scholarly journals ‘We thought she was a witch’: Gender, class and whiteness in the familial ‘memory archive’

2022 ◽  
pp. 175069802110665
Author(s):  
Clare Hemmings

‘We thought she was a witch’ uses my own ‘memory archive’ to give texture to the complex inheritance of gender, class and race that characterises the present. Drawing on interviews, archival data and fictionalisation, the article explores the role of gendered labour in securing dominant understandings of class progress. Starting from stories, my mother and I weave together of the history of 64 Chepstow Road, Newport (where her maternal family lived), I highlight the cost of historiography that does not pay attention to what is written out of family memory. The article draws on existing feminist memory work to flesh out an intersectional approach to the ‘memory archive’ we inherit and introduces the importance of an imaginative approach to the past.

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-303
Author(s):  
Michael Connors Jackman

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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-313
Author(s):  
Enver Hasani

Kosovo’s Constitutional Court has played a role of paramount importance in the country’s recent history. The author uses a comparative analysis to discuss the role of the Court in light of the work and history of other European constitutional courts. This approach sheds light on the Court’s current role by analyzing Kosovo’s constitutional history, which shows that there has been a radical break with the past. This approach reveals the fact that Kosovo’s current Constitution does not reflect the material culture of the society of Kosovo. This radical break with the past is a result of the country’s tragic history, in which case the fight for constitutionalism means a fight for human dignity. In this battle for constitutionalism, the Court has been given very broad jurisdiction and a role to play in paving the way for Kosovo to move toward Euro-Atlantic integration in all spheres of life. Before reaching this conclusion, the author discusses the specificities of Kosovo’s transition, comparing it with other former communist countries. Among the specific features of constitutionalism in Kosovo are the role and position of the international community in the process of constitution-making and the overall design of constitutional justice in Kosovo. Throughout the article, a conclusion emerges that puts Kosovo’s Constitutional Court at the forefront of the fight for the rule of law and constitutionalism of liberal Western provenance.


2013 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 451-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
COSTANTINO SIGISMONDI

The role of Venus and Mercury transits is crucial to know the past history of the solar diameter. Through the W parameter, the logarithmic derivative of the radius with respect to the luminosity, the past values of the solar luminosity can be recovered. The black drop phenomenon affects the evaluation of the instants of internal and external contacts between the planetary disk and the solar limb. With these observed instants compared with the ephemerides the value of the solar diameter is recovered. The black drop and seeing effects are overcome with two fitting circles, to Venus and to the Sun, drawn in the undistorted part of the image. The corrections of ephemerides due to the atmospheric refraction will also be taken into account. The forthcoming transit of Venus will allow an accuracy on the diameter of the Sun better than 0.01 arcsec, with good images of the ingress and of the egress taken each second. Chinese solar observatories are in the optimal conditions to obtain valuable data for the measurement of the solar diameter with the Venus transit of 5/6 June 2012 with an unprecedented accuracy, and with absolute calibration given by the ephemerides.


2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (04) ◽  
pp. 299-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Usler ◽  
Anna Bostian ◽  
Ranjini Mohan ◽  
Katelyn Gerwin ◽  
Barbara Brown ◽  
...  

AbstractOver the past 10 years, we (the Purdue Stuttering Project) have implemented longitudinal studies to examine factors related to persistence and recovery in early childhood stuttering. Stuttering develops essentially as an impairment in speech sensorimotor processes that is strongly influenced by dynamic interactions among motor, language, and emotional domains. Our work has assessed physiological, behavioral, and clinical features of stuttering within the motor, linguistic, and emotional domains. We describe the results of studies in which measures collected when the child was 4 to 5 years old are related to eventual stuttering status. We provide supplemental evidence of the role of known predictive factors (e.g., sex and family history of persistent stuttering). In addition, we present new evidence that early delays in basic speech motor processes (especially in boys), poor performance on a nonword repetition test, stuttering severity at the age of 4 to 5 years, and delayed or atypical functioning in central nervous system language processing networks are predictive of persistent stuttering.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 15-21
Author(s):  
Madhusudan Subedi

  Most epidemiological studies focus on the direct causes of diseases while wider, social causal factors are ignored. This paper briefly highlights the history of major epidemics and the role of Anthropocene and Capitalocene for the emergence and reemergence of pandemics like COVID-19. Books, journal articles, and statistics offer information that can explain the phenomena. A historical inquiry can inform us about the fundamental causes of pandemics. Human security and ecology are intertwined, and the global effect of pandemics responded to at the national level is inadequate. The lessons from the past and present help us devise effective ethically and socially appropriate strategies to mitigate the threats. If the present crisis is not taken seriously at the global level, the world has to face more difficult challenges in years to come.


