The Dangers of Poetry

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
High Culture ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Acts ◽  
History Of

Poetry has long dominated the cultural landscape of modern Iraq, simultaneously representing the literary pinnacle of high culture and giving voice to the popular discourses of mass culture. As the favored genre of culture expression for religious clerics, nationalist politicians, leftist dissidents, and avant-garde intellectuals, poetry critically shaped the social, political, and cultural debates that consumed the Iraqi public sphere in the twentieth century. The popularity of poetry in modern Iraq, however, made it a dangerous practice that carried serious political consequences and grave risks to dissident poets. The Dangers of Poetry is the first book to narrate the social history of poetry in the modern Middle East. Moving beyond the analysis of poems as literary and intellectual texts, Kevin Jones shows how poems functioned as social acts that critically shaped the cultural politics of revolutionary Iraq. He narrates the history of three generations of Iraqi poets who navigated the fraught relationship between culture and politics in pursuit of their own ambitions and agendas. Through this historical analysis of thousands of poems published in newspapers, recited in popular demonstrations, and disseminated in secret whispers, this book reveals the overlooked contribution of these poets to the spirit of rebellion in modern Iraq.

PRINT CULTURE AND ITS PUBLICS: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF BOOKSTORES IN TEHRAN, 1900–1950

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Afshin Marashi
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Book Trade ◽  
Popular Politics ◽  
Technological Changes ◽  
Political Empowerment ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

AbstractThis article investigates the evolution of print culture and commerce in Tehran during the first half of the 20th century. The first section examines technological changes that facilitated the commercialization of texts and then details the history of early print entrepreneurs in the Tehran bazaar. The second section examines the expansion of the book trade between the 1920s and 1940s, tracing the emergence of modern bookstores in a rapidly changing Tehran. I argue that patterns of change in print commerce between 1900 and 1950 contributed to the emergence of mass culture by midcentury. This new mass culture involved the social and political empowerment of a diversity of new reading publics in the city, and enabled the emergence of new forms of popular politics.

The Prevailing Disease: Foucault on the Institutional Meaning of Epidemics and Compact Models of Power Relations

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-104
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Compact Models ◽  
Complex Relationships

The article focuses on Michel Foucault’s work with the social history of medicine and evaluates its potential for analyzing the political impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Foucault reveals the bond between quarantine measures in European cities and the gradual perfection of techniques of power. He uses organized anti-epidemic activities applied to leprosy and plague as examples of “compact models” of power relations that he discusses in terms of exclusion and discipline. He reveals complex relationships between the physical body of an individual and what he calls the “social body” of a state. Foucault describes how “health policy” was formed during the second half of 18th century when it drastically changed urban space and became one of the key techniques of government. In Foucault’s lectures published as Security, Territory, Population, he turns to the concept of a “prevailing” or literally “reigning” disease. The countermeasures against the disease enable the development of special techniques applicable to the population in a given historical period. He uses the statistical description of patients suffering from smallpox as an example of how a regime of power and government of the population develops by invoking security and risk assessment. In the concluding section, the author estimates the potential of Foucauldian historical analysis as a tool for anticipating the tendencies inherent in the techniques of power mobilized to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Historical Analysis of Law

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Dirk Dubber
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

Kenneth Ledford's and Michael Meranze's insightful comments raise important questions about the nature of legal history in general, and of the history of punishment in particular. According to Ledford and Meranze, modern legal history is social history, to be distinguished from “old-style intellectual history.” A product of the latter “historical method no longer in favor,” “The Right to Be Punished” draws Ledford's and Meranze's criticism for its insufficient “root[s]… in the soil of social history” and for its inadequate “account of the … social basis of the modern will to punish” and “the social embeddedness of punishment.”

