tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302491936414793074.post6271040061815169116..comments2023-02-26T08:28:12.709-05:00Comments on Modern Medieval: History Without Transition: Briefly NotedRick Goddenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04109263756022001400noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302491936414793074.post-14584905097960595672012-12-03T12:14:40.254-05:002012-12-03T12:14:40.254-05:00"There is always development, but not necessa..."There is always development, but not necessarily positive or negative. In thinking about history, we need to learn to embrace the idea of difference."<br /><br />I like this. We should always push back against teleological, evolutionary (in the sense of progressivist) history. Matthew Gabrielehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11971159578332078338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302491936414793074.post-41179889307510775682012-12-01T19:19:40.584-05:002012-12-01T19:19:40.584-05:00Rick, thanks for pointing out these two posts in t...Rick, thanks for pointing out these two posts in this way. I had read both of them over the past two days, but it's great to see them put into conversation with each other. It's amazing that we still continue to have these conversations, still continue to push against these (as you say) well-trodden problems, and that we (and I'm sure I'm complicit in this, too) still impose so much upon history.<br /><br />Steve, I like your idea about "a certain intellectual and social atmosphere that exists in many times and places," yet I wonder about using the term "modernity" for it. I'm afraid that still runs the risk of affirming a teleological view of history, not only up to the present, but that civilizations always develop toward the better, or toward their own manifestations of "modernity." I think this is too often the view of history: a great civilization rises, reaches its pinnacle, then tumbles for some reason--often because the next big civilization comes along. But it's never really that simple, is it? There is always development, but not necessarily positive or negative. In thinking about history, we need to learn to embrace the idea of difference.bwhawkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17909010609907741198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302491936414793074.post-25927550993174443122012-12-01T19:19:09.078-05:002012-12-01T19:19:09.078-05:00Excellent!Excellent!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302491936414793074.post-74361108584378891722012-12-01T18:21:06.840-05:002012-12-01T18:21:06.840-05:00Great post! You sum up well what I often have tro...Great post! You sum up well what I often have trouble describing to undergrads in discussions of periodization. Jennifer Lynn Jordanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17591257224217929921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3302491936414793074.post-52742709885659996462012-12-01T16:13:51.236-05:002012-12-01T16:13:51.236-05:00Let's take a look at modernity. Isn't it o...Let's take a look at modernity. Isn't it often identified with urban life of a certain lively sort? Of, say, being able to walk down a city street with a few coins in your pocket and buy some fast food at a fast food outlet? But we know that in the time of Hammurabi in the city of Ur, they had fast food outlets. Ditto for Pompeii when Vesuvius blew up. (I admit they didn't have coins in Ur.) Is Pompeii in the first century A.D. or Ur in the second millennium BC a modern venue? Could be that modernity is not temporal at all, but a certain intellectual and social atmosphere that exists in many times and places, not necessarily continuous with each other.Steve Muhlbergerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18136005762428407135noreply@blogger.com