Constructing the Subject: South African Psychological Research before World War II

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann Louw ◽  
Julie Binedell ◽  
Welmoet Brimmer ◽  
Pindi Mabena ◽  
Annemarie Meyer ◽  
...  

Thirty-three journal articles reporting empirical findings published by South African psychologists before 1939 were examined to establish the dominant research models of the time. Danziger's study provided the initial impetus as well as methodological guidelines. Findings indicate that three models of research were present, but that one, the Galtonian form of experimentation, soon dominated the field. One possible explanation is to be found in the early involvement of South African psychologists in applied and practical matters. Thus an investigative practice which enabled psychologists to develop knowledge which was relevant to the needs of socially important markets, and still be acceptable as ‘scientific’ knowledge, had significant advantages over rival investigative practices.

Author(s):  
Emily Robins Sharpe

The Jewish Canadian writer Miriam Waddington returned repeatedly to the subject of the Spanish Civil War, searching for hope amid the ruins of Spanish democracy. The conflict, a prelude to World War II, inspired an outpouring of literature and volunteerism. My paper argues for Waddington’s unique poetic perspective, in which she represents the Holocaust as the Spanish Civil War’s outgrowth while highlighting the deeply personal repercussions of the war – consequences for women, for the earth, and for community. Waddington’s poetry connects women’s rights to human rights, Canadian peace to European war, and Jewish persecution to Spanish carnage.


1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-376
Author(s):  
Andrew Ludanyi

The fate of Hungarian minorities in East Central Europe has been one of the most neglected subjects in the Western scholarly world. For the past fifty years the subject—at least prior to the late 1980s—was taboo in the successor states (except Yugoslavia), while in Hungary itself relatively few scholars dared to publish anything about this issue till the early 1980s. In the West, it was just not faddish, since most East European and Russian Area studies centers at American, French and English universities tended to think of the territorial status quo as “politically correct.” The Hungarian minorities, on the other hand, were a frustrating reminder that indeed the Entente after World War I, and the Allies after World War II, made major mistakes and significantly contributed to the pain and anguish of the peoples living in this region of the “shatter zone.”


1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard D. Hamilton

Any middle-aged member of the political science guild in a retrospective mood might ponder a question: “What ever happened to direct democracy?” In our halcyon student days the textbooks discussed the direct democracy trinity—initiative, referendum, and recall—described their mechanics and variations, explained their origin in the Progressive Era, told us that the United States, Australia, and Switzerland were leading practitioners of direct democracy, cited a few eccentric referenda, gave the standard pro and con arguments, and essayed some judgments of the relative merits of direct and representative democracy. Latter day collegians may pass through the portals innocent of the existence of the institutions of direct government. Half of the American government texts never mention the subject; the others allocate a paragraph or a page for a casual mention or a barebones explanation of the mechanics.A similar trend has occurred in the literature. Before 1921, every volume of this Review had items on the referendum, five in one volume. Subsequently there have been only seven articles, all but two prior to World War II. “The Initiative and Referendum in Graustark” has ceased to be a fashionable dissertation topic, only four in the last thirty years. All but two of the published monographs antedate World War II.


Author(s):  
Rodrigo Porto Bozzetti ◽  
Gustavo Saldanha

The purpose of this paper, considering the relevance of Shera thoughts and its repercussions, is to reposition, in epistemological-historical terms, Jesse Shera’s approaches and their impacts according to a relation between life and work of the epistemologist. Without the intention of an exhaustive discussion, the purpose is to understand some unequivocal relations between the Shera critique for the context of its theoretical formulation and the consequences of this approach contrary to some tendencies originating from the technical and bureaucratic roots of the field (before and after World War II). It is deduced that Shera, rather than observing the sociopolitical reality and technical partner in which the texture of alibrary-based thought (but visualized by him as documentaryinformational), establishes, in his own praxis, social epistemology as a sort of "critique of the future," that is, as a praxis of the reflexive activity of the subject inserted in this episteme. In our discussion, the epistemological-social approach represents a vanguard for the context of its affirmation, a reassessment for the immediate decades to its presentation(years 1960 and 1970) and a critique for the future of what was consolidated under the notion of information Science, anticipating affirmations of "social nature" of the 1980s and 1990s in the field of information.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 59 (6) ◽  
pp. 952-952
Author(s):  
John E. Wennberg

For half a century, the tonsil has been the target of a large-scale, uncontrolled surgical experiment-tonsillectomy. In the fourth and fifth decades of this century, well over 50% of children appear to have undergone the procedure; since World War II, opinion has swung away from mass use and by 1973 about 25% of children appear to have been affected. Pediatricians have been the weathermen in the change of clinical climate, pressing for reduction in use of tonsillectomy in their journal articles. Among a sample of California physicians, the offspring of pediatricians underwent fewer tonsillectomies than the children of other types of physicians.


