Early Discourse Research Articles

Travel, drama, and domesticity: colonial huswifery in John Fletcher and Philip Massinger's The Sea Voyage

This essay re-evaluates John Fletcher and Philip Massinger's The Sea Voyage (1622) by investigating the often elided role of huswifery (women's domestic labour) in early modern English colonial discourse. First-hand accounts of travel and plantation conventionally present a homo-social world, in which the role of women is either deemphasised or occluded altogether. The potential for fiction to reimagine the conditions necessary for the long-term survival of European colonies overseas was realised in The Sea Voyage, a play which dramatises the crucial and equal role women play in the success of either country estate or plantation.

The Elusive Object of Transformation: English, Theory and Bernstein’s Sociology of Education

Towards the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s discourses of transformation and dissolution confronted English. They began to be discussed as alternative ways of thinking about subject identit...

Learning to be Graceful: Tea in Early Modern Guides for Women's Edification

The focus of this paper is the eighteenth and nineteenth century popular discourse on women's tea practice in guides for women's edification. It argues that in these commercially produced texts we find evidence of the dissemination of information on tea culture to a new social group, namely, wealthy commoner women. Thus, we see that with economic growth came new opportunities for commoner women to participate in cultural practices associated with the elite. Tea was a particularly significant cultural practice as it taught women etiquette and manners. Through learning tea, commoner women could learn to comport themselves in a manner associated with those of higher status. It was a way of displaying their, and their family's, accumulation of capital, both social and economic, and also a way to potentially raise their status through marriage. This early modern discourse on women's tea laid the foundations for the growth of women's tea in modern Japan, a development made possible by the flexibility of the status system as it affected women.

Cotton Mather's Scientific Method for Prayer

Although he became infamous for his support of the judges in the Salem “witch trials,” Cotton Mather made significant contributions to early American discourse in science and spirituality. Since he possessed a unified worldview, Cotton Mather applied the same purposes, assumptions, and methodology to both the natural sciences and to prayer. In doing so, he implicitly taught that truth is holistic and absolute.

“How apply you this?” Conflict and consensus in Coriolanus

The tense political debates that dominate the first three acts of Shakespeare's Coriolanus shed valuable light on a little understood feature of early modern political discourse that is pivotal to the tragic action. In the increasingly heated exchanges that precede the banishment of the play's titular hero political languages of custom, duty and consent are used not only to forestall violent political rupture, as we might anticipate, but also to trigger it. In so doing the play illuminates a vital paradox that has wider implications for early modern studies: the conservative, even reactionary tenor of the appeals to consensus that are a characteristic feature of political discourse in early modern England as in Coriolanus and their potentially radical effects. For in Shakespeare's last Plutarchan Roman play appeals to consensus do not just co-exist with ideological conflict, at a crucial juncture their use by common citizens transforms the aristocratic city-state into a republic with a mixed constitution. The subsequent banishment of Coriolanus as a “traitorous innovator” further illustrates how, in a culture of consensus, defenders of a pre-existing political settlement can find themselves branded traitors should a new accord take shape to which they remain publicly opposed. It also attests to the skill with which the newly created tribunes employ a language of consensus to isolate their political adversary

O discurso da legislação sobre o sujeito deficiente

O estudo interroga os efeitos de sentido que são produzidos no discurso da legislação brasileira considerando as estruturas lingüísticas e discursivas nas formas de nomeação do sujeito deficiente. O corpus discursivo retido para análise foi construído a partir das Constituições e das Leis de diretrizes da educação. O dispositivo teórico está filiado à Análise de Discurso de linha francesa iniciada por Michel Pêcheux nos anos 60. A Análise de Discurso trabalha com a concepção de sujeito constituído por um processo de assujeitamento pela língua e pela ideologia e não com o sujeito psicológico. A noção de repetição/renovação é empregada a nível discursivo porque considera as condições sócio-históricas e ideológicas de produção dos discursos. Os efeitos de sentido dessa noção estão relacionados com o interdiscurso da formação discursiva. A repetição/renovação se organiza no nível interdiscursivo, mas não se limita ao nível interdiscursivo, pode produzir a renovação discursiva ou retornar ao mesmo. Os discursos que produzem sentidos para/pelos locutores não são discursos originais, são discursos fundadores replicados. Dessa forma, o sujeito que os pronuncia não é o seu autor e, aquela não é única ou a melhor maneira de pronunciá-los, embora o sujeito tenha essa ilusão. As formulações que nomeiam o sujeito deficiente no discurso legislativo podem produzir tanto o mesmo como o diferente, um e outro estão relacionados com as condições de produção do discurso, do sentido e do sujeito.

