scholarly journals Harput, Turkey to Massachusetts: Immigration of Jacobite Christians

Chronos ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 19-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shariman Mako ◽  
Sargon George Donabed

This essay falls into the category of rendering visible a community, the Jacobite Assyrians of Massachusetts, who have remained virtually unknown in the larger context of Middle Eastern Diaspora studies and American ethnic and cultural history. This brief study of the immigration of the Jacobite Christians originally from Harput, Turkey who settled in New England, shows a variety of distinct method(s) of identity preservation and transmission to subsequent generations, especially in regard to personal and group identity structures. These people, sometimes referred to as "Jacobite Syrians" by early Western travellers and missionaries, identified themselves as the "sons of Asshur" in 1842. (Southgate 1856:87) This paper is a narrative of the community's tribulations in their country of origin during the first half of the twentieth century, internal religious politics espoused by the church, as well as their life and establishment in American society.

2021 ◽  
pp. 8-13
Author(s):  
Nina Averianova

The author of the article shows that the term «Diaspora» is often found in foreign scientific circulation. Scientists are gradually introducing new understandings and meanings into the content of the concept of «Diaspora». The definition of «Diaspora» is based on various criteria and characteristics - ethnic, religious, economic, political, etc. And although this word was used in the distant past, however, fundamental developments regarding the concept of «Diaspora» appeared relatively long ago. In the 90s of the twentieth century, a large number of different definitions and typologies of diasporas were proposed, even a new discipline was formed – Diaspora studies. It was during this period that the use of terms such as «Diaspora» and «transnationalism» increased. The author emphasizes the importance of research by such foreign scientists as John A. Armstrong, Rogers Brubaker, Michel Bruneau, Nicholas Van Hear, Milton J. Esman, James Clifford, Robin Cohen, Alain Medam, William Safran, Valeriy Tishkov, Thomas Faist, Gabriel Sheffer. Analyzes the well-known works of these authors regarding the definition of the concept of «Diaspora» and its types. Draws attention to the fact that diasporas today are not only historically formed communities that live outside the country of origin and adhere to ethnocultural traditions. These are certain forces of influence on the authorities of the country of residence and a political instrument in the international arena. The development of modern technologies, expanded access to cyberspace has also affected the functioning of the diasporas. These changes were reflected in new terms – «e-diasporas», «net-diasporas», «web-diasporas», «Onlinediasporas», «digital diasporas». Proves the need for a clear definition of the concept of «Diaspora», because the process of Diaspora takes on new forms and the influence of diasporas is increasing both in the countries of residence and in the countries of origin. The lack of a definition of the specified period directs scientists to further study the problem.


2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-512
Author(s):  
JEFFORY A. CLYMER

The historical narrative arguing that independent artisans were increasingly transformed into mere tenders of complicated machinery during the second half of the nineteenth century, leading ultimately to Henry Ford's minute division of labor in the assembly line, is both conventional and well known. Technology became more complex, its inner workings were less self-evident or easily comprehensible, and the material conditions of production, exemplified by modern factories built around a division of labor, became too large and systematic to be understood from the viewpoint of a single worker selling his or her labor. And, while industry was imagined more and more as an intricate system at the turn of the twentieth century, American society, analogously, under the increasing pressure of urbanization and immigration, came to be regarded as too complex to be understood from a single viewpoint. Exposés, for instance, on “how the other half lives,” to quote the title of Jacob Riis's famous book, attest both to the yearning and to the perceived inability to understand society as an entirety.This article suggests and examines the ways in which two older forms of imagining large systems, specifically, the methods of model-making and diagramming, were rearticulated at the turn of the twentieth century in response to a perceived greater complexity of both technology and American society. Models and diagrams are necessary when it seems that one can no longer envision a large system; they literally provide an imaginative site for a complex system. To understand the social roles of diagramming and model-making, I detail the ways each was imagined and deployed in the cultural history of invention and entrepreneurship in the early twentieth century.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Joanne G. Wong

This study explores, for the first time, an in-depth analysis of the social and cultural history of the shift dress. It provides a multidisciplinary approach which focuses on the significance of the shift dress in the changing context of women’s work, education and their place in contemporary society in the twentieth century. It also locates the dress’s contribution to elements and processes of modern fashion and beyond, into the broader contexts of American popular culture. From its origins, the shift dress evoked modern ideals. Its simple construction means it was an economical, versatile, and expressive garment. The shift dress’s versatility afforded women the opportunity to move effortlessly between sport, work, and leisure. This thesis argues that its simple form is a blank canvas, which allowed women to express themselves individually and freely while propelling fashion forward in terms of innovation. Throughout the twentieth century, it has been reinterpreted, redesigned and reimagined, with the 1920s and the 1960s especially significant periods for this study. Its adaptability across time periods advanced women in the public sphere and in previously male dominated environments and workplaces. The shift dress allowed women to move away from societal expectations to create their own identity. The thesis contends that as a consequence of its attributes, the shift dress was an important vehicle for the evolving expression of women’s strength and empowerment. It was the first dress to provide women freedom of choice, to allow freer movement, physically and socially, and to express self- identity. It is more than a garment clothing a woman’s body, it provided women a new liberation and a way to be modern. The movement that the dress permitted aligned to the changing place of women in American society. This concept of movement is central to the thesis: the shift dress defines movement on multiple levels. It has moved women forward, it has moved fashion forward, and because of this, it is one of the most significant garments in fashion history.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-138
Author(s):  
Zeynep Sahin Mencütek