2021 ◽  
Vol VII (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76
Author(s):  
Ashley Hlebinsky

In 1953, Ruger released a single-action revolver—patterned after the original Colt Single Action Army. Whilst some changes had been made, this firearm possessed, for all intents and purposes, the handling characteristics of the original Colt design. As a result, the safety precaution was as per the original: the revolver should be loaded with five rounds, rather than six, and the hammer positioned such that it rested over an empty chamber. Despite outlining the recommended carry methods in their instruction manual, Ruger became the subject of product liability lawsuits from purchasers who incorrectly loaded and carried the firearm, resulting in negligent discharges. This article explores the history of Colt-type single-action revolvers in the post-World War II period, analyses the availability of historic mechanical safety mechanisms for double-action revolvers in the 19th and 20th centuries, and summarises the patents on single-action safeties that Ruger had received by 1973. That year, the company discontinued their initial line of Single Action Army-style revolvers—known as ‘Old Models’—for a visibly similar, but mechanically different, ‘New Model’ line of single-action revolvers featuring newly developed safety mechanisms.


Author(s):  
Matthew Smallman-Raynor ◽  
Andrew Cliff

In Chapters 7 to 11, we have examined a series of recurring themes in the geography of war and disease since 1850 through regional lenses. In this chapter, we conclude our regional–thematic survey by illustrating further prominent themes which, either because of their subject-matter or because of their geographical location, were beyond the immediate scope of the foregoing chapters. In selecting regional case studies for this chapter, we concentrate on wars which have not been examined in depth to this point (the South African War and the Cuban Insurrection) or which, on account of their magnitude and extent, merit examination beyond that afforded in previous sections (World War I and World War II). Four principal issues are addressed: (1) Africa: population reconcentration and disease (Section 12.2), illustrated with reference to civilian concentration camps in the South African War, 1899–1902; (2) Americas: peace, war, and epidemiological integration (Section 12.3), illustrated with reference to the civil settlement system of Cuba, 1888–1902; (3) Asia: prisoners of war, forced labour, and disease (Section 12.4), illustrated with reference to Allied prisoners on the line of the Burma–Thailand Railway, 1942–4; (4) Europe: civilian epidemics and the world wars (Section 12.5), illustrated with reference to the spread of a series of diseases in the civil population of Europe during, and after, the hostilities of 1914–18 and 1939–45. As before, the study sites in (1) to (4) span a broad range of epidemiological environments, from the cool temperate latitudes of northern Europe, through the tropical island and jungle environments of the Caribbean and Southeast Asia, to the warm temperate and subtropical savannah lands of the South African Veld. Diseases have been sampled to reflect this epidemiological range. The South African War (1899–1902) has been described as the last of the ‘typhoid campaigns’ (Curtin, 1998)—a closing chapter on the predominance of disease over battle as a cause of death among soldiers (Pakenham, 1979: 382). From the military perspective, typhoid was indeed the major health issue of the war, accounting for a reported 8,020 deaths in the British Army (Simpson, 1911: 57).


Author(s):  
Anne Gray

Russell Drysdale was an Australian artist who created an original vision of the Australian landscape from the 1940s to the 1960s, portraying the emptiness and loneliness of the Australian outback and country townships in his paintings, drawings, and photographs. During World War II, he depicted everyday subjects, including groups of servicemen waiting at railway stations. He traveled numerous times to the interior of Australia, including a trip to record the drought devastation in South Western New South Wales in 1944, where he created images that convey the environmental degradation of the landscape. In 1947, he explored the Bathurst region with Donald Friend where he discovered Sofala and Hill End, an area that served as the subject matter for his art for a number of years. Drysdale painted many images of deserted country towns as well as brooding landscapes peopled with stockmen and station hands. In his paintings of Aborigines, Drysdale expressed a deep concern for the Indigenous people, often placing them within his paintings in a manner that conveys a sense of dispossession. His work was singled out by Kenneth Clark in 1949 as being among the most original in Australian art, and his exhibition at the Leicester Galleries, London, in 1950 convinced British critics that Australian artists had an original vision.


Head Strong ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 260-277
Author(s):  
Michael D. Matthews

Military research routinely yields spin-offs that are useful in the civilian domain. In the hard sciences, World War I spun off advances in chemistry, and World War II produced advances in physics that changed the world. Military psychological science is no different. Aptitude testing sprung from the efforts of psychologists during World War I to help the military better select and classify incoming personnel. Clinical psychology and human factors engineering were boosted as a result of World War II. The Vietnam conflict led to a better understanding of combat stress and contributed to the including of posttraumatic stress disorder as a diagnostic label. All had direct application to the civilian sector. This chapter considers spin-offs from contemporary military psychological research that will benefit general society including better ways to treat stress and promote resilience, select and train employees, and enhance leadership strategies and cultural skills.


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