Comparative History

‘Undermining methodological nationalism: Histoire croisée of concepts as transnational history’

by Jani Marjanen

Misyurov D.A. Dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas // Credo New. 2012. №2

by Dmitry Misyurov

The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with... more The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with dominant and the non-dominant elements; universal formula; formula with symbolic weight of elements; tautological formula. For example, it suggests an opportunity to use the dialectical formulas for modeling and artificial intelligence creation, etc.

Metropole, Colony, and Imperial Citizenship in the Russian Empire

by Alexander Morrison

Kritika, Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History Vol.13 No.2 (Spring 2012) pp.327 - 364

This article reviews recent literature on legal and civic ideas of citizenship within the Russian empire, arguing that... more This article reviews recent literature on legal and civic ideas of citizenship within the Russian empire, arguing that much of it fails to take into account the many legal and administrative inequalities which existed between European and Asiatic Russia, with Central Asia in particular emerging as a separate, military-ruled 'colony', not just in cultural, but also in institutional terms.

Museología, sociología e historia crítica de los museos: nuevas perspectivas

by Julien Bastoen

To be published in 'Museo y Territorio' (Museo del Patrimonio Municipal, Málaga, Spain), #3

En la actualidad, bajo la influencia de las nuevas tecnologías de la información y la comunicación, las nociones de... more En la actualidad, bajo la influencia de las nuevas tecnologías de la información y la comunicación, las nociones de red, comunidad e interactividad nunca han sido más importantes en el debate sobre la proyección social de los museos1. Sin embargo, no deberíamos olvidar que su impacto social fue siempre importante, aunque se revele complicado estimarlo con precisión, al considerar períodos anteriores al siglo XX. La teoría del actor-red, fue elaborada en la década de los ochenta por investigadores del Centro de Sociología de la Innovación en la Escuela de ingenieros de minas de París, entre los cuales destacan: Bruno Latour y Michel Callon. Dicha teoría ha sido originada por investigaciones llevadas a cabo en los campos de las innovaciones sociotécnicas, la evaluación y el análisis dinámico de las políticas de investigación, así como de estudios sobre cultura, medios de comunicación y usuarios. Supone una lectura interaccionista, relativista y reflexiva de los procesos de innovación científica y tecnológica. Esta lectura resulta no sólo de la observación in situ de los actores, sino también del análisis y modelización de las controversias que suelen anunciar o acompañar las innovaciones. Uno de los pilares de la teoría del actor-red es el principio de simetría: primero, los actores no-humanos son tan importantes como los actores humanos; y segundo, tan importante es el fracaso como el éxito a la hora de explicar la evolución de un proceso de innovación.

La teoría del actor-red fue la base epistemológica para el desarrollo de un proyecto de colaboración internacional, el Mapping controversies on science for politics (Macospol), cuyo objetivo principal es el experimento de herramientas visuales para que sea accesible y entendible lo complejo de las controversias científicas, tecnológicas y socioculturales, mediante la modelización de las interacciones entre los actores humanos y no humanos. En el marco del mismo proyecto, un grupo de investigación situado en Mánchester y dirigido por una pupila de Bruno Latour, Albena Yaneva, ha desarrollado herramientas visuales para mapear la polémica que surgió entorno al proyecto de construcción del Estadio Olímpico de Londres. La misma Albena Yaneva publicó en 2009 una memoria de investigación que abre – estamos convencidos de ello – nuevas oportunidades para la museología crítica. Llevó a cabo un estudio sociológico entre 2001 y 2004 en la firma de arquitectura OMA, a quien le habían encargado el diseño del proyecto de ampliación del Museo Whitney de Arte Estadounidense en Nueva York. Le dejaron observar el proceso creativo (design process) a la luz del análisis de las “cajas negras”, o sea, conjuntos de huellas gráficas, hemerográficas y bibliográficas recopiladas por los arquitectos con el fin de documentar las controversias que habían levantado los anteriores proyectos de ampliación del ya polémico edificio de Marcel Breuer. Su análisis se encaminaba de forma paralela hacía la reconstrucción de la trayectoria social de la sede del Museo Whitney a lo largo de varias décadas; esa trayectoria, la plasmaron las interacciones de un conjunto muy heterogéneo de actores individuales e institucionales (curadores, administradores, artistas, conservadores, arquitectos, ingenieros...) y no-humanos (reglamentos de planificación, programas de arquitectura, etc.).

