scholarly journals From madness to mental illness

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Syndrome ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Treatment Approaches ◽  
Typical Symptom ◽  
The Past ◽  
Diagnostic Approaches ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Symptom Progression ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Over Time

Reports of psychotic episodes characterized by irrational, unintelligible behaviours and hallucinations are frequent throughout historical narratives. Appropriately contextualized, some of these descriptions appear to resemble the paranoid, and catatonic characteristics of schizophrenia, respectively, yet holistic accounts of schizophrenia-like syndromes rarely exist prior to the 19th century.1 Despite evolving diagnostic criteria and treatment approaches, and more than 100 years since the demarcation of schizophrenia by Eugen Bleuler in 1908, the etiology, neuropathology and pathophysiology of schizophrenia remain elusive.2-4 No biological markers possess the sensitivity and specificity expected of a diagnostic test, and schizophrenia persists conceptually as a broad clinical syndrome characterized by a range of subjective symptoms with varying patterns of course.5-8 This heterogeneity coupled with a lack of coherence between clinical and preclinical evidence have fueled speculation about the validity of current conceptualizations of the illness.9-12 Nevertheless, patients exhibit typical symptom progression over time, appear to respond favourably to particular treatment approaches, and despite inconsistencies in diagnostic classification, alternative proposals do not offer improvements in any of these categories.13,14 Undoubtedly, further parsing of schizophrenia and related disorders will be necessary to advance future treatment and diagnostic approaches. In this review, we briefly outline the origins of schizophrenia as it is conceptualized contemporarily by linking ancient medical descriptions with modern clinical perspectives, and discuss why historical accounts of schizophrenia may not accurately reflect its prevalence in the past.

Doing Justice to History

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barrie Sander
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Historical Justice ◽  
Mass Atrocity ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Historical Function

As communities—both local and international—have struggled to make sense of mass atrocity situations, expectations have increasingly been placed on international criminal courts to render authoritative historical accounts of the episodes of mass violence that fall within their purview. Taking these expectations as its point of departure, Doing Justice to History seeks to understand international criminal courts through the prism of their historical function—critically examining how such courts confront the past by constructing historical narratives concerning both the culpability of the accused on trial and the broader mass atrocity contexts in which they are alleged to have participated. The book argues that international criminal courts are host to struggles for historical justice, discursive contests between different actors vying for judicial acknowledgement of their preferred interpretations of the past. By examining these struggles within different institutional settings, the book surfaces the legitimating qualities of international criminal judgments—illuminating, in particular, what tends to be foregrounded and included within, as well as marginalised and excluded from, the narratives of international criminal courts in practice. What emerges from this account is a sense of the significance of thinking about the emancipatory limits and possibilities of international criminal courts in terms of the historical narratives that are constructed and contested both within and beyond the courtroom in different institutional and societal contexts.

Contesting the past on the Chinese Internet: Han-centrism and mnemonic practices

2019 ◽  
pp. 175069801987599
Author(s):  
Yi Wang
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
Online Groups ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
Historical Accounts

Digital technology has brought critical changes to mnemonic practices in China, such as the empowerment of social groups to discover previously underrepresented historical accounts and produce alternative historical narratives. This article examines the mnemonic practices of Han-centrism, a type of ethnic and cultural nationalist movement based on the Chinese Internet. It analyzes how Han-centrist netizens reinterpret national history through their efforts to rediscover forgotten historical narratives of glory and trauma. It suggests that digital technology in China facilitates the emergence of online groups that are dedicated to the struggle for “historical truth” and social-cultural changes, motivated by a crisis of identity. Their mnemonic practices may be partly tolerated by the authoritarian state under some conditions. However, given China’s complicated and conflictual history, such online groups can easily turn the Internet into a battlefield of nationalism. This article highlights the confusion and contestation of memory and identity in contemporary China and the role of digital technology in the long battle.

scholarly journals Representing the Past in Exile: The Politics of National History among Burundian Refugees

Refuge ◽  
1998 ◽  
pp. 22-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Turner
Keyword(s):  
Refugee Camp ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
National History ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Over Time

Life in a refugee camp often brings about the need for explanations among its inhabitants, and historical narratives attempt to supply the answers. But these narratives change over time and several narratives can exist in the same refugee camp simultaneously. This paper argues that the production of historical narratives is closely related to the dominant political ideologies in the camps. It argues that in order to undersltand the changes in representations of the past in the camps, one must analyze the changes in political movements among the Hutu opposition. It shows how the dominant discourse on ethnicity in Burundi has changed since the early 1980s and how this has forced the Hutu oppsition to reformulate its demands. Finally, it contends that regional developments, such as the genocide in Rwanda, have also been influential in the general shift from an essentialist to a pluralist discourse among Burundian Hutu in exile. It concludes that ideological formations among refugees in camps are in no ways isolated from the outside world.

scholarly journals Places of the Heart: Memorials, Public History and the State in Australia Since 1960

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Ashton ◽  
Paula Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Public History ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Public Places ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Over Time

