDF Author: Peter N. Miller
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501708236
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
Weaving together literary and scholarly insights, History and Its Objects will prove indispensable reading for historians and cultural historians, as well as anthropologists and archeologists worldwide. — Nathan Schlanger, École nationale des chartes, Paris Cultural history is increasingly informed by the history of material culture—the ways in which individuals or entire societies create and relate to objects both mundane and extraordinary—rather than on textual evidence alone. Books such as The Hare with Amber Eyes and A History of the World in 100 Objects indicate the growing popularity of this way of understanding the past. In History and Its Objects, Peter N. Miller uncovers the forgotten origins of our fascination with exploring the past through its artifacts by highlighting the role of antiquarianism—a pursuit ignored and derided by modem academic history—in grasping the significance of material culture. From the efforts of Renaissance antiquarians, who reconstructed life in the ancient world from coins, inscriptions, seals, and other detritus, to amateur historians in the nineteenth century working within burgeoning national traditions, Miller connects collecting—whether by individuals or institutions—to the professionalization of the historical profession, one which came to regard its progenitors with skepticism and disdain. The struggle to articulate the value of objects as historical evidence, then, lies at the heart both of academic history-writing and of the popular engagement with things. Ultimately, this book demonstrates that our current preoccupation with objects is far from novel and reflects a human need to reexperience the past as a physical presence.

Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500-1800

Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500-1800 PDF Author: Peter N. Miller
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047202826X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
This book is a project in comparative history, but along two distinct axes, one historical and the other historiographical. Its purpose is to constructively juxtapose the early modern European and Chinese approaches to historical study that have been called "antiquarian." As an exercise in historical recovery, the essays in this volume amass new information about the range of antiquarian-type scholarship on the past, on nature, and on peoples undertaken at either end of the Eurasian landmass between 1500 and 1800. As a historiographical project, the book challenges the received---and often very much under conceptualized---use of the term "antiquarian" in both European and Chinese contexts. Readers will not only learn more about the range of European and Chinese scholarship on the past---and especially the material past---but they will also be able to integrate some of the historiographical observations and corrections into new ways of conceiving of the history of historical scholarship in Europe since the Renaissance, and to reflect on the impact of these European terms on Chinese approaches to the Chinese past. This comparison is a two-way street, with the European tradition clarified by knowledge of Chinese practices, and Chinese approaches better understood when placed alongside the European ones.