De hecho, el estudio que realizó Albena Yaneva desde el punto de vista de una firma de arquitectura, lo hubiera podido llevar a cabo desde el punto de vista de los profesionales de museos. Sin embargo, lo que vale para estudiar controversias contemporáneas en torno a innovación museográfica, ampliación o creación de museos, puede que no valga para analizar controversias decimonónicas. Dado que el estímulo de la reflexividad de los profesionales en situación de interacción es la condición del éxito de la investigación sociológica, ¿cómo compensar la ausencia de testigos vivos de los procesos de innovación/creación y de las controversias que los acompañaron? A modo de respuesta, proponemos dos enfoques complementarios en el mismo caso, el Musée du Luxembourg, a fin de comprobar las condiciones de posibilidad de la aplicación en el campo de la historia crítica de los museos de las herramientas conceptuales y visuales usadas por la sociología de la innovación.

What symbols

by Dmitry Misyurov

This article contains 12 questions about the symbols. What are your thoughts in response? This article contains 12 questions about the symbols. What are your thoughts in response?

Historická komparace a její alternativy

by Václav Šmidrkal

“Immigration and Education: State Regulation, Nationalism, and School Policy in Ontario and Buenos Aires, 1880-1914”

by Benjamin Bryce

Presented in Spanish at the Interuniversity Seminar on Canadian Studies in Latin America (SEMINECAL), University of Havana, Cuba, April 12, 2012.

In 1910, at the height of an emergent and changing Argentine nationalism, politicians, bureaucrats, and writers in the... more In 1910, at the height of an emergent and changing Argentine nationalism, politicians, bureaucrats, and writers in the public sphere proudly discussed the influence of the growing network of public schools in Buenos Aires. They boldly lauded the role of education in solving the “problem” created by decades of mass migration. Many viewed schooling as a necessary means to attain a united, loyal, and ethnically homogeneous nation. At the same time, bureaucrats and educators in Ontario were engaged in a very similar project. A growing pro-English linguistic ideology faced off against the entrenched rights of French and German in provincially-controlled public and Catholic elementary schools. In both cases, state officials and politicians discussed and engaged in activities that illustrated their ideas about the relationship among language, citizenship, and nation.

This paper lays out some key commonalities in the educational systems that emerged in Ontario and Buenos Aires. It also seeks to outline the relationship between state regulation and ethnic minorities between 1880 and 1914. I examine German schools in both places as a case study. Understanding the changing position of German in both places forms a fundamental part of the history of education in Ontario and Buenos Aires. German offers a lens through which we can observe the rising authority of the educational state but also the limitations of state influence. Elites in both Canada and Argentina made similar arguments about the "problems" of cultural pluralism, but the state apparatus in Ontario was much more effective in actually implementing this discourse. In this period, a growing network of schools emerged in both Ontario and Buenos Aires that were part of larger projects of modernization, changing notions of citizenship, and a growing apparatus of state authority. Yet between two liberal forms of governmentality in Ontario and Buenos Aires, noticeable differences began to emerge.

Vietnam Analogies and Metaphors: The Cultural Codification of South Africa's Border War

by Gary Baines

Published in Safundi: The journal of South African and American Studies, Vol. 13, Nos. 1-2, 2012

Seeing the Familiar Strange: Actants, Actors and Arenas of Transnational Media History

by Andreas Fickers

This article is published in Medien & Zeit 26:4 (2011), pp. 16-24.

The essay pleas for a critical reassessment of the nation as long lasting paradigm of historical research on mass... more The essay pleas for a critical reassessment of the nation as long lasting paradigm of historical research on mass media. By presenting the transnational perspective as a useful framework
for seeing the familiar strange, the author introduces the three interrelated concepts of actants, actors and arenas as critical tools for the study of transnational media flows. Based
on three historical short stories dealing with the emergence of a telegraph infrastructure for news reporting in Sweden, the establishment of a transnational „pirate“ radio and television station in the Saar region, and subversive viewing practices of the Romanian television audience in the 1980s, the author aims at problematizing the complex spatial and topological nature of transnational mediascape by using an integral media historical
approach.

The Emergence of Television as a Conservative Media Revolution: Historicising a Process of Remediation in the Post-War Western Europen Mass Media Ensemble

by Andreas Fickers

Article published in Journal of Modern European History Vol. 10: 1 (2012), pp. 49-75.

