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Posts Tagged ‘Great Britain’

Chapter on J. St. Mill’s ‘The Spirit of the Age’ (1831)

Posted in Publications, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »

A new German-language handbook on John Stuart Mill has just been published by J.B. Metzler Verlag under the title J. St. Mill-Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung.

In it, I have written a contribution on a text that Mill published as a series of newspaper articles in 1831, titled The Spirit of the Age. By placing this essay in the context of Mill’s own intellectual development, of the contemporary political situation in Britain and France, and of current debates in Mill-scholarship, I try to provide some entry points for a better understanding of a text that is no easy read but very worthwhile.

While Mill himself was quite harsh on this early publication later in life, it encompasses some fascinating reflections on the relation between authority and freedom, on the development of civilization, and on the social role of intellectuals.

Mill’s original text is available in the Online Library of Liberty through this link. It comes highly recommended.

My chapter is available here.

Many thanks to the editor Frauke Höntzsch for the compilation of what looks to be a great research compendium on one of the most intriguing intellectual figures of the Victorian era.

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Conference “Layers and Connections of the Political”

Posted in Conference, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Between 14 and 25 June, the Association for Political History organizes its postponed international conference under the title “Layers and Connections of the Political”, regrettably online instead of in Rome.

Participation is free of charge after registration with the organizers (here).

On June 21, at 9.00 – 10.30 CET, I am part of the panel “‘Political Participation’ in Democracy History: A Contested and Ever-Changing Concept and Practice?”, organized by Anne Heyer (Leiden) and Zoé Kergomard (Paris).


Chair:
Ido de Haan (Utrecht)
Discussant:
Harm Kaal (Nijmegen)

Participants:

  • Anne Heyer (Leiden): When did the Masses become Political?
  • Theo Jung (Freiburg): Battling with Words or Fists? Changing Modes of Participation in Political Meetings in Britain and Germany (1867-1914)
  • Carlos Domper Lasús (Zaragoza): The University Work Service. A politicizing experience under Francoism, 1950-1970
  • Zoé Kergomard (Paris): Is electoral abstention also a form of democratic participation? Rethinking the value of voting in the young Vth Republic (1960s-1980s)

The whole program can be downloaded here.

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Workshop ‘Oratory and Representation: Parliamentary Discourses and Practices in the Nineteenth Century’

Posted in Conference, tagged , , , , , , on February 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »

On March 6, I’m participating in a workshop organized by Ludovic Marionneau of Helsinki University within the framework of the ERC Research Group ‘CALLIOPE, Vocal Articulations of Parliamentary Identity and Empire‘

under the title

Oratory and Represenation: Parliamentary Discourses and Practics in the Nineteenth Century

Venue: University of Helsinki – Topelia D112

The call for papers can be found here.

[EDIT April 16, 2020: A detailed report on the workshop, written by Josephine Hoegaerts, has now been published on H-Soz-u-Kult.]

Program

9:00 – 11:00 – First Session

  • Theo Jung (University of Freiburg): Performing Silence in the House of Speech: Benjamin Disraeli and the Parliamentary Sphinx.
  • Clarice Bland (University of Helsinki): Emotion, Not Eloquence: Bulwer-Lytton in the House of Commons.
  • Tamás Nyirkos (Pázmány Péter Catholic University): Conservative Orators in Restoration France: Bonald vs. Chateaubriand.
  • Ludovic Marionneau (University of Helsinki): “The president shakes the bell to no avail”: performance in the French parliamentary debates leading to Jacques-Antoine Manuel’s exclusion, 1823.

11.00 – Coffee break

11.20 – 12:50 – Second Session

  • Carlo Bovolo (University of Eastern Piedmont): Images from the Parlamento Subalpino: political and cultural representations of the Parliament in the Kingdome of Sardinia (1848-1861).
  • Daniel Morat (Free University of Berlin): Parliamentary Speech and Stenographic Practice in the German Reichstag, 1871-1914.
  • Oriol Luján (Complutense University of Madrid): Political Representation in 19th century Spain: a conceptual perspective.

12.50 – Lunch

14.00 – 15:50 – Third Session

  • Anna Rajavuori (University of Helsinki): Performing socialist in the Parliament: class and authority in the early 20th century Finland’s representative politics.#
  • Ivan Sablin (University of Heidelberg): When Subalterns Speak: Performing Class and Ethnicity in the Russian State Duma, 1906–1917.#
  • Karen Lauwers (University of Helsinki): The relevance of histories of extra-parliamentary representation and informal political communication (France, 19th-20th centuries).

15.50 – Coffee break

16:00 – 17:00 – Keynote Speech

  • Henk Te Velde – University of Leiden

17:00 – 17:30 – Concluding remarks

  • Josephine Hoegaerts – University of Helsinki

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Article on Boycotts as a Parliamentary Practice in Britain and France

Posted in Publications, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 23, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I’m glad to announce that my article

Auftritt durch Austritt: Debattenboykotts als parlamentarische Praxis in Großbritannien und Frankreich (1797-1823)

[Performance by Means of Withdrawal: Debating Boycotts as a Parliamentary Practice in Britain and France (1797-1823)]

has been published in the 58th volume of the Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, a special issue under the title “Practising Democracy. Arenas, Processes and Ruptures of Political Participation in Western Europe during the 19th and 20th Centuries”. At a workshop held in Berlin in November 2017 (Call for Papers, Program), the preliminary drafts of the contributions were discussed and prepared for the publication now available from J. W. Dietz Verlag.

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My contribution asks under what circumstances the refusal to participate can itself become a mode of political practice.

Participation is often understood to be a fundamental value of democratic politics. But under some circumstances, the conditions of given opportunities to take part in political decision making processes are structured in ways that prohibit their de facto effectiveness. In such cases, political groups may choose to exit from established platforms and institutions in order to symbolically express their disapproval of the given situation.

Taking the example of oppositional groups’ parliamentary boycotts in the context of the changing systems of early parliamentarism, my contribution argues that the refusal to participate can itself be a forceful mode of democratic practice. Cases from the Irish, British and French parliaments shed light on the specific logic and political relevance of these boycotts in the historical context of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The volume’s introduction, written by Anja Kruke and Philipp Kufferath, may be found online here. The other contributinos are available in print.

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Review of Henk te Velde’s Sprekende politiek

Posted in Publications, tagged , , , , , on December 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

The recent issue of the Dutch journal De Negentiende Eeuw published my review of Henk te Veldes new study

Sprekende politiek: Redenaars en hun publiek in de parlementaire gouden eeuw

[Speaking Politics: Orators and their Audience in the Golden Age of Parliamentarism]

sprekende-politiek

The book, which analyses the history of parliamentary rhetoric in Great Britain and France throughout the ‘long’ nineteenth century, comes highly recommened, both to scholars of the period and to a wider public.

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