scholarly journals Habit, the Criminal Body and the Body Politic in England, c. 1700–1800

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 83-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Martin Dodsworth
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Social Circumstance

This article explores the role that ‘habit’ played in discourses on crime in the 18th century, a subject which forms an important part of the history of ‘the social’. It seeks to bridge the division between ‘liberal’ positions which see crime as a product of social circumstance, and the conservative position which stresses the role of will and individual responsibility, by drawing attention to the role habit played in uniting these conceptions in the 18th century. It argues that the Lockean idea that the mind was a tabula rasa, and that the character was thereby formed through impression and habit, was used as a device to explain the ways in which certain individuals rather than others happened to fall into a life of crime, a temptation to which all were susceptible. This allowed commentators to define individuals as responsible for their actions, while accepting the significance of environmental factors in their transgressions. Further, the notion that the character was formed through habit enabled reformers to promote the idea that crime could be combated through mechanisms of prevention and reformation, which both targeted the individual criminal and sought more generally to reduce the likelihood of crime.

Psychiatry: Mindless or Brainless, Both or Neither?

1989 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z.J. Lipowski
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relative Neglect ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind

After a period marked by one-sided emphasis on psycho-dynamics and social issues, or what could be called “brainless” psychiatry on account of its relative neglect of cerebral processes, we are witnessing an opposite trend towards extreme biologism or “mindless” psychiatry. The pendulum has swung periodically from one to the other of these reductionists positions throughout the history of psychiatry. The author argues that neither brainless nor mindless psychiatry can do justice to the complexity of mental illness and to the treatment of patients. Psychiatry's distinguishing feature as a clinical discipline is its equal concern with subjective experience, or the mind, and with the body, including brain function, which together constitute a person, a psychiatrist's proper focus of inquiry and intervention. Moreover, a person, viewed as a mindbody complex, is in constant interaction with the environment. It follows that both study of mental illness and clinical practice need to take into account the psychological, the biological and the social aspects. These three aspects are not mutually reducible and are indispensable for the understanding and treatment of the individual patient. Such a comprehensive, biopsychosocial approach provides an antithesis to the reductionistic viewpoints and, in the writer's opinion, is both practically and theoretically most satisfying.

Receptions of the Past: Commemoration, Racism, Desire

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-303
Author(s):  
Michael Connors Jackman
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

This article investigates the ways in which the work of The Body Politic (TBP), the first major lesbian and gay newspaper in Canada, comes to be commemorated in queer publics and how it figures in the memories of those who were involved in producing the paper. In revisiting a critical point in the history of TBP from 1985 when controversy erupted over race and racism within the editorial collective, this discussion considers the role of memory in the reproduction of whiteness and in the rupture of standard narratives about the past. As the controversy continues to haunt contemporary queer activism in Canada, the productive work of memory must be considered an essential aspect of how, when and for what reasons the work of TBP comes to be commemorated. By revisiting the events of 1985 and by sifting through interviews with individuals who contributed to the work of TBP, this article complicates the narrative of TBP as a bluntly racist endeavour whilst questioning the white privilege and racially-charged demands that undergird its commemoration. The work of producing and preserving queer history is a vital means of challenging the intentional and strategic erasure of queer existence, but those who engage in such efforts must remain attentive to the unequal terrain of social relations within which remembering forms its objects.

Body and law in late Anglo-Saxon England

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 209-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Manuscript Production ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Control ◽  
Point Of Departure

