Book lists from the Cairo Genizah: a window on the production of texts in the middle ages

2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Frenkel
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medieval Islam ◽  
Cairo Genizah ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Many

AbstractThe historicity of books – their role as a force in history – has been addressed in post-war literary studies from different perspectives and across various disciplines. Nevertheless, the scholarship on the history of the book in medieval Islam is still relatively sparse, even though this society underwent a thorough process of textualization. But even authors who do consider the social and cultural role of books in medieval Islam look only at the production and consumption of Arabic books within the boundaries of Muslim society, relying on Islamic sources which reflect mainly the courtly milieu of scribes and secretariats. None discuss books produced and consumed by the religious minorities that were an indispensable part of this society, and none have made use of the abundant Genizah documents as source material. In the present programmatic article, I call attention to the many book lists found in the Cairo Genizah and to their potential as significant tools for developing a better understanding of the cultural and social history of the medieval Islamicate world.

Urban Change in Early Medieval Italy: The Example of Pavia

1966 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 82-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Bullough
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Social History ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
Medieval Italy ◽  
Warm Hospitality ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

Prefatory Note.—My interest in Pavia goes back at least to 1951 when I was elected Rome Scholar in Medieval Studies. I began seriously to collect material for the history of the city in the early Middle Ages in the winter and spring of 1953 when I enjoyed the warm hospitality of the Collegio Ghislieri, thanks to the efforts made on my behalf by the late Hugh Last, to whose memory this article is dedicated. The published proceedings of the Reichenau and Spoleto congresses on ‘The early medieval town’ in the 1950s clearly underlined the need for detailed studies of particular towns; but the lack of adequate archaeological evidence discouraged me from attempting such a study of early medieval Pavia. In 1964, however, Dr. A. Peroni, Director of the Museo Civico invited me to read a supplementary paper on this topic to the Convegno di Studio sul Centro Storico di Pavia held in the Università degli Studi at Pavia on July 4th and 5th of that year. The present article is an amplified and corrected version of that paper: I have made no substantial alterations to my account of the ‘urbanistica’ of early medieval Pavia—written for an audience of architects and art-historians as well as of historians—but have dealt more fully with the social history of the city in this period. Professor Richard Krautheimer read a draft of the revised version and made some pointed and helpful comments. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Peroni, not merely for the invitation to present the original paper but also for supplying illustrations and answering queries at a time when he and his staff were engaged in helping to repair the ravages of the Florence floods.

Framing The Fosters: jokes, racism and Black and Asian voices in British comedy television

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavin Schaffer
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
Black British ◽  
Stand Up Comedy ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
Cultural Leaders ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter interrogates the relationship between television comedy, power and racial politics in post-war Britain. In a period where Black and Asian Britons were forced to negotiate racism as a day-to-day reality, the essay questions the role played by television comedy in reflecting and shaping British multicultural society. Specifically, this chapter probes Black and Asian agency in comedy production, questioning who the joke makers were and what impact this had on the development of comedy and its reception. The work of scholars of Black and Asian comedy television such as Sarita Malik, and of Black stand-up comedy such as Stephen Small, has helped us to understand that Black- and Asian-led British comedy emerged belatedly in the 1980s and 1990s, hindered by the historical underrepresentation of these communities in British cultural production and the disinclination of British cultural leaders to address this problem. This chapter uses these scholarly frames of reference, alongside research that addresses the social and political functions of comedy, to re-open the social history of Black British communities in post-war Britain through the story of sitcom.

The Chronology of Galen's Early Career

1973 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Nutton
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Scientific Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Psychology And Medicine

The last decade has witnessed a widespread resurgence of interest in Galen of Pergamum that is without parallel since the early seventeenth century. New studies of Galen's concepts of psychology and medicine have examined afresh his position in the development of scientific thought, and historians have begun to realize the wealth of material for the social history of the Antonine Age that he provides. But, despite the earlier labours of Ilberg and Bardong to restore a chronological order to the many tracts that flowed readily from his pen, many of the events of his life still lack the precise dates that would enable even more valuable information to be extracted, especially upon the careers of his friends.

THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF POST-WAR SOVIET LIFE

2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 563-569
Author(s):  
MIRIAM DOBSON
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War

A light burden: cultural discourse of light in Japan

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-134
Author(s):  
Lok Hang Hui
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sensory Experiences ◽  
Local Case ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Post War

PurposeThis paper explores the sensory experiences and cultural meanings of light in Japan in relation to Japanese changing lighting practices. It demonstrates that these sensory experiences and cultural meanings form an integral part of social life in Japan.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts a blended approach that combines historical research and ethnographic data in the research on the meanings of light. The findings are presented in three parts. Two of them describe the social history of light, and the third draws on ethnographic data collected in suburban Japan.FindingsThe findings suggest that light in Japan has maintained a close symbolic connection with certain positive values despite the changing lighting practices. For example, light is related to cleanliness in early historical records on candle-making. In post-war Japan, new light metaphors such as “bright family” were invented to accommodate new aspirations for modernity and progress. In the latest development, the moral dimension of light is emphasised. This is evident in the concerns on being seen as a “bright person”, a person with a cheerful personality. Light in this way is related to the sensory experience of feeling a “social weight”, the pressure for one to act according to social norms.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to our anthropological understandings of light. It also provides a local case study of Japan, supported by original ethnographic research conducted by the author.

