scholarly journals Centuries of Irish Childhoods

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
Marnie Hay

This article serves as an introduction to a special issue of Irish Economic and Social History (Volume 47) that illuminates the diversity of childhoods experienced by children growing up in Ireland and in the Irish diaspora between the mid sixteenth and the early twentieth centuries. The article explores the development of the history of children and childhood in Ireland as a growing area of academic enquiry and discusses the problems and challenges associated with studying children and childhood in the past. It also contextualises the articles included in the special issue of the journal, which demonstrate how age, class, gender, geography, religion and ethnicity combined with adult control to influence the lives of children ranging from infancy to early adolescence. Adult control was reflected in decisions made regarding the feeding, fostering, educating, employing, entertaining and punishing of children. Such decisions could have lifelong consequences for the children concerned. This introductory article highlights the central role of adults in influencing, controlling and representing children’s lives but also provides insight into the diverse experiences of Irish childhoods during five centuries.

Author(s):  
Natália Da Silva Perez

In this introductory text to the special issue Regulating Access: Privacy and the Private in Early Modern Dutch Contexts, Natália da Silva Perez argues that privacy can be a productive analytical lens to examine the social history of the Dutch Republic. She starts by providing an overview of theoretical definitions of privacy and of the ‘private versus public’ dichotomy, highlighting their implications for the study of society. Next, she discusses the modern view of privacy as a legally protected right, explaining that we must adjust expectations when applying the concept to historical examination: in the early modern period, privacy was not yet fully incorporated within a legal framework, and yet, it was a widespread need across different echelons of society. She provides a historical overview of this widespread need for privacy through instances where people attempted to regulate access to their material and immaterial resources. Finally, she describes how the four articles in this special issue contribute to our understanding of the role of privacy in early modern Dutch life.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 615-655
Author(s):  
Zofia Rzeźnicka ◽  
Maciej Kokoszko

The present study has resulted from a close reading of prescriptions for therapeutic wines inserted in book V of De materia medica by Pedanius Dioscorides, the eminent expert in materia medica of the 1st century A.D. The authors emphasise the role of wine varieties and selected flavourings (and especially of myrrh) in order to determine the social status of those to whom the formulas were addressed. This perspective gives the researchers ample opportunity for elaborating not only on the significance of wine in medical procedures but also for underscoring the importance of a number of aromatics in pharmacopoeia of antiquity and Byzantium. The analysis of seven selected formulas turns out to provide a fairly in-depth insight into Mediterranean society over a prolonged period of time, and leads the authors to draw the following conclusions. First, they suggest that medical doctors were social-inequality-conscious and that Dioscorides and his followers felt the obligation to treat both the poor and the rich. Second, they prove physicians’ expertise in materia medica, exemplifying how they were capable of adjusting market value of components used in their prescriptions to financial capacities of the patients. Third, the researchers circumstantiate the place of medical knowledge in ancient, and later on in Byzantine society. Last but not least, they demonstrate that medical treatises are an important source of knowledge, and therefore should be more often made use of by historians dealing with economic and social history of antiquity and Byzantium.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-99
Author(s):  
Vimbai Moreblessing Matiza

Dramatic and theatrical performances have a long history of being used as tools to enhance development in children and youth. In pre-colonial times there were some forms of drama and theatre used by different communities in the socialisation of children. It is in the same vein that this article, through the Intwasa koBulawayo performances, seeks to evaluate how drama and theatre are used to nurture children and youth into different developmental facets of their lives. The only difference which this article will take into cognisance is that the performances are done in a different environment, which is not the one used in the pre-colonial times. Although these performances were like this, the most important factor is the idea that children and youth are socialised through these performances. It is also against this backdrop that children and youth are growing up in a globalised environment, hence the performances should accommodate people from all walks of life and teach them relevant issues pertaining to life as they live it now. Thus the main task of the article is to spell out the role of drama and theatre in the nurturing of children and youth through socio economic and political development in Intwasa koBulawayo festivals.


Author(s):  
Miguel Alarcão

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)


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-285
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Bartoszko

This article offers a counter narrative to the current ethnographic studies on treatment with buprenorphine, in which notions of promised and experienced normality dominate. In some countries, introduction of buprenorphine led to a perceived “normalisation” of opioid substitution treatment, and this new modality was well received. However, in Norway the response has been almost the opposite: patients have reacted with feelings of disenfranchisement, failure, and mistrust. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Norway, this article offers comparative insight into local experiences and subjectivities in the context of the globalisation of buprenorphine. By outlining the ethnographic description of the pharmaceutical atmosphere of forced transfers to buprenorphine-naloxone, I show that the social history of the medication is as significant as its pharmacological qualities for various treatment effects. An analysis of the reactions to this treatment modality highlights the reciprocal shaping of lived experiences and institutional forces surrounding pharmaceutical use in general and opioids in particular.


