scholarly journals Modern Living and Vital Race: Foucault and the Science of Life

2011 ◽  
pp. 97-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Beth Mader
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Political Regimes ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Modern Racism ◽  
Modern Era

The paper examines the relation between Foucault’s account of modern race and racism in the "Society Must Be Defended" lectures and his analysis of the emergence of the modern notion of life and its science in The Order of Things. In "Society Must Be Defended," Foucault uses the term ‘life’ both with respect to pre-modern and modern political regimes, arguing that in the pre-modern eras there was a particular relation of sovereign power to life and death that differs from the relation to life and death which prevails in the modern era. In The Order of Things, Foucault also discusses the concept of life and the historical emergence of the science of life, biology, in the nineteenth century. For Foucault, modern biological racism is a specifically scientific death sentence. The paper argues that the kind of death at issue in this modern racism must be understood in light of the new evolutionary accounts of life as a transorganismic continuity that emerge in the life sciences.

The passive voice in scientific writing through the ages: A diachronic study

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-489
Author(s):  
Alvin Ping Leong
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
Science Journal ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Composing Process ◽  
Diachronic Study ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Current Shift ◽  
Modern Era

AbstractDiachronic studies on scientific writing have indicated an increase in the use of passives from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. With the current shift in focus towards making scientific writing more accessible, there is less certainty on the extent of passive use in the modern era. Although the use of the active voice is presently encouraged, the findings from available studies are mixed. There are also few diachronic studies involving recent articles. This present study investigated the trend in passive use from the nineteenth century to the present day using 80 articles from a multidisciplinary science journal covering four time periods (1880, 1930, 1980, and 2017). The study found that the extent of passive use was stable from 1880 to 1980 (occurring in about 29–36% of all clauses) but declined in 2017 (averaging below 25%). The study also found a decline in the use of finite passives to describe methodological actions and a corresponding increase in the use of first-person pronouns in the 2017 articles. Further work involving a larger corpus and an understanding of writer decisions in the composing process is needed.

Believe in the Border, or, How to Make Modernity in the Nineteenth-Century Maghrib

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 83-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brock Cutler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Levels Of Abstraction ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Territorial Claims ◽  
Frontier Zone ◽  
Environmental Relations

The Algerian-Tunisian frontier zone was much contested in the late nineteenth century, defying the logic of modernity that sought to establish territoriality. This modernity appeared only through an imbrication of raids, warfare, environmental shifts, and competing territorial claims. The violence of the territorial process, the changing geography of sovereignty, and uncertain frontier delimitation: these and other elements challenge the image of modernity arising in a fixed territory according to a linear chronology. This article argues that modernity in the Maghrib, seen through the lens of territory, is a temporally and spatially variable process: “modern” sovereign power existed only at certain levels of abstraction and within certain environmental relations. To consider modernity in the Maghrib, we will have to see how claims of sovereignty and the process of territorialization were understood by actors operating on local, regional, and imperial scales.

Inventing Laziness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melis Hafez
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Civic Culture ◽  
Exclusionary Practices ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ottoman History ◽  
The People ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
Shifting Boundaries ◽  
Modern Era

Neither laziness nor its condemnation are new inventions, however, perceiving laziness as a social condition that afflicts a 'nation' is. In the early modern era, Ottoman political treatises did not regard the people as the source of the state's problems. Yet in the nineteenth century, as the imperial ideology of Ottomanism and modern discourses of citizenship spread, so did the understanding of laziness as a social disease that the 'Ottoman nation' needed to eradicate. Asking what we can learn about Ottoman history over the long nineteenth-century by looking closely into the contested and shifting boundaries of the laziness - productivity binary, Melis Hafez explores how 'laziness' can be used to understand emerging civic culture and its exclusionary practices in the Ottoman Empire. A polyphonic involvement of moralists, intellectuals, polemicists, novelists, bureaucrats, and, to an extent, the public reveals the complexities and ambiguities of this multifaceted cultural transformation. Using a wide variety of sources, this book explores the sustained anxiety about productivity that generated numerous reforms as well as new understandings of morality, subjectivity, citizenship, and nationhood among the Ottomans.

