Doctoring the Body and Exciting the Soul: Drugs and consumer culture in medieval and early modern Iran

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 554-617
Author(s):  
RANIN KAZEMI
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The Body ◽  
Mass Consumption ◽  
History Of ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

AbstractThis article focuses on the development of early modern consumerism in a part of the Middle East that historians of consumer culture are yet to fully explore. Making use of a wide variety of unexplored and underexplored original sources, the article contends that early modern consumer culture in Iran was grounded deeply in the ever-widening patterns of exchange and use that had developed slowly over the course of the previous centuries. The discussion below takes the growing popular interest in a few key psychoactive substances as a useful barometer of the dynamics of mass consumption, and chronicles how the slow and ever-expanding use of alcohol, opium, and cannabis (or a cannabis-like product) in the medieval period led to the popularity of coffee, tobacco, older drugs, and still other commodities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The aim here is to use the history of drug culture as an entry point to scrutinize the emergence of early modern consumerism among the elites and the non-elites in both urban and rural areas of the Middle East. In doing so, this article reconstructs the cultural and social history of recreational drugs prior to and during the early modern period, and elucidates the socio-economic context that helped bring about a ‘psychoactive revolution’ in the Safavid state (1501–1736).

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Laura Kounine
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The Body ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
Current State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Germany ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Witch ◽  
Witch Hunts

This Introduction sets out the intentions of this book: to use the rich witch-trial records from the early modern duchy of Württemberg in south-western Germany to explore the central themes of emotions, gender, and selfhood. It provides an overview of the key historiographical debates on witchcraft persecutions in the early modern period, and suggests new questions that need to be asked. It also provides a methodological and theoretical framework in which to address these questions, and provides an overview of the current state of the field of the history of emotions, and, by drawing on psychological approaches to listening to self-narratives, it suggests ways in which historical studies of emotions can be pushed further by incorporating the body and subjective states. It also sets out the legal, political, and religious framework of the Lutheran duchy of Württemberg, in order to put the witch-hunts in this region into context.

The Hurt(ful) Body

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Art History ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The Body ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Dialectical Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theatre Studies

This book offers a cross-disciplinary approach to pain and suffering in the early modern period, based on research in the fields of literary studies, art history, theatre studies, cultural history and the study of emotions. It has a sustained focus on visual sources, textual material and documents about actual events rather than well-known thinkers or ‘masterpieces’ of art history, and a preference for cases and historical contexts over systematic theory-building. The hurt(ful) body brings under discussion visual and performative representations of embodied pain, using an insistently dialectical approach that takes into account the perspective of the hurt body itself, the power and afflictions of its beholder and, finally, the routinising and redeeming of hurt within institutional contexts. The volume’s two-fold approach of the hurt body, defining ‘hurt’ both from the perspective of the victim and the beholder (as well as their combined creation of a gaze), is unique. It establishes a double perspective about the riddle of ‘cruel’ viewing by tracking the shifting cultural meanings of victims’ bodies, and confronting them to the values of audiences, religious and popular institutional settings, and practices of punishment. It encompasses both the victim’s presence as an image or performed event of pain and the conundrum of the look – the transmitted ‘pain’ experienced by the watching audience. This will be done through three rubrics: the early modern performing body, beholder or audience responses, and the operations of institutional power. Because of its interdisciplinary approach of the history of pain and the hurt(ful) body, the book will be of interest for Lecturers and students from different fields, like the history of ideas, the history of the body, urban history, theatre studies, literary studies, art history, emotion studies and performance studies

scholarly journals Town, village and bush: war and cultural landscapes in south-eastern Angola (1966-2002)

Afrika Focus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inge Brinkman
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

In most of the literature on the subject, urban and rural areas are presented as real physical entities that are geographically determined. Obviously such an approach is important and necessary, but in this contribution I want to draw attention to ‘the urban’ and ‘the rural’ as ideas, as items of cultural landscape rather than as physical facts. This will result both in a history of ideas and a social history of the war in Angola as experienced by civilians from the south-eastern part of the country. The article is based on a case-study that deals with the history of south-east Angola, an area that was in a state of war from 1966 to 2002. In the course of the 1990s I spoke with immigrants from this region who were resident in Rundu, Northern Namibia, mostly as illegal refugees. In our conversations the immigrants explained how the categories ‘town’ and ‘country’ came into being during colonialism and what changes occurred after the war started. They argued that during the war agriculture in the countryside became well-nigh impossible and an opposition between ‘town’ and ‘bush’ came into being that could have lethal consequences for the civilian population living in the region. This case-study on south-east Angola shows the importance of a historical approach to categories such as ‘urbanity’ and ‘rurality’ as such categories may undergo relatively rapid change – in both discourse and practice. Key words: landscape (town, country and bush), war, south-east Angola 