This article claims that the emergence of television in the 1950s must be interpreted as a conservative media... more This article claims that the emergence of television in the 1950s must be interpreted as a conservative media revolution. It aims at revisiting some of the popular narratives about the emergence of television as a revolutionary moment in media history and questions the newness of television in the European mass media ensemble. Focusing on a set of privileged sites of negotiation where the tensions between the conservative and modernising agencies of the medium became most visible or explicit, the article emphasizes the ambiguous and contested nature of television as a new medium. Finally, the author pleas for an integral approach to media history that studies the intermedial relationships and interdependencies between television and other mass media.

Presenting the'window on the world'to the world. Competing narratives of the presentation of television at the world's fairs in Paris (1937) and New York (1939)

by Andreas Fickers

To cite this article: Fickers, Andreas (2008) 'Presenting the 'window on the world' to the world. Competing narratives of the presentation of television at the world's fairs in paris (1937) and new york (1939)', in: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 28:3, 291 — 310.

A European television history

by Andreas Fickers

This is the final draft version of the book which is published as:
Jonathan Bignell & Andreas Fickers (eds.) A European Television History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008).

European Television History brings together television historians and media scholars to chart the development of... more European Television History brings together television historians and media scholars to chart the development of television in Europe since its inception. The volume interrogates the history of the medium in divergent political, economic, cultural and ideological national contexts.

Taking a comparative approach to the topic, the volume is organized around a set of common questions, themes, and methodological reflections. It deals with European television in the context of television historiography and transnational traditions. Case study chapters written by scholars from different European countries to reflect their specific areas of expertise

TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION HISTORY: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH

by Andreas Fickers

Published as special issue of the Journal Media History Vol 16 / issue 1

Armeen einer Supermacht. Das chinesische Heerwesen unter der Tang-Dynastie (7.-10. Jh.) (Armies of a Superpower. The Chinese military system under the Tang-Dynasty, 7th-10th century) (Communicating Science to the Public)

by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller

in: Karfunkel. Zeitschrift für erlebbare Geschichte. Combat-Sonderheft 8 (2012) p. 31-38.

Порівняльне фашизмознавство

by Andreas Umland

Критика. 2008. Т. 12. № 7-8(129-130). С. 12-16.

Comparing anti-Jewish policy and the organization of deportations in France, the Netherlands and Belgium, 1940–1944; the potential of an explicitly comparative approach

by Pim Griffioen

Co-authored with Ron Zeller. Paper presented at the Fourth European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC), The Hague, The Netherlands, February 27–March 2, 2002; Network Theory and Historiography (Chair: Prof. C. Lorenz), Session G-15: 'Problems of Comparative Explanation' (Chair: Prof. A.A. van den Braembussche).

Comparing the Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, France and Belgium, 1940–1945: Similarities, Differences, Causes.

by Pim Griffioen

Co-authored with Ron Zeller.

Paper presented as a lecture at the research workshop on day two of the International Conference on the... more Paper presented as a lecture at the research workshop on day two of the International Conference on the "Holocaust and other genocides", organized within the framework of the International Task Force (ITF) for cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, The Netherlands' Chairmanship 2011, held in the Peace Palace, The Hague, November 27–28, 2011. (Publication forthcoming.)

National differences in involvement of Occupation authorities, and national and local authorities during successive stages of anti-Jewish policy.

by Pim Griffioen

Co-authored with Ron Zeller. Paper presented at the international conference "The Shoah in Western Europe: Belgium, France and the Netherlands in comparison", organized by the Centre d'histoire de l'Europe du vingtième siècle (Chevs), Sciences Po, Paris, in cooperation with the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam, held in Paris, December 1–3, 2005.

Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, Belgium and France in a Comparative Perspective.

by Pim Griffioen

Co-authored with Ron Zeller. Synopsis of the paper presented at the Academy Colloquium “The destruction of European Jewry: structures, motivations, opportunities”, held at the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), 10–13 December 2003, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

'Vertrek van Wilhelmina was niet van wezenlijk belang voor hoge aantal joodse slachtoffers'

by Pim Griffioen

Co-authored with Ron Zeller. Published in: NRC HANDELSBLAD, August 19, 1997, p. 7.