How important is history for humanitarian practitioners and institutions? Historians, carried forward by the enthusiasm for their work, typically argue for its central value. Fieldworkers and practitioners often have a different view. Their reference point is the present or the future, not the past. Humanitarian practitioners, argued John Borton a few years ago, would read little about the history of their sector, and ‘for the most part’ displayed ‘a marked lack of historical perspective or
). Professional museum critics frequently registered their enthusiasm for the museum’s exhibits. As one critic put it, Givenwilson had made the museum a ‘thing of wonder’ and told ‘a story that is most effective because it appeals to the heart throughout the story-telling picture’ ( Rainey, 1926 ). The National Association of American Museums, admitting the museum in 1923, praised it as an ‘important link in museum work, because it represented the practical bond between the public
physical, social and psychological effects resulting from CRSV. It is imperative, therefore, to think specifically about what services suit men, how can they access them, how can we make them aware what services are available and how can we address the barriers that hinder them from obtaining these services. Acknowledgements This paper would not have been possible without the exceptional enthusiasm and support of Dr RóisÃn Read. Her insightful comments and
). And preparing the way for the peace agreement with the FARC, Santos expressed himself by referencing the testimony of a displaced person on the day of commemoration of the victims: ‘Don Cristóbal, your testimony moves me, your enthusiasm also gives me the strength to move forward … A victim who was displaced … but [who] is remaking his life with pride, with his eyes looking up again, feeling happy and willing to forgive’ ( Presidencia de la República, 2016 ). I would not want to take away the credit from the President for having said that; my aim is to contrast
Foundation, 2016 ; UNHCR, 2016b ). This donor financing has been essential in promoting creativity to discover new and better ways of delivering humanitarian responses. However, policies that underpin the funding have also inadvertently pushed and pulled NGO responders towards practices that inhibit, restrict or stifle innovation. The current donor enthusiasm for scalability is a case in point ( Cooley and Linn, 2014 ; DFAT, 2019 ; USAID, 2019b ). Donors often emphasise the
than it has ever been … what they require from us is food, clothing, medical and surgical assistance, to give them strength for labor.’ The statement however also betrayed the fact that ongoing relief efforts – now reformulated as reconstruction assistance – were facing debate. After the war’s end, ‘American popular and political enthusiasm for a major postwar humanitarian intervention quickly eroded’ ( Irwin, 2013 : 142). The passionate support of wartime relief did not continue once peace settled in. Accompanied by public fatigue with international assistance, the
the authorities in charge of the Ebola response. Encouraged by the enthusiasm of local health authorities for MSF support to existing facilities, some MSF France managers had begun claiming that they had found a way to operate ‘independently’ from the ‘riposte’. However, as the national Ministry of Health and WHO were the official leads of the Ebola response, authorisation for any new activity was still required from the response coordination in
livelihood’ extends beyond the scope of ‘work’ to encompass a wide range of supportive interventions that intermediate between refugees and the internet economy (Hackl, in this issue), including training programmes, support with internet connectivity, access to hardware, or payment processing. Yet amidst the growing enthusiasm about digital work and livelihoods, there is currently a wide gap of evidence on the diverse opportunities and challenges that refugees encounter in the
Modern American literature began with a statement of enthusiasm from Emerson's writing in Nature. 'Enthusiasm', in Emerson, is a knowing word. Sometimes its use is as description, invariably approving, of a historic form of religious experience. Socrates' meaning of enthusiasm, and the image of the enthusiast it throws up, is crucial to this book. The book is a portrait of the writer as an enthusiast, where the portrait, as will become clear, carries more than a hint of polemic. It is about the transmission of literature, showing various writers taking responsibility for that transmission, whether within in their writing or in their cultural activism. Henry David Thoreau's Walden is an enthusiastic book. It is where enthusiasm works both in Immanuel Kant's sense of the unbridled self, and in William Penn's sense of the 'nearer' testament, and in Thoreau's own sense of supernatural serenity. Establishing Ezra Pound's enthusiasm is a fraught and complicated business. Marianne Moore composed poems patiently, sometimes over several years. She is a poet of things, as isolated things - jewels, curios, familiar and exotic animals, common and rare species of plant - are often the ostensible subjects of her poems. Homage to Frank O'Hara is a necessary book, because the sum of his aesthetic was to be found not just in his writing, but also in his actions to which only friends and contemporaries could testify. An enthusiastic reading of James Schuyler brings to the fore pleasure, the sheer pleasure that can come of combining, or mouthing, or transcribing.
Afterword: enthusiasm and audit This book has been about the transmission of literature. It has shown various writers taking responsibility for that transmission, whether within their writing or in their cultural activism. The word for both kinds of action has been enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, it has been argued, is integral to what Modern American literature, in particular, knows; enthusiasm being, as each of the writers discussed here has one way or another understood it, the state of mind in which composition is possible. It is also integral to the circulation of