scholarly journals ‘A woman and now a man’: The legitimation of sex-assignment surgery in the United States (1849–1886)

2021 ◽  
pp. 030631272110568
Author(s):  
Maayan Sudai
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Sex Assignment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Epistemic Role ◽  
General Effort ◽  
Legal Sex

Throughout much of recorded history, societies that assigned rights and duties based on sex were confounded by people with unclear sex. For the sake of maintaining social and legal order in those contexts, legal systems assigned these people to what they figured was the ‘most dominant’ sex. Then, in mid-19th century United States, a new classification mechanism emerged: sex-assignment surgery, which was imagined by some surgeons to ‘fix’ one’s physical and legal sex status permanently. Other surgeons, however, fiercely opposed the new practice. This article traces the controversy around sex-assignment surgery through three high-profile cases published in US medical journals from 1849 to 1886. Its central argument is that the more general effort to transform surgery into a scientific field helped legitimate the practice of sex-assignment surgery. Although such surgery was subject to intense moral criticism because it was thought to breach the laws of men and nature, over time, these concerns were abandoned or transformed into technical or professional disagreements. In a secondary argument, which helps explain that transformation, this article shows that surgeons gradually became comfortable occupying the epistemic role of sex-classifiers and even sex-makers. That is, whereas sex classification was traditionally a legal task, the new ability to surgically construct one’s genitals engendered the notion that sex could be determined and fixed in the clinic in a legally binding manner. Accordingly, I suggest that surgery became an epistemic act of fact-making. This evolution of the consensus around sex-assignment surgery also provides an early origin story for the idea of sex as plastic and malleable by surgeons, thus offering another aspect to the history of plastic sex.

The Setting

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolette D. Manglos-Weber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Interracial Relations ◽  
Personal Trust ◽  
Conceptual Background ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Religion

This chapter presents the historical and conceptual background to the book’s argument. It starts with a history of Ghana, followed by an analysis of the trends that have led to high levels of out-migration, and then to a description of Ghanaian populations in Chicago. Next, it addresses the concept of social trust in general and personal trust in particular, developing a theory of personal trust as an imaginative and symbolic activity, and analyzing interracial relations through the lens of racialized distrust. It concludes by describing the role of religion in the integration of immigrant groups into the United States and the particular religious frameworks that characterize Charismatic Evangelical Christianity in Ghana.

Univision, Telemundo, and the Rise of Spanish-Language Television in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Allen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
American Society ◽  
The U.S

The first completely researched history of U.S. Spanish-language television traces the rise of two foremost, if widely unrecognized, modern American enterprises—the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo. It is a standard scholarly history constructed from archives, original interviews, reportage, and other public materials. Occasioned by the public’s wakening to a “Latinization” of the U.S., the book demonstrates that the emergence of Spanish-language television as a force in mass communication is essential to understanding the increasing role of Latinos and Latino affairs in modern American society. It argues that a combination of foreign and domestic entrepreneurs and innovators who overcame large odds resolves a significant and timely question: In an English-speaking country, how could a Spanish-speaking institution have emerged? Through exploration of significant and colorful pioneers, continuing conflicts and setbacks, landmark strides, and ongoing controversies—and with revelations that include regulatory indecision, behind-the-scenes tug-of-war, and the internationalization of U.S. mass media—the rise of a Spanish-language institution in the English-speaking U.S. is explained. Nine chapters that begin with Spanish-language television’s inception in 1961 and end 2012 chronologically narrate the endeavor’s first 50 years. Events, passages, and themes are thoroughly referenced.

The History of Occupational Therapy Assistants in Canada: A Comparison with the United States

2001 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 217-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penny Salvatori
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Occupational Therapy ◽  
Professional Associations ◽  
Training Model ◽  
The United States ◽  
Professional Affiliation ◽  
Standards Of Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Training

In the middle of the twentieth century, the role of occupational therapy assistant was introduced in North America. Although the role, utilization and training of assistant personnel have raised much controversy and debate within the profession, Canada and the United States have taken very different paths in terms of dealing with these issues. This paper focuses on the history of occupational therapy assistants in Canada, using the experience in the United States for comparison purposes. The occupational therapy literature and official documents of the professional associations are used to present a chronology of major historical events in both countries. Similarities and differences emerge in relation to historical roots; training model and standards of education; certification, regulation, and standards of practice; career laddering and career mobility; and professional affiliation. The paper concludes with a summary of issues which require further exploration, debate and resolution if the profession is to move forward in Canada.

Spaces of Intentionality: Race, Class, and Horizontality at the United States Social Forum

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 353-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Juris
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Open Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Social Forum ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
High Level

The World Social Forum process has sought to provide an "open space" for diverse movements to exchange ideas, interact, and coordinate as they build another world. Despite this inclusive impulse, many of the forums have been disproportionately white and middle class. Through an ethnographic account of the 2007 United States Social Forum (USSF) in Atlanta, I examine one high-profile attempt to overcome this lack of diversity by establishing what I refer to as an "intentional" space. I argue that the intentional strategy pursued by USSF organizers achieved a high level of diversity in racial and class terms, but de-emphasized the role of the forum as a "contact zone" for translation, sharing, and exchange among diverse movement sectors. However, given the strong desire to overcome past exclusions among participants, the privileging of intentionality over openness and horizontality was widely viewed as legitimate, which has important implications for democratic practice.