1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Siry

Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium Building in Chicago (1886-1890) is here analyzed in the context of Chicago's social history of the 1880s. Specifically, the building is seen as a capitalistic response to socialist and anarchist movements of the period. The Auditorium's principal patron, Ferdinand W. Peck, created a theater that was to give access to cultural and civic events for the city's workers, to draw them away from both politicized and nonpoliticized "low" urban entertainments. Adler and Sullivan's theater was to serve a mass audience, unlike opera houses of the period, which held multiple tiers of boxes for privileged patrons. This tradition was represented by the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City (1881-1883). Turning away from works like the Paris Opéra, Peck and his architects perhaps sought to emulate ideas of other European theaters of the period, such as Bayreuth's Festspielhaus (1872-1876). Sullivan's interior had an ornamental and iconographic program that was innovative relative to traditional opera houses. His design of the building's exterior was in a Romanesque style that recalled ancient Roman monuments. It is here compared with other Chicago buildings of its era that represented high capital's reaction to workers' culture, such as Burnham and Root's First Regiment Armory (1889-1891), Peck's own house (1887), and the Chicago Athenaeum (1890-1891). The Auditorium's story invites a view of the Chicago School that emphasizes the role of patrons' ideological agenda rather than modern structural expression.


1995 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewis A. Sussman

Abstract: A major focus of the school themes in the collections of Roman declamations knowrn as controversiae (practice court cases) is the period of a young man's adolescence, and especially his relationship with his father during this period. In part this can be explained because teachers in the private schools of rhetoric selected themes that naturally appealed to their students——male adolescents in their mid and late teens. This focus is especially notable in the Major Declamations, and since they are the only full examples of controversiae,the phenomenon can most easily be explored in reference to this werk. In its nineteen declamations youths are generally portrayed sympathetically, in contrast to their fathers who are often cruel and harsh. Relations between the two are generally very strained. The themes were popular because they reflected the reality of growing up in a paternally dominated society where fathers had absolute power(even of life and death) over their sons. These declamations therefore had a cathartic effect and escapist value fer Roman teenaged boys,who could vent or explore in legitimate and acceptable ways their repressed, pent-up, and often hostile feelings toward their fathers. The declamations therefore provide an important resource, when used judiciously, for associating social history with the history of rhetoric.


2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Franco Motta ◽  
Eleonora Rai

Abstract The introduction to this special issue provides some considerations on early modern sanctity as a historical object. It firstly presents the major shifts in the developing idea of sanctity between the late medieval period and the nineteenth century, passing through the early modern construction of sanctity and its cultural, social, and political implications. Secondly, it provides an overview of the main sources that allow historians to retrace early modern sanctity, especially canonization records and hagiographies. Thirdly, it offers an overview of the ingenious role of the Society of Jesus in the construction of early modern sanctity, by highlighting its ability to employ, create, and play with hagiographical models. The main Jesuit models of sanctity are then presented (i.e., the theologian, the missionary, the martyr, the living saint), and an important reflection is reserved for the specific martyrial character of Jesuit sanctity. The introduction assesses the continuity of the Jesuit hagiographical discourse throughout the long history of the order, from the origins to the suppression and restoration.


Itinerario ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Warren

A new found interest in social history, recent developments in historical thought and methodology and a fresh awareness of the importance of gender-specific experience have led historians to question an ‘ordinary woman's place’ in Singa- pore's past. In the historiography of Singapore, there is a need to foreground the critical importance of the ah ku and karayuki-san in the sex,politics and society of the city, stressing not only alterations in their life and circumstance, but also variations in the role of the colonial government, and changes in the ideology of sex and social policy.


Author(s):  
Andrea Giardina

Marxism has slowly declined in recent literature on the economic and social history of the ancient world. If one happens to run into the name of Marx or the term Marxism, it is generally within the context of polemical remark. In spite of recurrent attempts to resuscitate it as an ideal foil for anti-Communist polemic, Marxism made its final exit from the field of ancient historical studies in the 1960s, when new Marxist and Marxist-inspired historiography came to the fore. This chapter discusses the changing role of Marxism in Italian history-writing. It focuses on the historians who claim themselves as Marxists, and those who employ Marxist categories and draw on Marxist theory yet refuse to be defined as Marxists. The chapter examines the debates of the different groups on the historiographic phase marked by the circulation of Marxist concepts, analytical tools, and models outside the strictly Marxist milieu. One of the most striking aspects of this phase is the existence of a trend for the formation of research groups that shared not only an affinity or ideological adherence to Marxism, but also an interest in historical theory and a similar orientation in cultural politics. These interdisciplinary approaches stimulated the confluence of individual competences in group projects aimed at singling out new topics and developing investigational strategies. This historiographic phase also reflected a sense of community, a refusal of traditional academic hierarchies, a wish to keep individualism in check, and the rejection of erudite isolation. In Italy, these forms of association served as a means for ethical and political self-representation of cultural hegemony.


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