This article is a history of liquidity presented as interaction between metaphors and theoretical concepts in social contexts. While taking note of Zygmunt Bauman’s metaphor “liquid modernity,” the study instead surveys the wider conceptual field. The text turns around mercantile liquidity (liquidity as clarification) and liquidity in modern economics (characteristic of all assets), as well as older metaphors, notably the famous phrase of the Communist Manifesto, “all that is solid melts into air” (Alles Ständische und Stehende verdampft), which is revealed to have resonance in texts by poets, notably Heinrich Heine. The main result is the historical consistency of the field, where liquidity is a promise of knowledge and clarity.
Hannah Landecker, Charis Thompson and Sarah Franklin
What’s in the Dish? Comments on Franklin’s In Vitro Anthropos Hannah Landecker
Conceptual Clarity for Conception Frameworks: Comments on Franklin’s In Vitro Anthropos Charis Thompson
Reply Sarah Franklin
Feminine Feminist
Şirin Tekeli
Ceylân Orhun
Describing Şirin Tekeli only as an academic, political scientist, feminist, writer, translator, intellectual, and activist would undervalue her. She was a rare, precious gem—a diamond. The four Cs that are used to evaluate a diamond—clarity, cut, carat, color—are characteristics that can be applied to her as well. She was an extraordinary woman and a unique person.
Peter Marcuse
This article examines the conceptual structure of the Social City Program as it has been formulated in legislation and applied in practice. It raises serious questions as to the actual impact of the program as formulated, and suggests that conceptual clarity may help both to expose its flaws and to propose alternate positive potentials. The program has a complex intellectual underlay, and clarity in the concepts used can avoid some potential dangers in its implementation. More specifically, integration is not the opposite of exclusion, and inclusion is not the same as reducing poverty. Spatial clustering can either support or weaken solidarity. Enclaves and ghettos are not the same thing, although both reflect a clustering of population groups. Finally, emphasizing "social capital" can be a way of highlighting the strength of the oppressed or blaming them for their own oppression-and these distinctions are loaded with consequences for policy.
Mehri Niknam
I am very pleased and honoured to have this opportunity to speak at a gathering of the Muslim delegates in London. For the sake of brevity and clarity, I shall limit my comments in general to the Muslim community in this country, though much of what I say may equally be applied to the Muslims in general. Furthermore, since the Maimonides Foundation is an interfaith organisation and does not comment on political issues, I shall steer clear of politics.
Bryan Loughrey and Graham Holderness
In its current incarnation, Critical Survey is now thirty years old. We have been its Editors throughout, with the support of our publisher Berghahn Books, a judicious Editorial Board, and the loyalty of readers and subscribers. A celebration of some sort seems in order. We thought it best to remind ourselves of the journal’s founding principles: clarity of exposition; relevance to the curriculum; recognition given to emerging fields of study; and the potential to blend critical with creative voices.
T. Storm Heter
This article presents a novel defense of Sartrean ethics based on the concept of interpersonal recognition. The immediate post-war texts Anti-Semite and Jew, What is Literature? and Notebooks for an Ethics express Sartre's inchoate yet ultimately defensible view of obligations to others. Such obligations are not best understood as Kantian duties, but rather as Hegelian obligations of mutual recognition. The emerging portrait of Sartrean ethics offers a strong reply to the classical criticism that authenticity would license vicious lifestyles like serial killing. In addition to acting with clarity and responsibility, existentially authentic individuals must respect others.
Lynn Hunt
Robert R. Palmer exemplified the best that historians have to offer. He wrote with conviction, empathy, and at times passion, yet he always managed to maintain balance and portray both the good and the bad in the people and events he brought to life for his readers. Because he wrote with conviction, he also wrote with exceptional clarity. He never displayed the impulse to hide behind highfalutin language, contorted prose, or excessively specialized topics. He believed that democracy was an absolute good, that it had its origins in European history, and that its rise provided one of, or even perhaps the principal theme of all of modern history. As a consequence, he never lost his sympathy for the French revolutionaries of 1789–1794, however terrible their actions, however much they fell short of living up to their ideals.
Dennis Masaka
In this article, I argue that individuals could be entitled to rights, outside those that are communally conferred, as part of the primary requirement of being ‘persons’ in the African communitarian set-up if the terms ‘person’ and ‘personhood’ are understood differently from the way they are currently deployed in the communitarian discourse. The distinction between these two terms is the basis of my thesis where clarity on their meanings could be helpful in establishing the possibility of ascribing rights outside those that are communally conferred. I argue that ontologically, a ‘person’ is prior to ‘personhood’ (understood in the normative sense) which is considered to find its fuller expression in a community and by virtue of this, I think that he or she is entitled to some rights outside those that are defined and conferred by the community. This is my point of departure in this article.
The Response of Catholic and Protestant Thinkers to the Work of Emile Durkheim
With Special Reference to Les formes élémentaires
W. S. F. Pickering
This article attempts to record and examine the way that Catholic and Protestant thinkers reacted to Durkheim's work. The bulk, but by no means all, of their reflections relate to religion, especially after the publication of Les formes élémentaires. Surprisingly, there were some who praised Durkheim for his clarity and imagination. The specific aspects of his work dealt with here are: the nature of religion, its definition, the role of the social and individual, the nature of God, effervescent gatherings. In relation to these, and other topics, the writings of Catholics such as Besse, Bureau, Deploige, Lemonnyer, and Protestants, Boegner, Bois, Richard, Paul Sabatier, are considered. One conclusion is that, surprisingly or otherwise, the substantial criticisms of Durkheim are similar to both Catholics and Protestants. Another is that this kind of material is a necessary prelude to the study of the later development of the sociology of religion in France.