Transnational activities of refugees in the Global North have been long studied, while those of the Global South, which host the majority of displaced people, have not yet received adequate scholarly attention. Drawing from refugee studies, transnationalism and diaspora studies, the article focuses on the emerging transnational practices and capabilities of displaced Syrians in Turkey. Relying on qualitative data drawn from interviews in Şanlıurfa – a border province in south-eastern Turkey that hosts half a million Syrians - the paper demonstrates the variations in the types and intensity of Syrians’ transnational activities and capabilities. It describes the low level of individual engagement of Syrians in terms of communicating with relatives and paying short visits to the hometowns as well as the intentional disassociation of young refugees from homeland politics. At the level of Syrian grassroots organisations, there have been mixed engagement initiatives emerging out of sustained cross-border processes. Syrians with higher economic capital and secured legal status have formed some economic, political, and cultural institutional channels, focusing more on empowerment and solidarity in the receiving country than on plans for advancement in the country of origin. Institutional attempts are not mature enough and can be classified as transnational capabilities, rather than actual activities that allow for applying pressure on the host and home governments. This situation can be attributed to the lack of political and economic security in the receiving country as well as no prospects for the stability in the country of origin. The study also concerns questions about the conceptual debates on the issue of refugee diaspora. Whilst there are clear signs of diaspora formation of the Syrian refugee communities, perhaps it is still premature to term Syrians in Turkey as refugee diaspora.


2007 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Constable

This article examines the Scottish missionary contribution to a Scottish sense of empire in India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Initially, the article reviews general historiographical interpretations which have in recent years been developed to explain the Scottish relationship with British imperial development in India. Subsequently the article analyses in detail the religious contributions of Scottish Presbyterian missionaries of the Church of Scotland and the Free Church Missions to a Scottish sense of empire with a focus on their interaction with Hindu socioreligious thought in nineteenth-century western India. Previous missionary historiography has tended to focus substantially on the emergence of Scottish evangelical missionary activity in India in the early nineteenth century and most notably on Alexander Duff (1806–78). Relatively little has been written on Scottish Presbyterian missions in India in the later nineteenth century, and even less on the significance of their missionary thought to a Scottish sense of Indian empire. Through an analysis of Scottish Presbyterian missionary critiques in both vernacular Marathi and English, this article outlines the orientalist engagement of Scottish Presbyterian missionary thought with late nineteenth-century popular Hinduism. In conclusion this article demonstrates how this intellectual engagement contributed to and helped define a Scottish missionary sense of empire in India.


1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-263
Author(s):  
John F. Wilson

Over the last decade, a noteworthy number of published studies have, in one fashion or another, been defined with reference to religious denominations. This is an arresting fact, for, coincidentally, the status of religious denominations in the society has been called into question. Some formerly powerful bodies have lost membership (at least relatively speaking) and now experience reduced influence, while newer forms of religious organization(s)—e.g., parachurch groups and loosely structured movements—have flourished. The most compelling recent analysis of religion in modern American society gives relatively little attention to them. Why, then, have publications in large numbers appeared, in scale almost seeming to be correlated inversely to this trend?No single answer to this question is adequate. Surely one general factor is that historians often “work out of phase” with contemporary social change. If denominations have been displaced as a form of religious institution in society in the late twentieth century, then their prominence in earlier eras is all the more intriguing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 235-246
Author(s):  
Alexey L. Beglov

The article examines the contribution of the representatives of the Samarin family to the development of the Parish issue in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The issue of expanding the rights of the laity in the sphere of parish self-government was one of the most debated problems of Church life in that period. The public discussion was initiated by D.F. Samarin (1827-1901). He formulated the “social concept” of the parish and parish reform, based on Slavophile views on society and the Church. In the beginning of the twentieth century his eldest son F.D. Samarin who was a member of the Special Council on the development the Orthodox parish project in 1907, and as such developed the Slavophile concept of the parish. In 1915, A.D. Samarin, who took up the position of the Chief Procurator of the Most Holy Synod, tried to make his contribution to the cause of the parish reforms, but he failed to do so due to his resignation.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-99
Author(s):  
Frederick S. Colby

Despite the central importance of festival and devotional piety to premodernMuslims, book-length studies in this field have been relatively rare.Katz’s work, The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad, represents a tour-deforceof critical scholarship that advances the field significantly both throughits engagement with textual sources from the formative period to the presentand through its judicious use of theoretical tools to analyze this material. Asits title suggests, the work strives to explore how Muslims have alternativelypromoted and contested the commemoration of the Prophet’s birth atdifferent points in history, with a particular emphasis on how the devotionalistapproach, which was prominent in the pre-modern era, fell out of favoramong Middle Eastern Sunnis in the late twentieth century. Aimed primarilyat specialists in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, especially scholarsof history, law, and religion, this work is recommended to anyone interestedin the history of Muslim ritual, the history of devotion to the Prophet, andthe interplay between normative and non-normative forms ofMuslim beliefand practice ...


Author(s):  
James Whitehead

The introductory chapter discusses the popular image of the ‘Romantic mad poet’ in television, film, theatre, fiction, the history of literary criticism, and the intellectual history of the twentieth century and its countercultures, including anti-psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Existing literary-historical work on related topics is assessed, before the introduction goes on to suggest why some problems or difficulties in writing about this subject might be productive for further cultural history. The introduction also considers at length the legacy of Michel Foucault’s Folie et Déraison (1961), and the continued viability of Foucauldian methods and concepts for examining literary-cultural representations of madness after the half-century of critiques and controversies following that book’s publication. Methodological discussion both draws on and critiques the models of historical sociology used by George Becker and Sander L. Gilman to discuss genius, madness, deviance, and stereotype in the nineteenth century. A note on terminology concludes the introduction.


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