Women, Art and Observant Franciscan Piety

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Giles Arthur
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Religious Women ◽  
Art Objects ◽  
History Of ◽  
Women Patrons

Caterina Vigri (later Saint Catherine of Bologna) was a mystic, writer, teacher and nun-artist. Her first home, Corpus Domini, Ferrara, was a house of semi-religious women that became a Poor Clare convent and model of Franciscan Observant piety. Vigri's intensely spiritual decoration of her breviary, as well as convent altarpieces that formed a visual program of adoration for the Body of Christ, exemplify the Franciscan Observant visual culture. After Vigri's departure, it was transformed by d'Este women patrons, including Isabella da Aragona, Isabella d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia. While still preserving Observant ideals, it became a more elite noblewomen's retreat. Grounded in archival research and extant paintings, drawings, prints and art objects from Corpus Domini, this volume explores the art, visual culture, and social history of an early modern Franciscan women's community.

Gender and Ottoman Social History

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Başak Tuğ
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Past Experiences

Starting with Said's critique of Orientalism but going well beyond it, poststructuralist and postcolonial critiques of modernity have challenged not only one-dimensional visions of Western modernity—by “multiplying” or “alternating” it with different modernities—but also the binaries between the modern and the traditional/premodern/early modern, thus resulting in novel, more inclusive ways of thinking about past experiences. Yet, while scholars working on the Middle East have successfully struggled against the Orientalist perception of the Middle East asthetradition constructed in opposition to the Western modern, they often have difficulties in deconstructing the traditionwithin, that is, the premodern past. They have traced the alternative and multiple forms of modernities in Middle Eastern geography within the temporal borders of “modernity.” However, going beyond this temporality and constructing new concepts—beyond the notion of tradition—to understand the specificities of past experiences (which are still in relationship with the present) remains underdeveloped in the social history of the Middle East.

scholarly journals Introduction: The Material Worlds of Food in Early Modern Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Calaresu
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract All of the articles in this special issue show the necessity of having to combine different kinds of sources—texts with images, images with objects, and objects with absences—to build an integrated history of the material worlds of food in the early modern period. They also reflect newer approaches to materiality which are sensitive to the relationship between matter and the senses and consider the haptic, visual, olfactory, and even aural aspects of cooking and eating alongside taste. In turn, the tastes of collectors and the fragility and absence of source material also need to be taken into consideration in order to write a meaningful cultural and social history of food. Despite the ephemeral nature of eating and cooking, this special issue shows that the sources studied by historians of material culture of the early modern period are remarkably rich, and their analysis fruitful.

Military Sports and the History of the Martial Body in India

2007 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind O'Hanlon
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The Body ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Diffusion

AbstractCultivation of the bodily skills required in cavalry warfare was a prominent theme in India's pre-colonial societies. Demand for these expertises enabled fighting specialists to develop an India-wide network of patronage and employment. Wrestling and its associated exercises became the indispensable accompaniment to military preparation in the early modern period. Appreciation of the wide social diffusion of these expertises also allows for a better understanding of colonial demilitarization, the displacement of important cultures of the body, as well as the loss of mobility and honorable employment. La formation aux arts de la guerre montée fut une caractéristique dominante important dans les sociétés précoloniales de l'Inde. Grâce à la demande de ces techniques de combat leurs spécialistes surent se créer un réseau de patronage et d'emploi à travers l'Inde. Pendant la période prémoderne les préparatifs de guerre exigèrent toujours l'apprentissage de la lutte à mains nues et des arts de combat associés. En se rendant compte de l'ampleur de la diffusion des ces arts martiaux à travers la société on comprend mieux que la démilitarisation coloniale emmena la déchéance des arts martiaux, ainsi que la perte de mobilité des lutteurs et la possibilité de trouver un emploi honorable.

