Jörn Rüsen

Thomas Rieger

Michael Fehr

The final bankruptcy of the great socialist experiment in Eastern Europe appeared to sound a death knell for utopian thought. In 'Thinking Utopia' an effort is made to rehabilitate the concept of political utopia, arguing that utopian ideas continue to be relevant in the modern world.

Steps Into Other Worlds

Thinking Utopia

Stefan Reichmuth

Aladdin Sarhan

"The background of this book was an international symposium on 'Humanism in Islam: An Inter-Cultural Discourse', held from 6 to 8 April 2009 in Alexandria, Egypt. This event was among the international conferences convened by the project 'Humanism in the Era of Globalisation - An Intercultural Dialogue on Humanity, Culture and Values' of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI), Essen, Germany. It was held in cooperation with the Goethe Institute Alexandria at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt"--P. [9].

Historical Heritage and Contemporary Challenges

Humanism and Muslim Culture

Without denying the importance of the postmodernist approach to the narrative form and rhetorical strategies of historiography, the author, one of Germany's most prominent cultural historians, argues here in favor of reason and methodical rationality in history. He presents a broad variety of aspects, factors and developments of historical thinking from the 18th century to the present, thus continuing, in exemplary fashion, the tradition of critical self-reflection in the humanities and looking at historical studies as an important factor of cultural orientation in practical life.

Narration, Interpretation, Orientation

History

Oliver Kozlarek

The generation of meaning is the primary precondition for acting and thinking. The essays in this volume contribute to a discourse on this matter with a decentred, globalized world in mind. The notions civilization, humanism and modernity - far from being exclusively Western ideas - may facilitate joint efforts of reflecting on the universality of current human conditions, particularly since such reflexion is possible from particular cultural perspectives. Modernity presents us with a second Axial Time in which the quest for a plural, but shared, humane world is the challenge.

Civilizations - Axial Times - Modernities - Humanisms

Shaping a Humane World

Jö Rüsen

Presents 17 contributions written by an international group of historians addressing the intercultural dimension of historical theory. The editor's introduction discusses historical thinking as intercultural discourse and presents ten hypotheses that aim to define Western historical thinking. Scholars from Asia and Africa comment on his position in light of their own ideas about the sense and meaning of historical thinking. The volume wraps up with comments on the questions and issues raised by the authors and suggestions for the future of intercultural communication. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

An Intercultural Debate

Western Historical Thinking

Ernst Wolff

This series aims at bridging the gap between historical theory and the study of historical memory as well as western and non-western concepts, for which this volume offers a particularly good example. It explores cultural differences in conceptualizing time and history in countries such as China, Japan, and India as well as pre-modern societies.

The Variety of Cultures

Time and History

Achim Mittag

Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer

The first comprehensive work on the political and cognitive dimensions of Chinese historical consciousness set against its Western counterpart.

Chinese Historiography and Historical Culture from a New Comparative Perspective

Historical Truth, Historical Criticism, and Ideology

What is history is a question historians have been asking themselves time and again. Here a Western historian offers ten hypotheses that attempt to constitute specifically Western historical thinking, and Asian and African historians comment.

Thomas W. Rieger

After the breakdown of socialist and communist systems in the East, it had become fashionable to declare the so-called "end of utopia" ("end of history," "end of narratives"). The authors of this volume do not share this view but think that it is time to rehabilitate utopian thought. The political concept of Utopia that has given its name to these transcendental projections onto the world has been too narrow to describe and analyze the moving forces of the mind perceiving human existence beyond reality. By broadening the perspectives of utopian studies, these essays enable the reader to reconstruct scholarly paradigms and strategies of utopian, complex and holistic thinking in modern cosmology, philosophy, sociology, in literary, historical and political sciences, and to compare traditions and ways of Western utopian thought to the practice in the East.

Steps into Other Worlds

Michael Hofmann

Mirjam Springer

Schiller und die Geschichte

Studies in Metahistory

Alfredas Bumblauskas

Ursula A. J. Becher

tarptautinės mokslinės konferencijos Vilniaus universiteto Istorijos fakultete medžiaga 1996 09 24-29

Istoriografija ir atvira visuomenė

Saul Friedländer

ein Schloss Elmau-Symposion

Richard Wagner im Dritten Reich

History has always been more than just the past. It involves a relationship between past and present, perceived, on the one hand, as a temporal chain of events and, on the other, symbolically as an interpretation that gives meaning to these events through varying cultural orientations, charging it with norms and values, hopes and fears. And it is memory that links the present to the past and therefore has to be seen as the most fundamental procedure of the human mind that constitutes history: memory and historical thinking are the door of the human mind to experience. At the same time, it transforms the past into a meaningful and sense bearing part of the present and beyond. It is these complex interrelationships that are the focus of the contributors to this volume, among them such distinguished scholars as Paul Ricoeur, Johan Galtung, Eberhard Lämmert, and James E. Young. Full of profound insights into human society pat and present it is a book that not only historians but also philosophers and social scientists should engage with.