Guidelines for a Social History of Astronomy

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1 and 2) ◽  
pp. 77-87
Author(s):  
V. F. Polcaro ◽  
A. Martocchia
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
History Of Astronomy ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Modern Astronomy

An analysis of the basic cultural, historical and social elements which allowed the re-discovery and transfer of astronomical knowledge from the earlier Middle Ages up to the birth of modern astronomy, is presented in the new book Storia sociale dell’Astronomia. The book describes the main factors which played a role in suppressing or re-awakening interest in astronomical observations and events down the centuries. Among such elements we include: the loss of Greek-language-based knowledge as a vector of scientific knowledge; Christian and Islamic conceptions of Astrology; religious practices connected with observations; the birth of universities; the Protestant paradigm and humanism; the evolution of the social figure of the scientist in the West, from monks to aristocrats, and from Renaissance lords to bourgeois entrepreneurs. We focus attention on the social phenomena which caused the development of Astronomy as a science from the Middle Ages to the Copernican revolution, and claim that the ruling class’s attitude towards science is not only a matter for historical studies, but has much to do with the modern impoverishment and stagnation of Astronomy.

Reading and Sociability

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abigail Williams
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Leisure Time ◽  
Leisure Activity ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Domestic Spaces ◽  
Living Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Performed Music

This chapter shows how the social history of the book was closely linked to other practices—to ideas about sociability, conventions of visiting, use of leisure time, nature of domestic spaces, value of conversation. By the end of the eighteenth century there were plenty of newly available places in which to spend leisure time and money in company, including pleasure gardens, coffeehouses, museums, and concerts. Although many people took full advantage of these innovations in external leisure activity, the home remained an essential place of recreation for men and women of property. People supped, dined, played cards, read, gossiped, argued, and performed music together in their homes throughout the eighteenth century. The choice of books on display within a house—whether being read or in sight on table or shelves—was also significant. In larger houses, it had an added significance because of the eighteenth-century shift towards the use of the library as a general living space.

Spouses, Siblings and Surnames: Reconstructing Families From Medieval Village Court Rolls

1983 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith M. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Common People ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Never Married ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Early Modern Era

Advocates of the “new social history” have buttressed their efforts to recreate the past lives of ordinary people with concepts, models, and quantitative methods taken from the social sciences. These new approaches have allowed scholars to extract vivid and dynamic reconstructions of past human experiences from the dry folios of civil and ecclesiastical registers. Their successes, as exemplified by the many publications of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, have focused largely on the demographic and familial histories of the early modern era. The manipulation of parish listings of baptisms, marriages, and burials is now a fairly precise science that has taught us much (and will doubtless teach us more) about the daily lives of common people and their families in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. But the tracing into the past of the social, familial, and demographic characteristics of the English people need not start abruptly with the auspicious advent of parish registers in 1538. Indeed, we can only hope to trace the origins of fundamental features of Tudor-Stuart life (such as the pronounced tendency towards late marriage and the high incidence of persons who never married) if we develop accurate techniques for analyzing the pre-1500, pre-parish register materials at our disposal. From the perspective of a medievalist, this work is clearly essential; most medieval people, quite simply, were peasants, and we shall better understand the histories of medieval parliaments, towns, and universities when we have successfully uncovered their rural underpinnings.

scholarly journals Into Print: Limits and Legacies of the Enlightenment; Essays in Honor of Robert Darnton. Ed. Charles Walton. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011. xvii, 244p. ISBN 978-0-271-05012-6. $49.95

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-207
Author(s):  
Greg Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
State University ◽  
Pennsylvania State University ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Penn State ◽  
History Of

Appearing as a title in the Penn State Series in the History of the Book, Into Print is a collection of twelve essays demonstrating a debt to Robert Darnton’s ground-breaking scholarship on the social history of ideas (Walton, vii; Pasta, 82). Divided into five thematic parts (“Making News,” “Print, Paper, Markets, and States,” “Police and Opinion,” “Enlightenment in Revolution,” and “Enlightenment Universalism and Cultural Difference”), it includes contributions from scholars, primarily historians, who studied under Darnton. Editor Charles Walton points out in his superb preface that, while topics covered are diverse, each essay exhibits Darnton’s influence by “analyzing the dynamic . . .

‘Born in the corridors of the OECD’: the forgotten origins of the Club of Rome, transnational networks, and the 1970s in global history

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Schmelzer
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Transnational Networks ◽  
Global History ◽  
Limits To Growth ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
Club Of Rome

AbstractThis article re-examines a contested chapter in the international and environmental history of the 1970s. Even though largely neglected by historical research and in the public memory, the Club of Rome – widely remembered for its 1972 report The limits to growth – was not only born within the OECD, but was also in its early period strongly influenced by debates within this think tank of the industrialized countries. Using previously overlooked sources, this article analyses this highly unlikely OECD–Club of Rome nexus. It not only offers a privileged view into the social history of international policy-making and the related personal entanglements and ideological transfers at a key moment of post-war history. It also demonstrates that the social, intellectual, and economic turmoil of the late 1960s prompted a rethinking of the economic growth paradigm, even within those technocratic institutions that had aspired to guide the post-war industrial growth regime. The article argues that these links are not only vital for our understanding of the relationship between acquisitive growth capitalism and environmentalism, but also enable a more profound understanding of the role of transnational networks in global history and the appreciation of the place of the 1970s in world history.

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