The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of the Death Penalty in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 299-315
Author(s):  
Carol S. Steiker ◽  
Jordan M. Steiker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
History Of Race ◽  
Western Democracies

This review addresses four key issues in the modern (post-1976) era of capital punishment in the United States. First, why has the United States retained the death penalty when all its peer countries (all other developed Western democracies) have abolished it? Second, how should we understand the role of race in shaping the distinctive path of capital punishment in the United States, given our country's history of race-based slavery and slavery's intractable legacy of discrimination? Third, what is the significance of the sudden and profound withering of the practice of capital punishment in the past two decades? And, finally, what would abolition of the death penalty in the United States (should it ever occur) mean for the larger criminal justice system?

Brainstorming Revisited

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-69
Author(s):  
Claudia Mareis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Creativity Research ◽  
Human Creativity ◽  
Self Actualization ◽  
History Of

This article discusses a particular strand in the history of creativity in the mid-twentieth century shaped by an instrumental, production-oriented understanding of the term. When the field of creativity research emerged in the United States after World War II, debates around creativity were driven not only by humanist intents of self-actualization but also by the aim of rendering individual creative potentials productive for both society and economy. Creativity was thus defined in terms of not mere novelty and originality but utility and productivity. There was a strong interest, too, in methods and techniques that promised to systematically enhance human creativity. In this context, the article looks at the formation of brainstorming, a group-based creativity method that came into fashion in the United States around 1950. It discusses how this method had been influenced by concepts of human productivity developed and applied during World War II and prior to it. Using the brainstorming method as a case in point, this article aims not only to shed light on the quite uncharted history of creativity in the mid-twentieth century, but also to stress the conducive role of allegedly trivial creativity methods in the rise of what sociologist Andreas Reckwitz has identified as the “creativity dispositif”: a seemingly playful, but indeed rigid, imperative in post-Fordist and neoliberal societies that demand the constant production of innovative outcomes under flexible, yet self-exploitative working conditions.

Our Columnists on the A-Bomb

1950 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-87
Author(s):  
Janet Besse ◽  
Harold D. Lasswell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
General Theory ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

Opinion differs about the role of syndicated columnists in the forming of national opinion and in the decision-making process in the United States. Our columnists have been the subject of pioneering studies, but we have a long way to go before the picture can be called historically complete, scientifically precise, or fully satisfactory for policy-making purposes. What the columnists say is an important chapter in the history of the American public, and history is most useful for critical purposes when written close to the event. The general theory of communication and politics can be refined as the details of the opinion process are more fully known.

scholarly journals Avanços e limites na historiografia da legislação urbanística no Brasil

2001 ◽  
pp. 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Feldman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Legal System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

Este trabalho tem por objetivo analisar a produção recente no campo da história da legislação urbanística no Brasil, procurando detectar avanços e limites para a reflexão sobre desenvolvimento urbano e práticas urbanísticas. O texto organiza-se em três eixos analíticos. Em primeiro lugar, procura-se situar os trabalhos no processo de disseminação de estudos da história urbana no Brasil, vinculando-os ao movimento de ampliação do território da história que ocorre na Europa e nos Estados Unidos, a partir dos anos 60, com a chamada História Nova. Em segundo, baseado em um panorama da produção recente, são detectadas as vertentes dominantes e emergentes nos trabalhos sobre legislação. Em terceiro, são discutidos dois aspectos que se configuram como lacunas na historiografia da legislação: o lugar ocupado pelas normas, a partir do momento em que idéias e práticas urbanísticas têm um espaço institucionalizado na administração pública; e o lugar dos pressupostos modernistas na legislação brasileira, visto que o movimento modernista formula a proposta de um novo sistema legal para o urbanismo.Palavras-chave: legislação urbanística; história; movimento moderno. Abstract: This paper analyses recent developments in the history of Brazilian urban legislation, pointing out the progress made and limits faced, as a basis for reflection in the debate on urban development and planning practice. The analysis is divided into three parts. The first relates the dissemination of urban historical research in Brazil to the expansion of the field of history which began in the 1960s with the "New History" movement in Europe and the United States. The second part sets out the dominant and emerging approaches to urban legislation. Finally, there is a discussion of two aspects that are seen as gaps in the history of urban legislation: the role of norms, as the ideas and practices of urban planning become institutionalised within public administration, and the influences of modernist ideas on Brazilian urban legislation, taking into account that the modern movement proposes a new legal system for urban planning.Keywords: urban legislation; history; modernist movement.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document