Advice Books Research Articles

Feast of Burden: Food, Consumption and Femininity in Nineteenth-century England

At the end of the eighteenth century, a remarkable shift occurred in how upper-class women were taught to interact with food. Using conduct manuals and medical advice books, I show how women began to withdraw from the kitchen, taught to ignore the drudgery and burdens of food preparation as inappropriate for their class. This change precipitated a new definition of appropriate feminine behavior. New guidelines identified ladylike behavior with a lack of cooking, with impeccable table manners, and with a willingness to embrace new rituals such as the procession into the dining room. Women had to assume a very different role at dinner, one laden with new ceremonial emphasis. The etiquette surrounding this change demanded a strict adherence that made the display of one’s manners an indication of one’s morality, and the potential for embarrassment became so high that women were taught how to control their food consumption in order to avoid difficult or embarrassing dinner situations.

Skipping Breakfast to Save the Nation: A Different Kind of Dietary Determinism in Early Twentieth-Century China

ABSTRACTDietary advice that advocates of scientific nutrition offered to Chinese people in the early twentieth century often encouraged them to adopt a Western-style regimen prominently featuring meat, wheat, and dairy. Some East Asian intellectuals, however, promoted science based dietary reforms that did not require a change in the composition of their diets. This article examines one example of such an alternative perspective, a book of dietary advice called On Eliminating Breakfast for Health and to Prevent Aging (Jiankang bulao feizhi zhaoshi lun 健 康不老廢止朝食論), based on a Japanese original and published by the Chinese scholar Jiang Weiqiao 蔣維喬 in 1915.

By means of seduction: pickup-artists and the cultural history of erotic persuasion

ABSTRACTThis article is about the cultural heritage of a men’s movement, called PickUp, which gained momentum in the United States during the 1990s. It finds that the seduction techniques they use can be traced back to historical seducers. The discourse of seduction is reconstructed by identifying four stages in seduction culture from early modernity to the present. Thus contextualized, the article interpretatively examines three cases of three famous seducers: Don Juan, Giacomo Casanova, and Søren Kierkegaard, while highlighting their changing masculinities as connected to class position and affectual control. Providing insights into particular social constellations and emotional dynamics of seduction, the study finds a number of ‘social tropes’ that play a pivotal role in all the scenes portrayed. Moreover, they have strong structural equivalencies within the actively applied means of seduction that the PickUp-Artist’s methodology prescribes, which is outlined in several advice books that are part of the contemporary self-help discourse. The conclusion comes back to seduction’s complicated history, the theory of social tropes, and problematizes the changing faces of masculinity within them.

Books on Ethics as Instructive Texts and an Unknown Copy of Ahmed Mürşidî Efendi's Book on Ethics

Suggestion or admonition means advice. In literature, works which give advices on religion, communal living, occupations and management services or show the way to be a good person and be successful in life are called advice letters (pend-nâme). Advice letters are advice books. They are the rules that mark out how to be a good person in society and direct the human life in the direction of the commands and prohibitions of Islam. These rules have been formed in accordance with the Islamic commands, and to an extent they are the prohibitions to be obeyed. It is seen that such works have been written in almost every era of classical Turkish literature. Kutadgu Bilig, Atabetu'l-Hakâyik and Divan-i Lugati't-Turk as the first works of Islamic literature are like advice books in terms of the subjects and messages they carry. Even Gokturk inscriptions are like an advice book with its messages that represent a historical experience. Two significant works of this field are the books on ethics written by Guvahi and Ahmed Mursidi Efendi. These works are particular source for linguistic area as they include mottos along with proverbs, idioms, anecdotes and fairy tales. The works of Ahmed Mursidi Efendi known as poet of books on ethics have many written and printed copies. A written copy of this work was explored by one of our students. This copy which consists of 201 sheets and 7265 couplets was copied by Muhammed Nuri Efendi from Burdur. An artisan in Burdur keeps it.