A Promising Liaison? Social History and Anthropology in South-Eastern Europe. Opportunities and Pitfalls

2008 ◽  
Vol 34-35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 161-184
Author(s):  
Ulf Brunnbauer
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Historical Anthropology ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Fixed Set ◽  
History Of ◽  
South Eastern Europe

This article argues that historical anthropology provides approaches for the exploration of previously neglected problems of the history of Southeastern Europe. Historical anthropology is not seen as a fixed set of methodologies and theories but rather as a perspective which directs attention to the questions of how societies have worked in the past and “ordinary” people made sense of their lives. Furthermore, historical anthropology tends to be comparative. In the past, Southeastern European historians concentrated on political history and ethnographers on the “traditional” culture of their nation, with little interaction between the two disciplines. After the fall of the communist system in 1989/1991, however, historians and ethnologists borrowed approaches from each other. The potential of historical anthropology is shown in particular with respect to the study of the social fabric of socialism—a topic until now shunned by historians while anthropologists have provided exemplary studies on this issue. The article ends with a discussion of the limits oPf historical anthropology and warns not to leave the state and economic structures out of historical analysis.

scholarly journals THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSTRUCTIVISM: THE CREATIVE TRANSFORMATION OF AESTHETIC CODES AND NARRATIVES

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larisa PISKUNOVA ◽  
Liudmila STAROSTOVA ◽  
Igor YANKOV
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Social History ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Space Planning ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Architecture ◽  
Modernist Project

Abstract The architecture of constructivism (functionalism) has a kind of symbolic meaning associated with the modernist project. The authors conducted a study of the architectural avant-garde of Sverdlovsk, Russia which showed that the weak perception of the historical and cultural importance of constructivist buildings and complexes is associated not only with the lack of the people awareness, but also with the underestimation of their aesthetic value. Meanwhile, the study of space-planning solutions for specific architectural projects reveals really conceptual aesthetics of the buildings. In addition, the study of the social history of constructivist architectural complexes, conducted by the authors, helped us to identify and articulate their cultural and historical significance and to highlight in a creative way the visual perception of these architectural reference markers in the space of the city. The authors also rely on their own experience of the exhibition, publication and sightseeing activities. The analysis of this experience allows the authors to draw some conclusions about the practice of developing and shifting the visual perception of constructivist monuments by the people. The originality of the presented approach to the study of architecture is an appeal to the social history of architecture which helps to enhance its aesthetic value.

Early Cinema in Scotland

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Early Cinema ◽  
Popular Song ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Production History ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Audience

This collection of essays, drawn from a three-year AHRC research project, provides a detailed context for the history of early cinema in Scotland from its inception in 1896 till the arrival of sound in the early 1930s. It details the movement from travelling fairground shows to the establishment of permanent cinemas, and from variety and live entertainment to the dominance of the feature film. It addresses the promotion of cinema as a socially ‘useful’ entertainment, and, distinctively, it considers the early development of cinema in small towns as well as in larger cities. Using local newspapers and other archive sources, it details the evolution and the diversity of the social experience of cinema, both for picture goers and for cinema staff. In production, it examines the early attempts to establish a feature film production sector, with a detailed production history of Rob Roy (United Films, 1911), and it records the importance, both for exhibition and for social history, of ‘local topicals’. It considers the popularity of Scotland as an imaginary location for European and American films, drawing their popularity from the international audience for writers such as Walter Scott and J.M. Barrie and the ubiquity of Scottish popular song. The book concludes with a consideration of the arrival of sound in Scittish cinemas. As an afterpiece, it offers an annotated filmography of Scottish-themed feature films from 1896 to 1927, drawing evidence from synopses and reviews in contemporary trade journals.

Editor's Notes

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-7
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

In this opening issue of volume 31 we are presented with both nuanced and bold entry into several long enduring issues and topics stitching together the interdisciplinary fabric comprising ethnic studies. The authors of these articles bring to our attention social, cultural and economic issues shaping lively discourse in ethnic studies. They also bring to our attention interpretations of the meaning and significance of ethnic cultural contributions to the social history of this nation - past and present.

“Sou Inglesa! Sou Inglesa!”: Memórias de uma Menina Anglo-Portuguesa (1907-1930)

2017 ◽  
pp. 141-155
Author(s):  
Miguel Alarcão
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social History ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Cultural Encounter ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Times

Textualizing the memory(ies) of physical and cultural encounter(s) between Self and Other, travel literature/writing often combines subjectivity with documental information which may prove relevant to better assess mentalities, everyday life and the social history of any given ‘timeplace’. That is the case with Growing up English. Memories of Portugal 1907-1930, by D. J. Baylis (née Bucknall), prefaced by Peter Mollet as “(…) a remarkably vivid and well written observation of the times expressed with humour and not little ‘carinho’. In all they make excellent reading especially for those of us interested in the recent past.” (Baylis: 2)

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document