‘I Heard Her Murmurs’: Decoding Narratives of Female Desire in Jane Eyre and Secresy

Ellen Moers, Elaine Showalter, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar all validate the idea that the Brontës could have engaged in a literary dialogue with some of their female predecessors, thereby contributing to early feminist discourse. Reading Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) as a companion text to Eliza Fenwick’s Secresy [sic] (1795) offers a new perspective on various elements in the novel, including female friendship and Bertha’s laugh. Ultimately, this author suggests that, in the featured texts, there is both a narrator and a listener, with the greater responsibility being on the latter. In Jane Eyre and Secresy, Jane and Caroline must decode the language of women imprisoned by the patriarchy and attempt to free them. Caroline is more successful than Jane, not simply because Sibella’s narrative is more coherent than Bertha’s, but because Caroline is more willing than Jane to challenge the prevailing practice of male domination and female repression.

'The Citizens of the Future': Educating the Children of the Jewish East End, c.1885-1939

Scholars interested in British national identity in the early twentieth century have argued that this period was one in which ideas of national belonging became increasingly exclusive. At the same time, many Anglo-Jewish historians have argued that this was a period of increasing hostility towards the Jewish presence in Britain. An examination of the education of Jewish children in London's East End from the beginning of large-scale Jewish immigration in the mid-1880s through to the beginning of the Second World War, however, indicates that the story was more complicated than this. Although there were various early twentieth-century discourses which were ambivalent or hostile towards Jews, the actual policies followed in educating London's Jewish children were open and accommodating, particularly when compared with policies implemented in response to New Commonwealth immigration later in the century. The London County Council, building upon policies established by its predecessor the School Board for London, worked in a variety of ways to allow Jewish pupils to fully participate in the life of their schools without creating conflict with their Jewish background. Oral history and autobiographical evidence indicates that Jewish pupils generally did not feel excluded or alienated by their schooling, but found it to be a largely positive initiation into the national community. This illustrates the importance of examining not only the discourses of national belonging, but also actual practices which helped to define national belonging and the experiences of those affected by those practices.

Fluvial Nation: Rivers, Mobility and Poetry in Early Modern England

AbstractRivers, though essentially natural features of the land, have always invited speculation about human mobility. In the early modern period discourse on rivers provided a focus for crucial de...

La hora de los benditos. Religión, eclesiología y debates estéticos en los años peronistas

Most praiseworthy hypotheses which try to explain the relations between Catholicism and Peronism, specially the reasons of their violent rupture in 1955, have pointed out Peron’s incapacity to understand the logic ruling the Church. Constant unsuccessful demands for explicit support to his government, among other reasons, would have put Catholics in “the others” side in the friend-enemy duality of the early Peronism discourse. The aim of this paper is to analyse the changes that took place in the catholic field during the ten-year peronist government, taking intellectuals as subjects in the complex catholic culture. This paper is based on the hypothesis that these changes were part of the process of secularization which hindered the hierarchy from wielding their full authority in 1955, and from stopping the conflict. The areas in which these changes occurred were varied: from the debates on the ideal relation between Church and State to the debates on the aesthetic the new generation of “catholic” writers -such as Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and Julian Green- offered. This paper intends to demonstrate that these changes were related to a new ecclesiology, which would need to include the catholic public opinion, and to a more humanist anthropology, as in the European personalism thought.

The transition process to post‐working life and its psychosocial outcomes

PurposeThis paper aims to carry out an in‐depth exploration of early retirement processes from a psychosocial perspective, identifying factors that play a relevant role in decisions for leaving work as well as variables involved in retirement adjustment and possible outcomes for retirees.Design/methodology/approachQualitative data from nine focus groups – made up of a total of 78 Spanish early retirees from different sectors of activity (industry, bank/financial services and telecommunications) – were codified and analyzed using the ATLAS.ti 5 program.FindingsThe study highlights the relevance of how organizational exit is carried out (voluntariness, perception of justice, etc.) in relation to the adjustment to retirement. The degree to which the labor market exit implies different types of rupture (psychological contract, identity, professional and personal objectives, way of life, etc.) conditions the adaptation to post‐working life. The importance of social support during the transition process from work to early retirement is pointed out.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is an initial exploratory approach to the early retirement experience in Spain. Although the sample is not representative, the use of qualitative methods allows for the identification of relevant variables to include in future research. Results should be complemented by means of triangulation method, involving contrast between qualitative and quantitative strategies.Practical implicationsOrganizational HRM policies should aim to promote a smoother early exit as well as guarantee “fair play” during the process. Concerning adjustment to early retirement, psychosocial programs aiming to improve coping strategies are needed.Originality/valueThe paper presents a systematic overview of early retirees' discourse, analyzing the role of different variables involved in the transition process from work to early retirement.