18世紀における子どもの性と教育的配慮 : 英・仏のマスターベーションについての教導書を中心に

18世紀における子どもの性と教育的配慮 : 英・仏のマスターベーションについての教導書を中心に

Co-sleeping versus sleep training: publications with advice for parents

Introducción. Uno de los temas centrales en la crianza de los hijos, y que se sabe tiene muchas posiciones diferentes en las publicaciones, es el sueño en los bebés.Objetivo. Describir las diferentes posiciones de las publicaciones que ofrecen asesoramiento a los padres chilenos sobre el sueño en bebés durante las últimas dos décadas.Materiales y métodos. Se seleccionaron 63 publicaciones disponibles para su compra o de referencia en Chile de las dos últimas décadas, las cuales dan consejos a los padres en relación al sueño de los bebés. Estas publicaciones se analizaron para luego caracterizarlas en relación a las posiciones de colecho y entrenamiento del sueño.Resultados. Se encontró que el 65% de las publicaciones analizadas aconseja, de alguna forma, el colecho y el 76% menciona el entrenamiento del sueño, expresando una tendencia a defender o aceptar la estrategia conocida como “rutinas positivas” en lugar del “dejar llorar”.Conclusiones. Los padres chilenos se enfrentan con información contradictoria: existe un debate sobre la regulación del sueño infantil en Iberoamérica y la opinión de los expertos difiere de la encontrada en muestras anglosajonas.

Kalila and Dimna as One of the Traditional Antecedents of Modern Classifications of Values

Kalila and Dimna, which is considered as one of the classic works of the Eastern literature, is a political morality and advice book that is still in effect thanks to the knowledge of wisdom it offers. The aim of this study is to examine this work according to the Western classifications of values (UNESCO, Rokeach, Schwartz, Spranger) since it sheds light on the present age with the wisdom knowledge it holds although it was penned centuries ago. The study was designed as qualitative research and data collection was done with the four value classifications above. During the analysis of the study data, percentage and frequency analyses were used under the content analysis. The results of the study indicate that Kalila and Dimna includes all the values contained in abovementioned classifications originating from the Western civilization.

Viktor Krupa, as I Knew Him

Abstract The paper is dedicated to Viktor Krupa, the famous linguist and orientalist as well as long-time friend and colleague of the author of the paper that celebrates his life anniversary – the eightieth birthday. The author deals not only with numerous book publications and studies of Viktor Krupa focused first of all on important linguistic theoretical, typological and orientalist works, but he also analyses his other books. Viktor Krupa is an author of numerous ethnological and folkloristic works, translator of more than 100 books from the world as well as oriental languages and he published many travel and adventure books. The author speaks also about some milestones in the life of Viktor Krupa and he tries to characterise the nature, which enabled Viktor Krupa to become one of the most significant authors of the contemporary Slovak and European oriental studies and linguistics as a whole.

Edith Wharton in Washington, 2–4 June 2016

Edith Wharton in Washington, 2–4 June 2016

Habitat’s Scenographic Imagination

Habitat, the furniture and household goods retail chain, has been characterized as showing an ‘eclectic’ approach towards design styles and promoting a ‘lifestyle’ attitude towards domestic interiors. In an attempt to fill out these two terms and to explore the elusive (and allusive) content of Habitat’s eclectic lifestyle this article analyses the domestic scenography presented in three arenas of display that can be seen as being authored by Habitat: the shops themselves; the annual catalogues; and the advice books that were published under the authorship of Terence Conran and promoted and sold by Habitat (although also available more widely). I suggest that one way of recognizing the affective content of Habitat’s scenographic imagination is to regard it as constituting a genre that incorporates variety yet also mobilizes a particular set of domestic promises.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Who Want to Do Ecological Restoration

We’re surrounded by do-gooders who write, lecture, post, and generally harangue us on how to be better people, partners, millionaires, and personal fitness champs. The New York Times even publishes a weekly bestsellers listing of advice books. But what about us? What nuggets can move us from being merely waterers of native plant seedlings to a movement that is playing its role in saving the world? What habits must be ingrained to keep us moving towards this oft-cited goal?