scholarly journals Town, village and bush: war and cultural landscapes in south-eastern Angola (1966-2002)

Afrika Focus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-43
Author(s):  
Inge Brinkman
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

In most of the literature on the subject, urban and rural areas are presented as real physical entities that are geographically determined. Obviously such an approach is important and necessary, but in this contribution I want to draw attention to ‘the urban’ and ‘the rural’ as ideas, as items of cultural landscape rather than as physical facts. This will result both in a history of ideas and a social history of the war in Angola as experienced by civilians from the south-eastern part of the country. The article is based on a case-study that deals with the history of south-east Angola, an area that was in a state of war from 1966 to 2002. In the course of the 1990s I spoke with immigrants from this region who were resident in Rundu, Northern Namibia, mostly as illegal refugees. In our conversations the immigrants explained how the categories ‘town’ and ‘country’ came into being during colonialism and what changes occurred after the war started. They argued that during the war agriculture in the countryside became well-nigh impossible and an opposition between ‘town’ and ‘bush’ came into being that could have lethal consequences for the civilian population living in the region. This case-study on south-east Angola shows the importance of a historical approach to categories such as ‘urbanity’ and ‘rurality’ as such categories may undergo relatively rapid change – in both discourse and practice.

Digging the Dirt in the Pursuit of Cleanliness

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Susan North
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
History Of The Body ◽  
History Of

The introduction outlines the historiography on cleanliness and the influence of Georges Vigarello on early modern social history and history of the body. It reviews both the philosophical and the practical aspects that make researching cleanliness so challenging. On one hand, the prejudices of contemporary observers and commentators are acknowledged and, on the other, the practice of cleanliness is so habitual it goes unnoticed and unrecorded. The methodology for the book is described, first to use traditional documentary sources from a variety of media to elucidate what advice was given about cleanliness in early modern England. In order to determine whether such advice was followed, a study of the material culture of cleanliness is proposed and outlined, acknowledging that it may be more successful for linen than for bodies. Finally the drawing together of these various strands of research is emphasized.

scholarly journals Wearing images. Introduction = Imágenes portadas. Introducción

2018 ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Diane H. Bodart
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Past ◽  
Art Object ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modes Of Interaction

In the past decades, studies on the materiality and the efficacy of images, as well as the artistic and social practices related to them, have allowed scholars to explore how much images’ making, use, handling and display contributed to the activation of their powers of presence through their interaction with the viewer. Further, the growing interest in the articulation between the history of art and the anthropology of images has brought to light the close links between the art object and the body: in fact, if the body can be the medium of the animate art object, the art object can potentially act as a substitute of the animate body. But what happens when the body is the support of a distinctive image, when it inscribes an image on its own surface, whether directly on the skin or through intermediary props such as clothing or corporeal parure? Wearing Images investigates the different modes of interaction between the image and the body that wears it in the Early-Modern period, when devotional, political, dynastic or familial images could be worn as medals, jewels, badges, embroidered garments or tattoos.En las últimas décadas, los estudios sobre la materialidad y la eficacia de las imágenes, así como de las prácticas artísticas y sociales asociadas a ellas, han permitido a los historiadores explorar hasta qué punto la fabricación de las imágenes, su uso, manejo y exhibición contribuyó a activar sus capacidades de presentarse a través de su interacción con el espectador. Además, el creciente diálogo entre la historia del arte y la antropología de las imágenes ha puesto de relieve las estrechas conexiones entre el objeto artístico y el cuerpo: en efecto, si el cuerpo puede ser el medio para el objeto artístico animado, el objeto artístico puede actuar potencialmente como sustituto del cuerpo animado. Pero ¿qué ocurre cuando el cuerpo es el soporte de una imagen distintiva, cuando inscribe una imagen en su propia superficie, ya sea directamente en la piel o a través de intermediarios como el vestido o un adorno? Wearin Images investiga las diferentes modalidades de interacción entre la imagen y el cuerpo que se viste con ella en la Edad moderna, en una época en la que imágenes devocionales, políticas, dinásticas o familiares podían vestirse como medallas, joyas, placas, prendas bordadas o tatuajes.

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