Building Houses and Planting Vineyards: The Early Inner-Biblical Discourse on an Ancient Israelite Wartime Curse

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) Notions of building and planting have profound significance in the discourse of biblical literature. One important indication of this is the inner-biblical discourse of a wartime curse, which threatens Israel in the following words, "You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not harvest its fruit" (Deut 28:30). A survey of biblical literature reveals that this particular curse held an especially prominent place in the discourse of ancient Israel and early Judaism.1 Over a dozen biblical texts contain formulations of, or allusions to, this particular curse and its imagery (Amos 5:11; 9:14; Isa 5:1-17; Zeph 1:13; Jer 6:9-15; 29:5,28; 31:4; Deut 20:5-6; 28:30; Isa 62:6-9; 65:21; Ezek 28:26; 36:36). The following study traces the origins and early inner-biblical discourse of the curse in the eighth and seventh centuries E.C.E.2 Placement of the early biblical occurrences of the curse against certain historical moments allows one to see the ways in which various historical processes influenced its different biblical formulations. A study of the historical motivations behind the curse's literary history also points to its attractiveness as a persistent motif in biblical literature. I. NEO-ASSYRIAN MILITARY TACTICS, SIEGE WARFARE, AND THE BACKGROUND OF THE CURSE IN BIBLICAL DISCOURSE Scholars have long noted that the threat of war forms the background of the present curse. It is during wartime that the fulfillment of one's labors, such as the harvesting of a vineyard, is thwarted. Assyrian textual and iconographie sources, however, suggest that a more specific, and interrelated, aspect of Assyrian siege warfare stands behind the curse's imagery. One of the major developments that accompanied the increasing Assyrian presence in the southern Levant during the eighth century was the rise of siege warfare as the dominant mode of battle.3 Assyrian sources indicate that siege warfare increasingly displaced open-field battles beginning in the eighth century. Assyrian iconography of this period increasingly depicts the Assyrians laying siege to a well-fortified city, as opposed to meeting an enemy in an open field. The advent of siege warfare brought with it new military tactics and battle techniques, many of which are alluded to in Assyrian and biblical sources. One of the most devastating military tactics that the Assyrians employed during a siege was the destruction of the agricultural support systems.4 Several Assyrian iconographie sources depict Assyrian soldiers chopping down trees, orchards, and other vegetation surrounding an enemy city. Such imagery is paralleled in the Assyrian textual sources, which often describe the king or the military destroying the vegetation of their enemies. For instance, in the Suhu annals of Shalmaneser III, the king boasts, "We will go and attack the houses of the land of Suhu; we will seize his cities of the steppe; and we will cut down their fruit trees."5 In the Nimrud Monolith, Shalmaneser also boasts, "Ahuni, son of Adini... I shut up in his city, carried off the crops of his (fields), cut down his orchards."6 Such descriptions of the destruction of orchards and other types of vegetation are found in many other Assyrian inscriptions. Scholars have long sought to understand the exact purpose behind the Assyrian destruction of agricultural support systems. Several studies have claimed that the destruction of trees and other vegetation enabled the Assyrians to build additional equipment during a prolonged siege.7 Other scholars have argued that the destruction of vegetation was a "face saving device employed in a report about an uncompleted siege."8 More recent studies, however, argue that a close examination of the order of events in the iconographie sources suggests an alternative explanation. These studies emphasize that the destruction of agricultural support systems in the iconographie sources always occurs during or directly after the successful destruction and looting of a city. …

Jung's Affinity for Buddhism: Misunderstandings and Clarifications

Much of the West's understanding of Jung's thinking about Buddhism comes from reading his essays on Tibetan and Zen Buddhism, in which his commentary focuses upon particular doctrinal teachings of these two forms of Mahayana Buddhism. However, his writings about the figure of the Buddha and the Buddha's earliest sermons, as they are collected in the Pali Canon, are less well known. By looking closely at what Jung had to say about the Buddha, his early discourses, and his comments in other works that have a correspondence with these discourses, we can clarify some common misconceptions about Jung's thinking in this area. Such an examination offers a better understanding of Jung's depth of feeling for the essential teachings of the Buddha. In order to accomplish these aims, the article begins with a discussion of the historical and cultural background in which Jung was writing and his concerns about the West's infatuation with Eastern ideas. Moving from this discussion to an examination of Jung's reflections on Buddhism, taken directly from Jung's writings, conclusions are drawn regarding Jung's hermeneutic method of approaching the Buddhist canon.

Contested Light: Integrity and Power in Eastern Sabah Kadazan Villages

Describing Borneo villagers who follow clearly discerned local and Christian paths in opting for multiple religious belonging embedded in their identity as Kadazan Anglicans and in exploring their and others' views, I argue from a sociologically and historically aware approach, noting the power as well as loving kindness in the creation and expansion of Gospel, Faith and Church. This may enable us to approach the subject of multiple belonging and identity with a certain caution. The need for sociological awareness amid the current hopes for and critiques of inculturation are familiar; that for historical awareness of the “return of the same” perhaps less so. While “talking out of time” has its dangers, these are no more than “talking out of place,” and this paper, therefore, also touches on the early church discourses in both Italy and Britain.