Invisible Architectures

2000 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Basic Problem ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Strategy I ◽  
The Invisible

The ArgumentIn this essay I will sketch a few instances of how, and a few forms in which, the “invisible” became an epistemic category in the development of the life sciences from the seventeenth century through the end of the nineteenth century. In contrast to most of the other papers in this issue, I do not so much focus on the visualization of various little entities, and the tools and contexts in which a visual representation of these things was realized. I will be more concerned with the basic problem of introducing entities or structures that cannot be seen, as elements of an explanatory strategy. I will try to review the ways in which the invisibility of such entities moved from the unproblematic status of just being too small to be accessible to the naked or even the armed eye, to the problematic status of being invisible in principle and yet being indispensable within a given explanatory framework. The epistemological concern of the paper is thus to sketch the historical process of how the “unseen” became a problem in the modern life sciences. The coming into being of the invisible as a space full of paradoxes is itself the product of a historical development that still awaits proper reconstruction.

Race and the Death Penalty

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony G. Vito
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
The United States ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
White Female ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Black Defendants ◽  
Black Defendant ◽  
Modern Era

The relation of race and the death penalty has been a consistent issue in the United States in what is known as the “modern era” of capital punishment. The modern era is defined as being from 1972 to the present, following the Furman v. Georgia decision. Supreme Court cases examining race and the death penalty have considered the application of the death penalty. Issues and concerns have been brought up about whether using statistical evidence is appropriate to determine racial bias that can be used in court cases, the role of a mandatory death penalty, and concern over striking jurors from the jury pool due to race. A wealth of empirical evidence has been done in different areas of the country and has shown some evidence of bias or disparities based on various statistical analyses. One of the more common issues found is issues regarding the race of the defendant (i.e., Black defendant or Black male defendant), the race of the victim (i.e., White victim or White female victim), or interracial dyad (i.e., Black defendant and White victim) that impacts whether the death penalty is sought or imposed. Another concern is wrongful convictions and exonerations. The criminal justice system is not infallible, and this is no more so apparent when deciding to give a death sentence. Prior research has shown that Black defendants are more likely to be involved in cases later found to be wrongful convictions or exonerations. Due to the issue regarding race and the death penalty, two states Kentucky and North Carolina, have created Racial Justice Acts. The creation of these two acts is a good sign of efforts to deal with race and the death penalty. However, how its use and when shows that there is much more work is needed.

Introduction. Theories of Myth

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Segal
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Social ◽  
Origin Function ◽  
Modern Era

The ‘Introduction’ examines and compares modern theories of myth by applying them to the famous myth of Adonis. It is only in the modern era—specifically, only since the second half of the nineteenth century—that these theories have purported to be scientific, for only since then have there existed the social sciences. Of these, anthropology, psychology, and sociology have contributed the most to the study of myth. Each discipline harbours multiple theories of myth, but what unites them is the questions asked: those of origin, function, and subject matter. Is myth universal? Is myth true? Along with these other questions, it defines myth as a story.

Editing entomology: natural-history periodicals and the shaping of scientific communities in nineteenth-century Britain

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW WALE
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
Scientific Authority ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Professional Practitioners

AbstractThis article addresses the issue of professionalization in the life sciences during the second half of the nineteenth century through a survey of British entomological periodicals. It is generally accepted that this period saw the rise of professional practitioners and the emergence of biology (as opposed to the older mode of natural history). However, recent scholarship has increasingly shown that this narrative elides the more complex processes at work in shaping scientific communities from the 1850s to the turn of the century. This article adds to such scholarship by examining the ways in which the editors of four entomological periodicals from across this time frame attempted to shape the communities of their readership, and in particular focuses upon the apparent divide between ‘mere collectors’ and ‘entomologists’ as expressed within these journals. Crucially, the article argues that non-professional practitioners were active in defining their own distinct identities and thereby claiming scientific authority. Alongside the periodicals, the article makes use of the correspondence archive of the entomologist and periodical editor Henry Tibbats Stainton (1822–1892), which has hitherto not been subject to sustained analysis by historians.

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