DEFENDING WOMEN, NEGOTIATING MASCULINITY IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDRONIKI DIALETI
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Early Modern Italy ◽  
Crucial Feature

ABSTRACTThis article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the formation of masculinity in early modern Italy, by focusing on literature defending women written by men. The article argues that defence of women emerged as a crucial feature in male self-fashioning and group identity formation in specific environments, such as the courts, the academies, and the Venetian socio-cultural scene of the 1540s and 1550s. By detecting how demarcations of self and other were shaped in the literature under examination, the article suggests that men defending women fashioned themselves both in regard to female ‘otherness’ and against other contemporary male identities. In this process of inclusion and exclusion both gender and social status came into play. Although defence of women initially emerged as a key determinant of elite masculinity, it gradually became the bone of contention among different social groups of men seeking to negotiate, redefine, and appropriate for themselves an idealized form of masculinity.

Hierarchy and Heredity

Born to Write ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
Neil Kenny
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early Modern France ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Modern France

Families were fundamental to social hierarchy in early modern France. Birth was widely accepted to indicate one’s divinely ordained social status, even if that view was not universal—in practice, some freedom was allowed for individuals to improve their status (especially among certain social groups) or indeed to worsen it. Certainly, the relation of birth to social status varied. It had a changing history even in respect of the nobility, which could be entered by routes other than birth. But birth was primordial at all levels of society, and for the nobility it became even more so in France in the second half of the sixteenth century and in the seventeenth. It was widely believed that the members of a given noble family shared their own, generally superior, instantiation of human nature. On the other hand, heredity was widely believed to predispose commoners too in certain directions.

Unusual Readers in Early Modern Istanbul

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 109-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elif Sezer Aydınlı
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Background ◽  
Architectural Transformation

AbstractNew social groups such as janissaries, artisans, madrasa students, and ‘middle-class’ bureaucrats have gradually increased their visibility in the social, cultural, and literary landscape of early modern Ottoman Istanbul. Scholars have discussed this new visibility, among others, by observing official regulations, contemporary Ottoman chronicles and travel accounts, artistic and architectural transformation, diversification of literary genres, and the socio-economic background of their writers. In this article, I offer another modest and intimate first-hand source for elucidating the habitus of these new urban agents: visual and written notes on the manuscripts of popular storybooks dating from the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Thanks to these notes on hundreds of manuscripts, we learn about political standings, literary tastes, codes of identity formation, the ways of self-depiction, social networks, and emotions of Ottoman individuals. By focusing in particular on the notes and doodles of Janissaries on popular heroic narratives, I argue that the gesture of taking notes and drawing symbols on a manuscript is a way of taking a stance against the political, religious, and literary authorities.

Moderne Patronage

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Case Basis

It is in keeping with the lessons everyday life experience teaches us that even in modern, highly complex societies, securing one´s personal means of existence, the achievement of social status and the implementation of political goals cannot be gained solely by individual integrity and efficiency. Personal relationships of protection and loyalty, clandestine as well as acted out in the open, are functioning globally as accepted mechanisms for regulating social behaviour. The contributions collected in this volume aim to test the analysis of patronage relations, which has already proven fruitful for early modern occidental societies, on a case-by-case basis in the context of modern history. This yields a methodologically significant conclusion: In the investigation of relations of formalization, the focus must not be primarily directed at abstract regulative aspects, but must first of all take into account the internal sensitivities, scope, desires and strategies of the individuals or social groups involved.

Doing Bodhisattva’s Work

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-32
Author(s):  
Le Hoang Anh Thu
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The State ◽  
Ho Chi Minh City ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
The Social

This paper explores the charitable work of Buddhist women who work as petty traders in Hồ Chí Minh City. By focusing on the social interaction between givers and recipients, it examines the traders’ class identity, their perception of social stratification, and their relationship with the state. Charitable work reveals the petty traders’ negotiations with the state and with other social groups to define their moral and social status in Vietnam’s society. These negotiations contribute to their self-identification as a moral social class and to their perception of trade as ethical labor.

Ransoming Russians from Tatars: Justification and Practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 91-99
Author(s):  
Donald Ostrowski
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Government ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Sliding Scale ◽  
The Government ◽  
Modern Russian

The early modern Russian government and Russian Orthodox Church identified as one of their main duties the ransoming of Russian Christians from Muslim Tatar captors. The process of ransoming could be an involved one with negotiations being carried on by different agents and by the potential ransomees themselves. Different amounts of ransom were paid on a sliding scale depending upon the ransomee’s social status, gender, and age. One of our main sources for the justification of this practice was the Stoglav (100 Chapters) Church Council in 1551, which discussed the issue of ransom in some detail. The Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649 specifies the conditions and amounts to be paid to redeem captives. Church writers justified the ransoming of Christian captives of the Muslim Tatars by citing Scripture, and they also specified that the government should pay the ransom out of its own treasury.

Why do children essentialize social groups?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gil Diesendruck
Keyword(s):  
Group Identity ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Young Age ◽  
Intergroup Attitudes ◽  
Need To Belong ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
Cognitive Foundations

The tendency to essentialize social groups is universal, and arises early in development. This tendency is associated with negative intergroup attitudes and behaviors, and has thus encouraged the search for remedies for the emergence of essentialism. In this vein, great attention has been devoted to uncovering the cognitive foundations of essentialism. In this chapter, I suggest that attention should also be turned towards the motivational foundations of essentialism. I propose that considerations of power and group identity, but especially a “need to belong”, may encourage children’s essentialization of social groups. Namely, from a young age, children are keen to feel members of a group, and that their membership is secure and exclusive. Essentialism is the conceptual gadget that satisfies these feelings. And to the extent that groups are defined by what they do, this motivated essentialism also impels children to be adamant about the maintenance of unique group behaviors.

Orthodox Radicals

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Bingham
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Infant Baptism ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Baptist Identity ◽  
Ongoing Project

Orthodox Radicals explores the origins and identity of Baptists during the English Revolution (1640–1660), arguing that mid-seventeenth century Baptists did not, in fact, understand themselves to be part of a larger, all-encompassing “Baptist” movement. Contrary to both the explicit statements of many historians and the tacit suggestion embedded in the very use of “Baptist” as an overarching historical category, the early modern men and women who rejected infant baptism would not have initially understood that single theological move as being in itself constitutive of a new group identity. Rather, the rejection of infant baptism was but one of a number of doctrinal revisions then taking place among English puritans eager to further their ongoing project of godly reformation. Orthodox Radicals thus complicates our understanding of Baptist identity and addresses broader themes including early modern religious toleration, the mechanisms by which early modern groups defined and defended themselves, and the perennial problem of historical anachronism. By combining a provocative reinterpretation Baptist identity with close readings of key theological and political texts, Orthodox Radicals offers the most original and stimulating analysis of mid-seventeenth century Baptists in decades.

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