Sun hats, sundowners, and tropical hygiene: Managing settler bodies and minds in British East and South-Central Africa, 1890–1939

The protection of white settler bodies and minds against the tropical climate was a central concern in Britain’s African territories. Despite substantial medical advances from the 1890s onwards, and the continuing colonial narrative of European medical power and superiority, white settlers in the tropics were viewed as profoundly vulnerable throughout the early twentieth century. Tropical hygiene advice and equipment developed in response, with every aspect of daily life commented upon by experts in guidebooks and medical advice books. This article explores how white settlers in British East and South-Central Africa, primarily Kenya and Rhodesia, negotiated and adapted the highly prescriptive body management recommendations found in the advice literature. It considers three strands of advice: dress, ‘sanitary segregation’, and ‘moral’ matters (including alcohol consumption, sexual behaviour, personal hygiene, and mental wellbeing). It argues that settlers did not simply replicate professional advice, and that, although influenced by recommended hygienic measures, they managed their bodies in far more dynamic and variable ways, adapting advice to produce individualised body management regimes.

Empowering Girls Through Sport? Sports Advice Books for Young Female Readers

Advice books by female athletes are among the top selling sports books for young readers in the US Though they have received little attention to date, sports advice books are important to examine because of how they function as a form of conduct manual instructing girls in specific understandings of female identity. Implying that girls face unique challenges in a sexist society, sports advice books articulate a feminist concern with girls’ well-being and present themselves as empowering girls by enabling girls’ self-transformation. Examining the ways that girls are urged to transform, this study interrogates the subjectivity and world view sports advice books offer to readers within the wider context of globalization and neoliberalism. It argues that the postfeminist construction of female subjectivity within girls’ sports advice books operates to support ideologies that do more to limit, than liberate, girls.

National and Racial Images of the Sexual \u2018Other\u2019 in the German-Speaking Countries (1950s\u20131970s)

During the ‘long’ sexual revolution—or better, sexual liberalization and sexualization—there was a broad discussion about the national origins of sexual images as well as modes of behaviour in the German-speaking countries. Writers, journalists and scientists argued that especially American, French and Swedish images could have an important impact on the changes of their own ‘sexual climate’. They also discussed about the sexuality of ‘black people’ and the differences between their habits and the national sex culture. This article shows and compares the different national sex images of women and their reception in the ‘German’ and ‘Austrian’ popular sex discourse. Using examples of weekend and youth magazines, popular advice books and films, it asks why these national images were discussed and what their social, cultural and political context was.

Get out the vote: how to increase voter turnout

Get Out the Vote! Is a practical guide for anyone trying to mobilize voters or organize at the grass roots. Unlike authors of other campaign advice books, Donald Green and Alan Gerber root their work firmly in rigorous science. Their recommendations emerge from thorough experiments conducted in real electoral settings, examining the impact and effectiveness of door-to-door canvassing, telephone calls, direct mail, and other campaign tactics. Since 1998 the authors have conducted research in over a dozen states, studying a wide range of federal, state, and municipal elections. Their book connects theory with practice, informing campaign professionals and local organizers as well as students of electoral politics. They discover that many GOTV tactics used by campaign managers and political consultants are less effective than is often believed. The authors, relying on rigorous and systematic research, challenge much of the conventional wisdom about what works and what doesn't in the political campaigns. The authors' applied form of political science has won acclaim from scholars and earned the attention of campaign professionals and journalists. This book presents their result for a non-academic audience interested in putting campaign research into practice, and the findings will be surprising to many. Get Out the Vote! will help both consultants and the candidates who use their services better understand the efficacy of campaign methods. It is essential reading in an age of electronic communication, professional electioneering and voter apathy.