Memorials as a form of public history allow us to chart the complex interactions and negotiations between officially endorsed historical narratives, public memorials, privately sponsored memorials in public spaces and new histories. As Ludmilla Jordanova reminds us, ‘the state… lies at the heart of public history’. And this is evident in the public process of memorialisation. At one level, the state endorses certain narratives within which communities and organisations need to operate if they are to be officially part of the national story and its regional and local variants. Ultimate endorsement for memorials includes listings on heritage registers. Controls over the erection of memorials vary from official policies to process for the issue of permits for their construction in public places or their removal. The state, however, is not monolithic. Permissible pasts evolve over time given shifts in power and social and cultural change. This involves both ‘retrospective commemoration’ and ‘participatory memorialisation’. The presence and power of the past in peoples’ lives, too, means in practice that memorial landscapes will reflect, in truly democratic societies, the values, experiences and dominant concerns of its citizens.

The Suffering of the Perpetrators: The Ethics of Traumatic German Historicity in Karen Bass's Young Adult World War II Novels

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adult World ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.

Colchicum autumnale (Colchicaceae) w okolicach Krakowa – dawne i obecne rozmieszczenie

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
Magdalena Zarzyka-Ryszka
Keyword(s):  
Adjacent Area ◽  
Colchicum Autumnale ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
New Localities ◽  
Present Distribution ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
North Eastern Part

The paper describes the past and present distribution of Colchicum autumnale in the vicinity of Cracow, highlights the role of Stanisław Dembosz (who published the first locality of C. autumnale near Igołomia in 1841). Gives information about the occurrence of C. autumnale in Krzeszowice in the 19th century (reported by Bronisław Gustawicz), presents new localities noted in 2012–2014 in meadows in the north-eastern part of the Puszcza Niepołomicka forest and adjacent area (between the Vistula and Raba rivers), and gives a locality found in Cracow in 2005 (no longer extant).

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Telesca Giuseppe
Keyword(s):  
Structural Analysis ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Past ◽  
Final Goal ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Country Analysis ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Over Time

The ambition of this book is to combine different bodies of scholarship that in the past have been interested in (1) providing social/structural analysis of financial elites, (2) measuring their influence, or (3) exploring their degree of persistence/circulation. The final goal of the volume is to investigate the adjustment of financial elites to institutional change, and to assess financial elites’ contribution to institutional change. To reach this goal, the nine chapters of the book introduced here look at financial elites’ role in different European societies and markets over time, and provide historical comparisons and country and cross-country analysis of their adaptation and contribution to the transformation of the national and international regulatory/cultural context in the wake of a crisis or in a longer term perspective.

Newman's Early Roman Catholic Legacy, 1845-1854

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Michael Shea
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
John Henry Newman ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
European Continent ◽  
The Past ◽  
Immaculate Conception ◽  
Over Time

For the past several decades, scholars have stressed that the genius of John Henry Newman remained underappreciated among his Roman Catholic contemporaries, and in order to find the true impact of his work, one must look to the century after his death. This book takes direct aim at that assumption. Examining a host of overlooked evidence from England and the European continent, Newman’s Early Legacy tracks letters, recorded conversations, and obscure and unpublished theological exchanges to show how Newman’s 1845 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine influenced a cadre of Catholic teachers, writers, and Church authorities in nineteenth-century Rome. The book explores how these individuals then employed Newman’s theory of development to argue for the definability of the new dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary during the years preceding the doctrine’s promulgation in 1854. Through numerous twists and turns, the narrative traces how the theory of development became a factor in determining the very language that the Roman Catholic Church would use in referring to doctrinal change over time. In this way, Newman’s Early Legacy uncovers a key dimension of Newman’s significance in modern religious history.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Downes ◽  
Sally Holloway ◽  
Sarah Randles
Keyword(s):  
Material World ◽  
The Past ◽  
Over Time

This book is about the ways in which humans have been bound affectively to the material world in and over time; how they have made, commissioned, and used objects to facilitate their emotional lives; how they felt about their things; and the ways certain things from the past continue to make people feel today. The temporal and geographical focus of ...

Anti-corruption in History

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Wellbeing ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Legitimate Power ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Over Time

Anticorruption in History is the first major collection of case studies on how past societies and polities, in and beyond Europe, defined legitimate power in terms of fighting corruption and designed specific mechanisms to pursue that agenda. It is a timely book: corruption is widely seen today as a major problem, undermining trust in government, financial institutions, economic efficiency, the principle of equality before the law and human wellbeing in general. Corruption, in short, is a major hurdle on the “path to Denmark”—a feted blueprint for stable and successful statebuilding. The resonance of this view explains why efforts to promote anticorruption policies have proliferated in recent years. But while the subjects of corruption and anticorruption have captured the attention of politicians, scholars, NGOs and the global media, scant attention has been paid to the link between corruption and the change of anticorruption policies over time and place. Such a historical approach could help explain major moments of change in the past as well as reasons for the success and failure of specific anticorruption policies and their relation to a country’s image (of itself or as construed from outside) as being more or less corrupt. It is precisely this scholarly lacuna that the present volume intends to begin to fill. A wide range of historical contexts are addressed, ranging from the ancient to the modern period, with specific insights for policy makers offered throughout.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document