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Roosevelt Center Goals
In
the post World War II period the academic study of
Freemasonry
has increased considerably in its quality and professional
standing while engaging a set of scholarly disciplines
that began originally with history, but now has branched
out into multiple fields of study. At first this
emergence was to involve scholars primarily in England
and in
France, but beginning in the 1970s with the publication
of the Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons
and Republicans (give link) by the American scholar
Margaret Jacob another wave of academic interest
in Freemasonry, across multiple languages, and countries,
began to build, and it has been growing steadily
since.
In the last ten years sixty Ph. D. dissertations
in America have addressed some aspect of the study
of
Freemasonry. This has occurred alongside increasing
interest by faculty and students in disciplines that
include history, cultural geography, cultural anthropology,
architecture, performance and ritual studies, the
study of civil society and democracy, moral and political
philosophy, comparative religion, semiotics, and
more.
Jacob’s latest influence has been to advocate
the need in Europe and America for global and comparative
methodologies in the study of Freemasonry and civil
society. This focus has proven to be of importance. |
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The European Science Foundation Standing
Committee for Humanities (ESF SCH) has taken an important
step in the development of comparative and global
studies in Freemasonry by providing seed funding
for an exploratory
workshop entitled Freemasonry and National
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| Identities in Europe: Levels of Construction. (attach
PDF button
here) in Brussels,
Belgium, 27-30 September 2006. In at least one important
way, follow up to the exploratory workshop in Brussels
has led to the establishment of a research center
(in the form of a network) for Latin America and
the Caribbean
following the 1st International Academic Conference
on the History of Freemasonry in Latin America and
the Caribbean in 2008 in Habana, Cuba. This work
is anchored by Eduardo Torres Cuevas (University
of La
Habana) who was in attendance at the ESF SCH Brussels
workshop. Approximately 25 papers were given at the
international conference held in Habana. The papers
covered the importance of Freemasonry mainly for
the political independence of the Latin-American
and Caribbean
states. |
There is now
need for a similar North American network, in part,
as a specific response to the ESF SCH work in 2006.
A major initial goal of the Roosevelt Center (a network
concept) is to establish a North American effort including
faculty and students in California working and studying
in major research institutions such as the University
of California, and the California State University
and the University of Southern California. The Roosevelt
Center will contribute to the fostering of a network
of students and faculty in California and America through
instruments such as travel grants, assisting in symposia,
workshops, enhanced communications through its website
and bulletin (Cosmopolis), and the granting of scholarships
(in the future) and postdoctoral fellowships (in the
future). The Roosevelt Center will expand on the research
agenda of the ESF ECH to include the study of cosmopolitanism
and civil society from the 17th and 18th centuries
to the 21st century. This does not limit the areas
of study that will be supported by the Roosevelt Center.
:: Additional goals forthcoming ::
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The papers published are
the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent
the opinions of the Center nor those of any other masonic body. |
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