Sex under socialism: From emancipation of women to normalized families in Czechoslovakia

Sexuality in communist Czechoslovakia was to a large extent informed by an expert discourse of sexology. Analyzing sexual advice books published by sexologists for the general public in the 1950s and 1970s, I show that sexual discourses were formed in a reversed order of liberalization vs. conservatism as compared to the West. While writing on sex in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s stressed gender equality and emancipation of women, the texts published in the 1970s insisted on the necessity of gender hierarchy for a successful marriage and defended privatized families isolated from larger society. I link these shifts to the changing character of the regime which moved from accentuating public, work and equality in the 1950s to emphasizing private, family and authority in the 1970s. In my analysis, I use the concepts of psy-ences ( Rose, 1992 , 1996 ) and intimacy at the intersection of the public/private divide ( Berlant and Warner, 1998 ), while also accounting for their blind spots. Where Rose insists that psy-ences have operated exclusively in modern liberal capitalist societies, I argue that a psy-ence of sexology also co-constituted social life under state socialism. My article analyzes Czechoslovak sexual and gender trajectories and accounts for differences from and convergences with 20th-century western histories of sexuality. I critically examine Czechoslovak sexological discourses in their changing historical settings to show that there was not one ‘communist period,’ even in one country. Rather, there existed varying modes of framing sexuality at different times.

The ‘Fair Sex’: Skin Colour, Gender and Narratives of Embodied Identity in Eighteenth‐Century British Non‐Fiction

AbstractDuring the eighteenth century the phrase ‘fair sex’ was a pervasive feature of contemporary writing intended for female consumption and texts that discussed issues concerning women. Even today, scholars still employ this expression to characterise experiences of femininity during this period. This article extrapolates the embodied meanings of ‘fair sex’ from a range of popular non‐fictional printed discourses, including medical advice books, conduct literature, advice guides and cosmetic manuals. Specifically, it examines how, why and in what ways ‘fairness’ was conceptualised as a mutually reinforcing moral, physiological, aesthetic and social ideal for elite British women during the eighteenth century.

Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early American Republic by Cassandra Good

Reviewed by: Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early American Republic by Cassandra Good C. Dallett Hemphill (bio) KEY WORDS Sex, Gender, Friendship, Family, Relationships Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early American Republic. By Cassandra Good. ( New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 289. Cloth, $34.95.) Cassandra Good begins and ends her book with references to the movie When Harry Met Sally (1989) and its seemingly age-old proposition that “men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.” This was a belief held among elites in the early republic as in our own day. And yet Good finds that many succeeded in building male–female friendships, and that these relationships were important and fulfilling for all involved. In her introduction, Good defines what she means by friendships between men and women and the ways in which this type of relationship has a history. She then gives in-depth examples of three such friendships in the first chapter, before turning to an analysis of their cultural contexts. In five central chapters, she explains how novel and advice writers had little to say about male–female friendships other than that they were risky; compares this lack of treatment with the era’s more ample discussions of the pitfalls and proper conduct of romantic relationships; explores how men and women positioned their friendships in public given these uncertain rules; and shows how they maintained their relationships through exchanges of letters and gifts. The final chapter explores how friendships between men and women at the apex of early national society allowed women access to power in the form of influence, patronage, and political information. Good is deeply conversant with the literatures on related subjects (and [End Page 399] sheds new light on marriage and same-sex friendship), while carving out a new area of inquiry. A caveat is that Good’s subjects are confined to the literate, white, middling and affluent sort who possessed the means and literacy to read the advice books and novels she discusses and to correspond with one another. This reader wonders whether she too readily eliminates ordinary folk. On the other hand, Good’s exploration of the relationship between prescriptive literature and behavior is one of the book’s strengths. She finds that advice books and novels had plenty to say about conduct with persons of the opposite sex, but always in the context of courtship and marriage. Given that context, commentators were pessimistic about the possibility of safe friendships between men and women. Good thus argues that the men and women she studies were undertaking a sort of cultural experimentation when they formed and maintained friendships with each other, making up their own rules as they went along. She pays close attention to the relevant models, emotional expressions, and language available to her subjects. She compares these friendships to different family relations, carefully distinguishing throughout the book, for example, between male–female friendship and courtship leading to marriage. While acknowledging that one could evolve into the other, Good insists that male–female friendships had their own benefits. Given the law of coverture, it is relatively easy for Good to distinguish male–female friendships from marriage. Friendship was by nature egalitarian; unlike marriage, one party did not have rights or mastery over the other. She might have done more to consider the unequal situations of men and women more generally, especially in public. Good describes the pains men and women had to take to observe proprieties in their friendships; these had to be open to public observation. But there were real differences in the constraints on men’s and women’s behavior in public. Good occasionally refers to friendships in which women depended on men for help, from widows raising sons to the simple need for an escort. These needs were related to power differences between the genders, and Good might have explored more deeply the effects of those power differences on their friendships. The other and more salient model for male–female friendship was that between siblings. Good acknowledges this, but gives the comparison scant treatment. She notes that men and women...