Meaning and Representation in History

Zeiterfahrung gehört zu den Grundgegebenheiten des Menschseins. Der Mensch erfährt Zeit im Wandel seiner Welt und in den Tiefen seiner Selbst, als Fluch der Natur und als Leistung seines Geistes. Er kann die Zeit nicht so lassen, wie sie ihm geschieht, und er kann sich doch nicht bei dem beruhigen, was er mit ihr macht. Indem er sich kulturell deutend mit ihr auseinander setzt, erhebt er sich über die Zeit, versucht sie zu bannen und zu beherrschen, aber immer bleibt er ihrem Wandel unterworfen. Interdisziplinär gehen in diesem Band Philosophen, Historiker, Ethnologen, Juristen, Kulturwissenschaftler, Kunsthistoriker und Museumsfachleute der Frage nach, wie dies geschieht. Neben einem systematisch-theoretischen Teil, der den Grundlagen von Zeitdeutungen nachspürt, wird anhand von ethnologischen Fallstudien, historischen Untersuchungen und Gegenwartsanalysen gezeigt, wie divergierende Zeitdimensionen kompatibel gemacht werden, wie Zeitkonzepte sinnbildend wirken und wie Zeitdeutungen sich repräsentieren. Das Buch gibt also einen breiten Überblick über die Vielfalt und Unterschiedlichkeit von Zeitwahrnehmungen und Zeitdeutungen in verschiedenen Epochen und Kulturen, und zugleich auch einen Überblick darüber, welchen Beitrag die Kulturwissenschaften zur Zeitdeutung leisten.

Perspektiven - Epochen - Paradigmen

Zeit deuten

As one of the premier historical thinkers of his generation, Jörn Rüsen has made enormous contributions to the methods and theoretical framework of history as it is practiced today. In Evidence and Meaning, Rüsen surveys the seismic changes that have shaped the historical profession over the last half-century, while offering a clear, economical account of his theory of history. To traditional historiography Rüsen brings theoretical insights from philosophy, narrative theory, cultural studies, and the social sciences, developing an intricate but robust model of “historical thinking” as both a cognitive discipline and a cultural practice—one that is susceptible neither to naïve empiricism nor radical relativism.

A Theory of Historical Studies

Evidence and Meaning

The papers of this volume move from the abstract scheme of an intercultural humanism of the future to concrete cultural expressions of humanism within the Muslim culture of different times up to the present. They concentrate on three issues. The first is related to contemporary attempts to develop a humanist and historical hermeneutics of the Qur’an and of Islamic history. The second discusses the humanist heritage and the humanitarian trends of Muslim religious and literary culture. The third highlights the discussion on Humanism and Islam as a topic within European identity politics, covering the role of this discussion for the history of Islamic Studies in Europe and America, and the contemporary polemics around Islam in the Netherlands. Taken together, the contributions of the volume attempt to provide the groundwork for an assessment of the roots and prospects of an intercultural humanism with respect to the Muslim world.

Every human life form encapsulates an idea of humankind and humanity. Today, this very idea is challenged by the various and diverging needs for cultural orientation in the age of globalization. One of the recent attempts to meet these challenges is provided by a new humanism with an intercultural intent. Such humanism can be conceptualized only by the collaborative efforts of different academic disciplines at exploring the human being as the gist of what is meant by humanity. Thus, this volume explores the pertinent fields of knowledge from the perspectives of philosophy, theology, anthropology, sociology, economy, psychology, neurobiology, history, and gender studies. Focusing on the guiding question of what is meant by being a human, the contributions of this volume encompass a fascinating spectrum of insights, which will orientate future discussions on humanity and humanism. Every human life form encapsulates an idea of humankind and humanity. Today, this very idea is challenged by the various and diverging needs for cultural orientation in the age of globalization. One of the recent attempts to meet these challenges is provided by a new humanism with an intercultural intent. Such humanism can be conceptualized only by the collaborative efforts of different academic disciplines at exploring the human being as the gist of what is meant by humanity. Thus, this volume explores the pertinent fields of knowledge from the perspectives of philosophy, theology, anthropology, sociology, economy, psychology, neurobiology, history, and gender studies. Focusing on the guiding question of what is meant by being a human, the contributions of this volume encompass a fascinating spectrum of insights, which will orientate future discussions on humanity and humanism.

Jörn Rüsen

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