Biographical Change Research Articles

More statistical observations on speech lengths in Shakespeare's plays

The new drama analysis program IDAP provided charts containing frequency distributions of speech lengths in Shakespeare's plays. Following previous investigations that showed maximum values at the length of four words for plays produced after the opening of the Globe in 1599, and nine words for plays produced before 1599, the present analysis turned to the four plays The Merry Wives of Windsor, King Henry IV, 2, Much Ado About Nothing and King Henry V which already indicate changes in style. Composite curves not only characterize the four texts as transitional plays that embody the old style expressed by a maximum of nine words, but also impending changes expressed by a maximum of four words while the transition was indicated by the maximum of six words. Statistical results thus confirm the theories of stylistic and biographical changes before 1599 that James Shapiro had put down in his work 1599: A Year in the Life Of William Shakespeare. London: Faber & Faber, 2005.

Connecting for Health

<h3>Introduction</h3> There is an increasing concern about the mental health and mental well-being of university students in the UK. Black university students who report a mental health condition are less likely to complete their course, achieve a first-class or upper second-class degree and progress to further education. This study will document black university students’ accounts of their mental health experiences and perceptions of key turning points of biographical changes to their mental health as they move through the university life cycle. <h3>Methods and analysis</h3> This is a qualitative study. Data will be collected through a biographical narrative interpretive method. Interviews will enable the researcher to study systematically how participants make sense of themselves and account for the complexities of their life experiences, from their own perspectives and language. An interpretative phenomenological approach will be used to offer insights into what black students studying at UK universities report affects their mental health and well-being. Data collection for this study commenced in October 2020. Data collection and analyses will be completed by January 2022. <h3>Ethics and dissemination</h3> Full ethical approval for the current study was obtained from King’s College London Psychiatry, Nursing and Midwifery Research Ethics Subcommittee (Rec Ref: 20489, Project Ref: HR-19/20-20489, 2 October 2020). From the study findings, we aim to contribute to the evidence base, make recommendations for interventions and encourage further study into black student mental health.

Popular Contention and its Impact in Rural China

Protest outcomes in rural China are typically an outgrowth of interaction between activists, sympathetic elites, targets, and the public. Popular agitation first alerts concerned officials to poor policy implementation and may prompt them to take corrective steps. As a result of participating in contention, certain activists feel empowered and become more likely to take part in future challenges, whereas others feel disillusioned and lapse into passivity. In the course of observing collective action, some onlookers are sensitized to protesters’ concerns and public opinion is affected. Without popular action, better implementation, biographical change, and effects on the public would not emerge, but nor would they without involvement from above. Studying the impact of this protest thus sheds light on two issues that have long troubled students of contentious politics: (a) how to get a grip on indirect, mediated consequences; and (b) how to think about causality when change is a result of popular action as well as openings provided by sympathetic elites.

Identity Change

For over a decade, practice-based research degrees in art and design have formed part of the United Kingdom research degree education portfolio, with a relatively rapid expansion in recent years. This route to the PhD still constitutes an innovative, and on occasion a disputed, form of research study and students embarking upon the practice-based doctorate find themselves in many ways undertaking pioneering work. To date there has been a dearth of empirical studies of the actual experiences of such students. This article, based upon qualitative interviews with 50 students based at 25 institutions, represents an attempt to begin to fill this lacuna. The article charts the biographical change which students undergo as they pursue their doctorates. It examines the ways in which they construct, maintain, and modify their identities whilst in the role of ‘creator/maker’, and seek to manage and combine the different modes of being required of a ‘creator’ and a researcher.

'Intelligentsia' as an Ethnic Habitus: The inculcation and restructuring of intelligentsia among Russian Jews

This study employs Bourdieu's concept of 'habitus' as an analytical tool to reveal how the notion of 'intelligentsia' is inculcated, transposed and generative during socialisation, and becomes a constitutive force in Russian Jews' personal and collective identity. This analysis is based on the reading of life histories narrated by 43 Russian Jewish university students who have been living in Israel since the 1990s. The findings reveal four distinct socialisation practices employed by the Russian Jewish family in inculcating a notion of belonging to the intelligentsia, and how this notion was restructured in adolescence in Jewish informal frameworks that became widespread during Perestroika. The study corroborates Bourdieu's thesis about the formative force of early socialisation and verifies the transposal quality of habitus--its ability to adjust to major biographical and social-historical changes. The discussion proposes that considering both kinds of change sheds light on the dynamics of habitus in socialisation.

German Unification as a Turning Point in East German Women's Life Course: Biographical Changes in Work and Family Roles

In order to explore the effects of German unification on the life course of East German women of three age cohorts, 36 biographical interviews were conducted. The purpose of the research was to examine whether unification meant a complete break with the German Democratic Republic's (GDR) standard biography in terms of a voluntary acceptance of West German patterns, or a modification of old patterns based on necessity. Results demonstrate that the historical moment of 1989/90 (the Wende or turning point) has changed the life plans of the three cohorts of women in East Germany in different ways, depending on its timing in their life course. The life patterns of the youngest cohort differ most significantly from the standard biography of the “GDR woman” in that family formation is postponed and employment prioritized over family. Rather than being a complete break with tradition and a voluntary adoption of Western norms, this means a modification of the life course, because the desire to combine work and family continues to dominate.

Probing the Origins of Literary Biography: English and Russian Versions

Tracing the origins of biography to funeral songs and narratological structures used in mourning, this article explores the origins of literary and nonliterary biography, and provides suggestions about the origins of other literary genres which the author sees as coming from biography. A comparative analysis of Greek, Roman, English, and Russian biographical traditions suggests narrative generic invariants which transcend time, geography, religion, and linguistic code, and manifest themselves in the biographical changes through preheroic, heroic, antiheroic, and postheroic stages. The article also explores the impact of dominant social beliefs upon biography and the relationship between society and biography, and addresses the problem of a specific biographical subject—the poet—and the more advanced stages of biographical writing which seem to be found in all cultures.

MODERNIZATION, GENERATIONAL RELATIONS AND THE ECONOMY OF LIFE TIME

A classic study of generation‐specific life situations and life worlds under conditions of high speed modernization, and of the resulting changes in generational relations, life courses and biographies is Thomas and Znaniecki's The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (Thomas/Znaniecki, 1918–1920). In that volume, letters dating from the beginning of this century exchanged between young Polish emigrants to the USA and their parents who remained in Poland are reprinted and interpreted. Re‐analysing materials from their study, the theoretical usefulness of the concepts of “generation” and of “economy of life time” for understanding the relationship between socio‐structural, institutional, and biographical change will be shown.