This article explores some textual dimensions of what I argue is a crucial moment in the history of the Anglo-Saxon subject. For purposes of temporal triangulation, I would locate this moment between roughly 970 and 1035, though these dates function merely as crude, if potent, signposts: the years 970×973 mark the adoption of the Regularis concordia, the ecclesiastical agreement on the practice of a reformed (and markedly continental) monasticism, and 1035 marks the death of Cnut, the Danish king of England, whose laws encode a change in the understanding of the individual before the law. These dates bracket a rich and chaotic time in England: the apex of the project of reform, a flourishing monastic culture, efflorescence of both Latin and vernacular literatures, remarkable manuscript production, but also the renewal of the Viking wars that seemed at times to be signs of the apocalypse and that ultimately would put a Dane on the throne of England. These dates point to two powerful and continuing sets of interests in late Anglo-Saxon England, ecclesiastical and secular, monastic and royal, whose relationships were never simple. This exploration of the subject in Anglo-Saxon England as it is illuminated by the law draws on texts associated with each of these interests and argues their interconnection. Its point of departure will be the body – the way it is configured, regarded, regulated and read in late Anglo-Saxon England. It focuses in particular on the use to which the body is put in juridical discourse: both the increasing role of the body in schemes of inquiry and of punishment and the ways in which the body comes to be used to know and control the subject.

scholarly journals Curating the Fieldwork Playlist

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Kieran Fenby-Hulse
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technologies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Voice

In this essay, I consider the music that has been chosen as part of the previous essays in this collection. I attempt to understand what this assemblage of musical tracks, this anthropology playlist, might tell us about fieldwork as a research practice. The chapter examines this history of the digital playlist before going on to analyse the varied musical contributions from curatorial, musicological, and anthropological perspetives. I argue that the playlist asks us to reflect on the field of anthropology and to consider the role of the voice, the body, the mind with anthropology, as well as the role digital technologies, ethics, and the relationship between indviduals and the community.

Individuality and Achievement in South Indian Social History

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattison Mines
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
South Indian ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Social Importance

One of the unresolved issues of Indian anthorpology is how to characterize and weigh the social importance of individuality and achievement in Indian social history. Of course, the individual as ‘empirical agent’ exists in India as everywhere (Dumont 1970a:9), yet because Hindu culture stresses collective identities over those of the individual, individual achievement, which is a measure of individuality, has been overlooked and sometimes outrightly rejected as a cause of history and social order (Dumont 1970a:107; 1970b; cf. Silverberg 1968). In consequence, the motivations underlying achievement that might explain historic action have also been ignored. This undervaluing of individuality and achievement has given rise to a long debate among South Asianists about the role of the individual in Indian society (e.g., Marriott 1968, 1969; Tambiah 1972:835; Beteille 1986, 1987), a debate that raises questions in wider arenas about the nature of society and culture in relation to individuals (e.g. Brown 1988; Mines 1988).

Promoting and marketing a revolutionary cooking appliance in the 1840s Stanislas Sorel’s portable stove “Le Cordon Bleu” (1834–1849)

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-59
Author(s):  
Dirk HR Spennemann
Keyword(s):  
Primary Sources ◽  
Early Form ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Family Dinner ◽  
Scientific World ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Insight Into

Purpose This paper aims to describe the nature and significance of Sorel’s cooking appliance and to examine the promotion and marketing options used by Sorel to make it an appliance that was “widely used in private residences and by small eating houses.” It will highlight the role of the individual and will demonstrate that marketing and promotion strategies that are modulated by the social ambitions of the manufacturer. Design/methodology/approach The basis of this research is extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of primary sources, mainly the advertisements placed by Sorel, supported by information in contemporary newspapers and journals. Findings Stanislas Sorel’s invention of an early form of thermostat allowed him to develop a stove that could cook a four-course family dinner largely unsupervised, an invention which was poised to revolutionise the lives of many households. Sorel was primarily an inventor striving for acceptance in the scientific world, with limited skills in the commercialisation of his inventions. His promotion and marketing efforts reflect both the social realities of the time and his own ambitions. Originality/value There has been very little research into the way small French inventors and manufacturers approached the marketing of their products. The paper provides a unique insight into the promotion techniques of a mid-nineteenth-century French inventor-cum-entrepreneur and highlights the role of the individual and how actions are constrained by ambition and opportunity. The paper provides an example of how research into how specific individuals can inform the larger history of marketing.

scholarly journals Risk as Moral Danger: The Social and Political Functions of Risk Discourse in Public Health

