Conceptualizing the World: An Exploration across Disciplines(4 Time and the World: Interdisciplinary Studies in Cultural Transformations)

What is—and what was—“the world”? Though often treated as interchangeable with the ongoing and inexorable progress of globalization, concepts of “world,” “globe,” or “earth” instead suggest something limited and absolute. This innovative and interdisciplinary volume concerns itself with this central paradox: that the complex, heterogeneous, and purportedly transhistorical dynamics of globalization have given rise to the idea and reality of a finite—and thus vulnerable—world. Through studies of illuminating historical moments that range from antiquity to the era of Google Earth, each contribution helps to trace the emergence of the world in multitudinous representations, practices, and human experiences.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Introduction: The World as Concept and Object of Knowledge Helge Jordheim and Erling Sandmo PART I: NAMING THE WORLD Chapter 1. “World”: An Exploration of the Relationship between Conceptual History and Etymology Ivo Spira Chapter 2. A Multiverse of Knowledge: The Epistemology and Hermeneutics of the ʿālam in Medieval Islamic Thought Nora S. Eggen Chapter 3. Globalization of Human Conscience: A Modern Muslim Case Oddbjørn Leirvik Chapter 4. Creating World through Concept Learning Claudia Lenz Chapter 5. Between Metaphor and Geopolitics: The History of the Concept the Third World Erik Tängerstad Chapter 6. On the Dialectics of Ecological World Concepts Falko Schmieder PART II: ORDERING THE WORLD Chapter 7. The Emergence of International Law and the Opening of World Order: Hugo Grotius Reconsidered Chenxi Tang Chapter 8. “Natural Capital,” “Human Capital,” “Social Capital”: It’s All Capital Now Desmond McNeill Chapter 9. The Worlds in Human Rights: Images or Mirages? Malcolm Langford Chapter 10. Democracy of the “New World”: The Great Binding Law of Peace and the Political System of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Lars Kirkhusmo Pharo Chapter 11. The Immanent World: Responsibility and Spatial Justice Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos Chapter 12. From Critical to Partisan Dictionaries; or, What Is Excluded from Today’s Flat World Orthodoxies? Sanja Perovic PART III: TIMING THE WORLD Chapter 13. At Home or Away: On Nostalgia, Exile, and Cosmopolitanism Olivier Remaud Chapter 14. Extensions of World Heritage: The Globe, the List, and the Limes Stefan Willer Chapter 15. The End of the World: From the Lisbon Earthquake to the Last Days Kyrre Kverndokk Chapter 16. Time and Space in World Literature: Ibsen in and out of Sync Tore Rem PART IV: MAPPING THE WORLD Chapter 17. Middle Age of the Globe Alfred Hiatt Chapter 18. The Champion of the North: World Time in Olaus Magnus’s Carta Marina Erling Sandmo Chapter 19. The Search for Vínland and Norse Conceptions of the World Karl G. Johansson Chapter 20. The Cartographic Constitution of Global Politics Jeppe Strandsbjerg Chapter 21. The Individual and the “Intellectual Globe”: Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Vannevar Bush Richard Yeo PART V: MAKING THE WORLD Chapter 22. The World as Sphere: Conceptualizing with Sloterdijk Kari van Dijk Chapter 23. The Fontenellian Moment: Revisiting Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Worlds Helge Jordheim Chapter 24. Fixating the Poles: Science, Fiction, and Photography at the Ends of the World Siv Frøydis Berg Chapter 25. The Norwegian Who Became a Globe: Mediation and Temporality in Roald Amundsen’s 1911 South Pole Conquest Espen Ytreberg Index

About the Author :
Helge Jordheim is a Professor of Cultural History at the University of Oslo. His latest book is a global history of the concepts of civility and civilization, written with an international team of scholars (Civilizing Emotions, 2015). At present he is writing a book on the cultural history of time in the eighteenth century.

Review :
“A fascinating journey at large, travelling over the concepts and representations of ‘the world’, across languages and cultures, discourses and disciplines, media and materialities.” • International Journal for the Semiotics of Law “This is a thought-provoking collection of essays that deals with a question of interest to scholars across the humanities. It is enriched by the broad range of approaches and topics present in each essay.” • Sara-Louise Cooper, University of Kent “Conceptualizing the World is a fantastic, original cornucopia of valuable insights into how humans have thought about and experienced the world across history.” • Ingjerd Hoëm, University of Oslo