Preface

preface This special issue of Feminist Studies presents an eclectic view of women ’s friendships from across Western history and from several different cultures. Several of the articles question whether identity or sameness is a prerequisite for friendship and ask what friendships across difference look like, including charting the difficulties of making and sustaining such friendships. The articles in this issue contrast the variety and functions of women’s friendships with the narcissistic masculinist ideals of classical Western thought about friendship in which friends serve as reflections of a person—typically a male and upper-class person. The authors in this issue present women’s friendships that are more pragmatic and more vulnerable and that contend more fully with difference. Some authors reflect on the high expectations placed on friendship within Second Wave feminism in the United States, noting how competition and feelings of betrayal can suffuse friendships; others trace more autonomous , productive, and forgiving contemporary visions of friendship. The issue opens with Susan Van Dyne’s archival study of student friendships in a pioneering US women’s college, revealing how love, flirtation , and desire between women was expressed in Smith College’s class of 1883. In another historical study, sociologist Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen contrasts the narratives of Norwegian girls and young women from the late nineteenth century with those of present-day women and girls, noting differences between rural and urban contexts. Ivy Schweitzer 272Preface surveys classical Western masculinist ideals of friendship from Aristotle to Montaigne and traces the transformation of this tradition into the present quest for equality without hierarchy. Alexandra Verini addresses models of female friendship in the European Middle Ages, arguing that Christine de Pizan and Margery Kempe illustrate a “viable female alternative ” to classical models. The vulnerability of women’s close relationships comes to the fore in Nancy K. Miller’s moving elegies for deceased feminist friends, while Judith Taylor explores the more open and autonomous friendships adumbrated in contemporary fictions by Zadie Smith and Jillian and Mariko Tamaki, themes also addressed in Judith Kegan Gardiner’s review essay of advice books on friendships between women and other studies of women’s friendships. Richa Nagar’s interview articulates an ideal of feminist friendships that “enable continuous evolution of our beings and mindsets . . . without feeling threatened by one another.” If our articles focus on the close bonds between women, our News and Views pieces in this issue point to collective ties formed in response to political and social threats: Dalia Abd El-Hameed and Nadine Naber describe responses by Egyptian feminists to government crackdowns, and our forum “Orlando: Observances” offers a selection of first-person accounts from vigils organized to mark the massacre at the Pulse nightclub this summer. This issue also presents internal negotiations of identity, identification, and body image in Stephanie Han’s short story and in the vivid and bold transgressions of Wangechi Mutu’s collages as described by Sarah Jane Cervenak. In “‘Abracadabra’: Intimate Inventions by Early College Women,” Susan Van Dyne takes us on a fascinating journey into the “the early formation of a homosocial student culture and the bonds between women” at Smith College in the late nineteenth century. Mining an archive of diaries, letters, photos, and other materials from a group of friends from the class of 1883, she focuses on two kinds of written evidence: one, the inchoate expressions of homoerotic desire in one student’s journal at a moment when “lesbian” did not yet exist as an identity, and the other, a love poem to two students, written as a parody by one of their women professors, but which reverberated beyond the college and ignited male opprobrium. In her discussions of these developments, rather than ascribing identity, Van Dyne navigates the “messiness” of the archive, keeping her eye trained on the “only partially intelligible strategies of self-representation that can’t be translated or reduced to the modern Preface 273 language of sexual self-recognition.” What is most surprising in her account is not that young women would feel desire for one another, nor that male peers or authorities might find this threatening, but that the fabric of the students’ homosocial community had such resilience, nurturing...