2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (11) ◽  
pp. 2416-2420
Author(s):  
Olena О. Taranovska ◽  
Volodymyr К. Likhachov ◽  
Ludmyla М. Dobrovolska ◽  
Oleg G. Makarov ◽  
Yanina V. Shymanska

The aim: To determine the serum FAMG in the I and II trimester of pregnancy in women with a past history of chronic endometritis, and to clarify its impact on the development of pathology of pregnancy. Materials and methods: The level of FAMG was determined at 6-8 and 16-18 weeks of gestation in 135 pregnant women with a past history of chronic endometritis, who received treatment of chronic endometritis at the stage of pregravid preparation and 168 women who became pregnant without its prior treatment. The dependence of the development of pre-eclampsia on the level of FAMG at the early stages of pregnancy has been evaluated. Results: At 6-8 weeks of pregnancy, the level of FAMG in women with a past history of chronic endometritis was 20.6% lower (122.4 ± 7.6 ng/ml) compared to the control group. In FAMG of 90.3 ± 4.3 ng/ml at 6-8 weeks of gestation, spontaneous abortion occurred in 100% of cases within the next 2 weeks. FAMG lower than 122,1 ± 3,0 ng/ml can be the predisposing factor for the development of pre-eclampsia. Conclusions: Reduced FAMG in the beginning of pregnancy in women with untreated chronic endometritis in the past history increases the incidence of miscarriages at the early stages by 2.6 times, and by 1.8 times the probability of preeclampsia development. Treatment of chronic endometritis at the stage of pregravid preparation promotes the increase of FAMG by 24,6% compared to untreated women that reduces the probability of complications during the subsequent course of pregnancy.


This book explores the history of health care in postcolonial state-making and the fragmentation of the health system in Syria during the conflict. It analyzes the role of international humanitarian law (IHL) in enabling attacks on health facilities and distinguishes the differences between humanitarian solutions and refugee populations’ expectations. It also describes the way in which humanitarian actors have fed the war economy. The book highlights the lived experience of siege in all its layers. It examines how humanitarian actors have become part of the information wars that have raged throughout the past ten years and how they have chosen to position themselves in the face of grave violations of IHL.


Chapter One deals with several central issues with regard to understanding the role of religious motifs in contemporary art. Besides being a repetition of imagery from the past, religious motifs embedded in contemporary artworks become a means to problematise not only the way different periods in the history of art are delimited, but larger and seemingly more rigid distinctions as those between art and non-art images. Early religious images differ significantly from art images. The two types are regulated according to different sets of rules related to the conditions of their production, display, appreciation and the way images are invested with the status of being true or authentic instances of art or sacred images. Chapter One provides a discussion of the important motif of the image not made by an artist’s hand, or acheiropoietos, and its survival and transformation, including its traces in contemporary image-making practices. All images are the result of human making; they are fictions. The way the conditions of these fictions are negotiated, or the way the role of the maker is brought to visibility, or concealed, is a defining feature of the specific regime of representation. While the cult image concealed its maker in order to maintain its public significance, and the later art image celebrated the artist as a re-inventor of the old image, contemporary artists cite religious images in order to reflect on the very procedures that produce the public significance and status of images.


Author(s):  
Wendy Ayres-Bennett ◽  
Helena Sanson

This Introduction outlines the need for a ‘true history’ (Lerner 1976) of the role of women in the history of linguistics, which considers them on their own terms, and challenges categories and concepts devised for traditional male-dominated accounts. We start by considering what research has already been conducted in the field, before exploring some of the reasons for the relative dearth of studies. We outline some of the challenges and opportunities encountered by women who wished to study the nature of language and languages in the past. The geographical and chronological scope of this volume is then discussed. In a central section we examine some of the major recurring themes in the volume. These include attitudes towards women’s language, both positive and negative; women and language acquisition and teaching; and women as creators of new languages and scripts. We further explore women as authors, dedicatees, or intended readers of metalinguistic texts, as interpreters and translators, and as contributors to the linguistic documentation and maintenance. We consider how women supported male relatives and colleagues in their endeavours, sometimes in invisible ways, before reviewing the early stages of their entry into institutionalized contexts. The chapter concludes with a brief section on future directions for research.


Author(s):  
Douglas R. Givens

The history of any discipline involves the explanation of its past and how the past has influenced its development through time. Its ‘objects are events which have finished happening, and conditions no longer in existence. Only when they are no longer perceptible do they become objects of historical thought’ (Collingwood 1946: 233). Writing the history of archaeology involves the analysis of past events and of the contributions that individual archaeologists have made to its development through time. The roles of individuals in archaeology are best seen in biographical accounts of their labours and in the contributions to the discipline that they have made. In general, historians of archaeological science, who are interested in explaining the roles of the individuals in its development, must focus their attention on three important items. First, the most important item is evidence that something has occurred. If individuals’ contributions have no basis in truth and cannot be justified, then they are of no value to the historian of archaeology. Second, the historical picture of individuals’ lives and work must have defined boundaries in space and time. These provide the area of focus for study and description of individuals’ activities. Third, the efforts of individual practitioners must be couched within the intellectual climate in which they are made. Individuals’ contributions are not made in an intellectual vacuum, apart from collegial or institutional influences. Biography, as a tool for writing the history of archaeology, must embrace all of these requisites. For those engaged in explaining archaeology’s past, historical evidence of event and period provide the foundation upon which we can trace our science’s development. Studying and evaluating past work can be helpful in separating useful and outdated methodologies of the field and laboratory. Moreover, the study of the history of anthropology may give the anthropologist needed ‘distance from their own theoretical and methodological preoccupations’ (Darnell 1974: 2). What we see anthropology today as being is certainly not what the ultimate science of humankind will be in the future.


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