“THE DARKEST IS BEFORE THE BREAK OF DAY”

This article seeks to contribute to recent approaches within Early American Studies, which position the early USA within a hemispheric transnational framework, and which depart from exceptionalist perspectives that view the identity formation of the United States as predominantly a negotiation of intra-national differences and traditions. Proceeding from Malini Schueller and Edward Watts's concept of the “messy beginnings” of American identity, it explores the repercussions of the Haitian Revolution on the identity discourses within the young nation. The article argues that while the Caribbean's image as a site of slavery, social and racial unrest, and miscegenation made it a “sensitive spot” in white republican discourses after the American Revolution, early emancipatory African-American discourses disrupted the racial stereotyping of black people as barbarous and powerless by using the West Indian slave revolt to construct alternative and empowering versions of black identity. The essay investigates the strategies by which African-American authors such as Prince Hall and John Russwurm employ the Caribbean experience of black revolt to imagine an alternative collective history distinct from that of white America.

The Missionary Narrative as Coercive Interrogation: seduction, confession and self‐presentation in women’s ‘letters home’1

This article takes as its starting point the late nineteenth and early twentieth century missionary discourse of feminine self‐denial, and attempts to chart the ways in which it became a subversive theme in women missionaries’ ‘letters home.’ It argues that in the simultaneously public and private act of letter writing, women missionaries created complex sexual and political self‐narratives. By co‐opting the imperial rhetoric of a threatening, violent East, and then setting up their letters as conversations with an invisible interrogator, missionary women repeatedly forced their audiences to discover the various ways in which they had been seduced by this East, and had thereby deviated from accepted feminine norms. In the process, they both reinforced imperial notions of race and civilization and undermined the likewise imperial notion of protective domestic space.

Projecting empire

This article reviews the mapping of Roman Britain, from Roman antiquity to the contemporary age. By reviewing the classical mapping of the British Isles and three particular examples of cartographic representation produced during early modern and modern times, it is argued that the Roman past of Britain has been made to perform particular roles with regard to the creation of early modern and modern imperial discourse. By generating a Roman ancestry for English civilization, the evidence derived from the classical past was used to provide intellectual justification for the colonization of territories abroad, in Ireland, Scotland and the New World. Recent examples of mapping do not challenge the terms through which these ideas of imperial inheritance were defined. Alternative approaches to mapping in the future may seek to communicate different ideas about the relevance and character of Britannia.

The Conscientious Sovereign: Public and Private Rule in Thomas Hobbes's Early Discourses

In midcareer political treatises, Hobbes trades humanism for scientific method and minimizes distinctions between conquest and mutual covenant as grounds of sovereignty. From this, many conclude that arbitrary government is the goal, or the likeliest outcome of Hobbes's science of justice. Three early discourses, however, suggest that the perils of transition from the private rule of a conqueror to the public rule of a law‐bound sovereign are of primary concern. Whether the change is taken as proof of the independent activity of natural law, or as solely attributable to the skills of exemplary sovereigns, it destabilizes any law‐bound ruler who fails to reorient the passions motivating subjects to obey. Lasting stability and comfort can be achieved only when public rule is redefined as the preservation of a cognitive balance, setting fear of the destructive effects of unregulated self‐assertion against hope of the possibility of continuous peace through obedience to law.

THOMAS MICHAEL: The Pristine Dao: Metaphysics in Early Daoist Discourse. (SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture.) xi, 170 pp. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. $21.95.

THOMAS MICHAEL: The Pristine Dao: Metaphysics in Early Daoist Discourse. (SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture.) xi, 170 pp. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. $21.95.

Encompassing the Sacrifice: On the Narrative Construction of the Significant Past in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata

Cardiff University
 
 The Mahābhārata has, for millennia, been pivotal to processes of the construction of ideas of the cosmic and social past in South Asia. The text has also been of critical importance in establishing connections between Vedic and post-Vedic cosmic and social self-understandings. The key theoretical issue that underlies both these roles is of the nature of the relationship between narrative and the construction of forms of significant social knowledge in human social groups. The investigation of this relationship presents challenges to received conceptions of culture, history and structure within the academic disciplines of both Anthropology and History. Thisstudy explores the complex orientation to the past evident in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata. It also addresses the relationship between ideas of the past and issues of self-presentation in the text. I argue that the text constitutes itself as a ‘reflective’ or ‘theoretical’ technology in early South Asian religious discourse and that this strategy is intimately related to antecedent Vedic forms of knowledge and practice. I argue that this understanding of the text can shed light on wider processes in the formation and consolidation of Sanskritic knowledge systems in early South Asia. I also suggest that the example of the Mahābhārata can help refine more general theoretical orientations to the relationship between narrative, history and culture.