Preface

preface This special issue of Feminist Studies presents an eclectic view of women ’s friendships from across Western history and from several different cultures. Several of the articles question whether identity or sameness is a prerequisite for friendship and ask what friendships across difference look like, including charting the difficulties of making and sustaining such friendships. The articles in this issue contrast the variety and functions of women’s friendships with the narcissistic masculinist ideals of classical Western thought about friendship in which friends serve as reflections of a person—typically a male and upper-class person. The authors in this issue present women’s friendships that are more pragmatic and more vulnerable and that contend more fully with difference. Some authors reflect on the high expectations placed on friendship within Second Wave feminism in the United States, noting how competition and feelings of betrayal can suffuse friendships; others trace more autonomous , productive, and forgiving contemporary visions of friendship. The issue opens with Susan Van Dyne’s archival study of student friendships in a pioneering US women’s college, revealing how love, flirtation , and desire between women was expressed in Smith College’s class of 1883. In another historical study, sociologist Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen contrasts the narratives of Norwegian girls and young women from the late nineteenth century with those of present-day women and girls, noting differences between rural and urban contexts. Ivy Schweitzer 272Preface surveys classical Western masculinist ideals of friendship from Aristotle to Montaigne and traces the transformation of this tradition into the present quest for equality without hierarchy. Alexandra Verini addresses models of female friendship in the European Middle Ages, arguing that Christine de Pizan and Margery Kempe illustrate a “viable female alternative ” to classical models. The vulnerability of women’s close relationships comes to the fore in Nancy K. Miller’s moving elegies for deceased feminist friends, while Judith Taylor explores the more open and autonomous friendships adumbrated in contemporary fictions by Zadie Smith and Jillian and Mariko Tamaki, themes also addressed in Judith Kegan Gardiner’s review essay of advice books on friendships between women and other studies of women’s friendships. Richa Nagar’s interview articulates an ideal of feminist friendships that “enable continuous evolution of our beings and mindsets . . . without feeling threatened by one another.” If our articles focus on the close bonds between women, our News and Views pieces in this issue point to collective ties formed in response to political and social threats: Dalia Abd El-Hameed and Nadine Naber describe responses by Egyptian feminists to government crackdowns, and our forum “Orlando: Observances” offers a selection of first-person accounts from vigils organized to mark the massacre at the Pulse nightclub this summer. This issue also presents internal negotiations of identity, identification, and body image in Stephanie Han’s short story and in the vivid and bold transgressions of Wangechi Mutu’s collages as described by Sarah Jane Cervenak. In “‘Abracadabra’: Intimate Inventions by Early College Women,” Susan Van Dyne takes us on a fascinating journey into the “the early formation of a homosocial student culture and the bonds between women” at Smith College in the late nineteenth century. Mining an archive of diaries, letters, photos, and other materials from a group of friends from the class of 1883, she focuses on two kinds of written evidence: one, the inchoate expressions of homoerotic desire in one student’s journal at a moment when “lesbian” did not yet exist as an identity, and the other, a love poem to two students, written as a parody by one of their women professors, but which reverberated beyond the college and ignited male opprobrium. In her discussions of these developments, rather than ascribing identity, Van Dyne navigates the “messiness” of the archive, keeping her eye trained on the “only partially intelligible strategies of self-representation that can’t be translated or reduced to the modern Preface 273 language of sexual self-recognition.” What is most surprising in her account is not that young women would feel desire for one another, nor that male peers or authorities might find this threatening, but that the fabric of the students’ homosocial community had such resilience, nurturing...