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Lupton
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
Divine Retribution ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Risk Discourse

Risk is a concept with multiple meanings and is ideologically loaded. The author reviews the literature on risk perception and risk as a sociocultural construct, with particular reference to the domain of public health. Pertinent examples of the political and moral function of risk discourse in public health are given. The author concludes that risk discourse is often used to blame the victim, to displace the real reasons for ill-health upon the individual, and to express outrage at behavior deemed socially unacceptable, thereby exerting control over the body politic as well as the body corporeal. Risk discourse is redolent with the ideologies of mortality, danger, and divine retribution. Risk, as it is used in modern society, therefore cannot be considered a neutral term.

scholarly journals Defining the dystopian chronotope: Space, time and genre in George Orwell’s 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'

2018 ◽  
pp. 9-39
Author(s):  
Urszula Terentowicz-Fotyga
Keyword(s):  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Body ◽  
Special Relation ◽  
Structural Role ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The City

The paper examines George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four as a canonical example of the dystopian novel in an attempt to define the principal features of the dystopian chronotope. Following Mikhail Bakhtin, it treats the chronotope as the structural pivot of the narrative, which integrates and determines other aspects of the text. Dystopia, the paper argues, is a particularly appropriate genre to consider the structural role of the chronotope for two reasons. Firstly, due to utopianism’s special relation with space and secondly, due to the structural importance of world-building in the expression of dystopia’s philosophical, political and social ideas. The paper identifies the principal features of dystopian spatiality, among which crucial are the oppositions between the individual and the state, the mind and the body, the high and the low, the central and the peripheral, the past and the present, the city and the natural world, false and true signs.

scholarly journals Rethinking the social role of nursing through the work of Donzelot and Foucault  

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-58
Author(s):  
Evy Nazon ◽  
Amelie Peron ◽  
Thomas Foth
Keyword(s):  
Social Role ◽  
Healthy Life ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Helping Others ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Nursing ◽  
The Individual

The history of nursing is often perceived as the history of a profession with charitable and philanthropic objectives of helping others live a healthy life. Many historians have celebrated the major role played by charitable women in nursing. Moving beyond this charitable and dedicated image of nurses, we argue that nursing, through “the social,” became a pivotal component of the governance of the everyday lives of populations. As such, nursing became part of the evolving idea that all areas of life must be managed through a process of normalization that seeks to maximize the life of both the individual and the population. Populations thus became the focus of governmental projects. Jacques Donzelot’s notion of invention of the social and Michel Foucault’s concept of govenmentality make possible a reassessment of the conventional image of nurses, and in particular, that of charitable nurses.

MEASUREMENT AND MERITOCRACY: AN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF IQ

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 637-644
Author(s):  
THEODORE M. PORTER
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Intelligence Quotient ◽  
Social Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind

Is intelligence a fit topic for intellectual history? The creation and institutionalization of IQ (the initials have become self-sufficient, and no longer stand for “intelligence quotient”) have been a favorite topic in the history of psychology, and have even achieved some standing in social histories of class, race, and mobility, especially in the United States. The campaign to quantify intelligence tended to remove it from the domain of intellectual history, which after all has traditionally emphasized ideas and interpretations. Measurement, and not alone of the mind, was pursued as a way to rein in the intellect by making it more rigorous. What was pushed out the door, however, returned through the window in the form of debates about what intelligence means; in what sense and with what tools it can be measured; and how these measures relate to other ways of comprehending mind, thought, and reason. Quantification, a potent strategy for releasing science from the grip of history, is itself profoundly historical, as a half-century of modern scholarship has demonstrated. This historicizing of the antihistorical embodies what we may call counterreflexivity, and, as such, is partly about puncturing illusions, though it need not take a negative view of the social role of science. The perspective of history is all the more essential because the depoliticization of merit through science entails a consequential moral and political choice. Measurement, by rationalizing and stabilizing the idea of intelligence, enabled it more readily to enter everyday discourse and to be put to work in schools, businesses, and bureaucracies.

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