Publications of Kontler, L.

Translation and Comparison, Translation as Comparison: Aspects of Reception in the History of Ideas

This article addresses the methodological issues involved in the study of interlingual translation as an avenue of reception in the history of ideas. In particular, it assesses the possible uses of linguistic contextualism and conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte) in this endeavor. It argues that both of these approaches have been, or are capable of being, far more sensitive towards the phenomenon of reception than it is usually acknowledged and, indeed, this is an area where cross-fertilization between them (often commended in general but rarely if ever in specific terms) is a practical possibility. Perspectives from Rezeptionsgeschichte may provide useful tools for building bridges between them. A few case studies in translation history are then critically examined, and on the basis of the foregoing methodological reflections propositions are made for further refining the approach taken in those case studies.

Translation and Comparison II: Early-Modern and Current Perspectives

Knowledge translation has been widely taken up as an innovative process to facilitate the uptake of research-derived knowledge into health care services. Drawing on a recent research project, we engage in a philosophic examination of how knowledge translation might serve as vehicle for the transfer of critically oriented knowledge regarding social justice, health inequities, and cultural safety into clinical practice. Through an explication of what might be considered disparate traditions (those of critical inquiry and knowledge translation), we identify compatibilities and discrepancies both within the critical tradition, and between critical inquiry and knowledge translation. The ontological and epistemological origins of the knowledge to be translated carry implications for the synthesis and translation phases of knowledge translation. In our case, the studies we synthesized were informed by various critical perspectives and hence we needed to reconcile differences that exist within the critical tradition. A review of the history of critical inquiry served to articulate the nature of these differences while identifying common purposes around which to strategically coalesce. Other challenges arise when knowledge translation and critical inquiry are brought together. Critique is one of the hallmark methods of critical inquiry and, yet, the engagement required for knowledge translation between researchers and health care administrators, practitioners, and other stakeholders makes an antagonistic stance of critique problematic. While knowledge translation offers expanded views of evidence and the complex processes of knowledge exchange, we have been alerted to the continual pull toward epistemologies and methods reminiscent of the positivist paradigm by their instrumental views of knowledge and assumptions of objectivity and political neutrality. These types of tensions have been productive for us as a research team in prompting a critical reconceptualization of knowledge translation.

Book review: Istvan Hont: Jealousy of Trade. International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective

Review: Istvan Hont: Jealousy of Trade. International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective

William Robertson and his German Audience on European and non-European Civilisations

Assesses the perception of historian William Robertson on the European civilization. Use of conjectural history in enriching the perspectives of traditional philosophical history; Historiographical achievement of Robertson; Presentation of the transatlantic and eastern worlds and Europe by Robertson.

Book review: Laszló Péter: Az Elbától keletre. Tanulmányok a magyar es kelet-európai tórténelemből

Reviews the book 'Az Elbatol keletre. Tanulmanyok a magyar es kelet-europai tortenelembol,' by Laszlo Peter.

Central Europe: Ten Years After

Introduces Central Europe after ten years of historical, political and social changes since 1989. Interest in Central European studies and scholarship; Overview of articles in the included in the periodical `European Review of History' for its March 1, 1999 issue.

Book review: Hahner Péter: Thomas Jefferson és a francia forradalom

Review:Hahner Péter: Thomas Jefferson és a francia forradalom

Memory & history—memoire & histoire

Contemporary critics blamed Edmund Burke for condemning the French Revolution on an insufficient basis of first hand experience. Burke's observations made during his short visits to France were indeed hardly more than marginal to his view of the old regime, which, however, he saw not as the system of French government and society, but as the order of European civilisation. He therefore appreciated the example of Britain as the most successful realisation of potentials inherent in all European nations. Among his German admirers, experience in the Hanoverian administration prompted Ernst Brandes and August Wilhelm Rehberg to take more account of the anachronisms of the 'Standestaat', and to hold up Britain for imitation because it was different from the continent. It was Friedrich Gentz whose attitudes resembled those of Burke's most closely on this score, too.

Book review: Mária Ludassy: Az eszmetörténet-írás ígéretei

Review: Mária Ludassy