History Commons^™

No History Or Society To Be Found: Object-Oriented Ontology And Social Ontology, Bennett B. Gilbert

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

It is widely theorized that the advent of the “Anthropocene Age” (under this or any other name) is bringing one form of human temporality to an end while it initiates another (Simon 2021). Because human activity threatens the duration and well-being of the planetary biosphere, the new age that this activity is bringing on—though it is proving to be extremely difficult to define—does present specific onto-epistemological and moral challenges behind its political and social problems. The most prominent and perhaps the core of these challenges is the demand to shed anthropocentrism in human culture, a change that would deeply alter …

Blind Spots And Bottlenecks For Philosophy Of History, Bennett B. Gilbert

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Realist history does not meet many human needs. History needs a great deal more philosophy, but of what kind?

In his essay on this blog, "Reflections on Theory of History Polyphonic," Ethan Kleinberg suggests that historians often use theory to block change in their work rather than to advance it. One way they do this, he points out, is to include a little theory in order to inoculate themselves against greater and more fundamental challenges. They give or take a blow, and then hoist up their shield, thereby avoiding philosophy and miniaturizing it into "historical theory."

I cannot …

Repairing Historicity, Bennett Gilbert

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper advances a fresh theorization of historicity. The word and concept of historicity has become so widespread and popular that they have ceased to have definite meaning and are used to stand for unsupported notions of the values inherent in human experience. This paper attempts to repair the concept by re-defining it as the temporal aspect of the interdependence of life; having history is to have a life intertwined with the lives of all others and with the universe. After separating out the looser uses, surveying some of the literature, and defining what needs to be done, the paper …

Process And Privilege: When It Comes To Renaming Streets, Not All Petitioners Are Treated Equally, Cynthia Carmina Gómez

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

On a rainy afternoon in January 2010, I drove to my old neighborhood in Southeast Portland to attend the César Chávez Boulevard sign unveiling ceremony at Central Christian Church. The event marked the culmination of the effort to rename a major street after the civil rights champion. After saying hello to a few friends, I sat alone in a pew toward the back of the mostly empty space. Light reflected off of the words César E. Chávez Blvd. on the large street sign placed under the dais. I was expecting busloads of school-aged children and families to be there, but …

Theory After All, Bennett Gilbert

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Comments on #theoryrevolt.

Chandling The Scholar, Bennett Gilbert

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This is a peer-reviewed group blog post on early modern scholarship and pre-modern universities.

The Dreams Of An Inventor In 1420, Bennett Gilbert

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Bennett Gilbert peruses the sketchbook of 15th-century engineer Johannes de Fontana, a catalogue of designs for a variety of fantastic and often impossible inventions, including fire-breathing automatons, pulley-powered angels, and the earliest surviving drawing of a magic lantern device.

Yet Another Crisis Of The Book, Bennett Gilbert

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Book bindings and binding decor can reveal deep parts of our attitudes toward books and toward culture. Changes in attitudes toward the codex book during the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution are part of continual change in book culture. The re-binding of early printed books is exemplary evidence of these changes. The new bindings express both a rejection of pre-Enlightenment culture and an attempt to stabilize traditional cultural values. This also suggests how we might view events customarily considered to be "revolutions".