Illiterate Audience Research Articles

Iconoclasm – A Road to Modernization?

My point of departure is a conflict over images in the churches in Bergen, Norway in the 1560s, around 30 years after the Reformation. This introduced a brief period of iconoclasm in Denmark–Norway, inspired by Reformed theology. Soon, however, mainstream Lutheranism took over and statues and pictures were reintroduced. The different views on images in the two Protestant confessions – Lutheranism and Calvinism – are, of course, well known, as are also the various theological arguments in the debate between them. More interesting is the practical question of how it was possible to manage without images when addressing a largely illiterate audience. Here, Lutherans seemed to have basically the same attitude as Catholics, although they differed in the exact way the images were used. Both were ‘mass religions’, aiming at including the whole population and using whatever means necessary for this purpose. By contrast, Calvinism was an intellectual and elite religion, creating tight communities of true believers in accordance with the belief in Predestination. It has therefore been regarded as an important factor in modernization theories, from Weber’s explanation of capitalism to later theories of the link between Reformed Protestantism and modern science. Although there is little to indicate that pictures are an obstacle to science, the intellectual and elitist character of Reformed Protestantism may have contributed to the scientific revolution in the early modern period. Generally, the history of iconoclasm illustrates the fact that images are a powerful medium, particularly when most people are illiterate, and that a religion that abstains from this medium is faced with the challenge of finding a replacement for it.

Reducing Wild Meat Sales and Promoting Local Food Security: Lessons Learnt from a Behavior Change Campaign in Yangambi, Democratic Republic of Congo

Marketing strategies to promote behavioral change are increasingly used to reduce the unsustainable use of wild meat. One of the mayor keys for success of behavior change campaigns lies in the choice of the channel for communication and the messaging. In this research, we present a behavioral change campaign implemented in Yangambi, Democratic Republic of Congo framed around an integrated conservation and development objective: improve food security in rural communities, reduce the unsustainable use of wildlife for food and promote locally grown pork and chicken. The campaign was co-developed based on the research team’s knowledge of the hunting system in the study area and the participation of key local stakeholders (village leaders, hunters and their families). It used participatory community theater, various printed materials, radio and face to face interactions. We evaluated the efficiency and clarity of messaging for channels used through semi-structured interviews with hunters, households and wildlife traders. We found that participatory community theater resulted in increased clarity and understanding among hunters and households. Moreover, community theater promoted word-of-mouth communication that reached an audience well beyond the location where the theater was held. Messages that were framed positively and used amusing channels of communication triggered positive receptiveness by our audience. Using local languages, avoiding written materials for illiterate audiences, and using repetitive means of communication may be among the strategies that could help increase the clarity of communication messages, particularly for sensitive topics such as this one. Our work calls for more lessons learnt from the ground about the most appropriate communication channels and messages, keeping in mind the social and cultural background of the audience, and ensuring that messages trigger emotions that lead to the desired changes.

Teológiai érvelések, hitoktatás és misztériumábrázolás a 18. századi csíksomlyói ferences színpadon (2.)

In the grammar school of Csíksomlyó (Șumuleu Ciuc), a Franciscan site of Marian pilgrimage in Transylvania, 104 school plays were produced by the pupils between 1721 and 1786. These were predominantly mysteries in the vernacular: Good-Friday Passions, Judgement-Day Dramas and the odd play for Corpus Christi Day or the Assumption. This annual tradition of education as well as pastoral care preserved the characteristics of mediaeval West European mysteries for the longest time and in the farthest geographical location. This paper addresses the question of how these mysteries presented theological or dogmatic facts as staged Poor Man’s Bibles, that is, theatrical catechesis. The first part examines the 106 types of New Testament scenes and their 71 Old Testament antitypes. The following Roman Catholic dogmas were staged in Csíksomlyó: the Trinity; the Creation of the World; the Fall of the Devils; the Fall of Humanity; the Incarnation of the Christ (the so-called Heavenly Trial, Proces de Paradis); the Immaculate Conception, Virginity, Assumption, and Intercession of the Virgin Mary (Maria Advocata); the doctrine of the Eucharist. The theological teachings were cast in the form of human and allegorical figures and presented by the grammar-school students to a numerous and predominantly illiterate audience on a three-level stage, in mother-tongue performances of illustrative verse, in a style adequately sacred as well as easy to comprehend.

MANTRA: development and localization of a mobile educational health game targeting low literacy players in low and middle income countries

BackgroundMobile technology is increasingly important for delivering public health interventions to remote populations. This research study developed, piloted, and assessed a serious game for mobile devices that teaches geohazard, maternal, and neonatal health messages. This unique mHealth intervention aimed at low-literacy audiences in low resource settings is part of the Maternal and Neonatal Technologies in Rural Areas (MANTRA) project: Increasing maternal and child health resilience before, during, and after disasters using mobile technology in Nepal.MethodsThe serious game was developed through a co-creation process between London and Kathmandu based researchers by email and video-calling, and face-to-face with local stakeholders in Nepal. The process identified core needs, developed appropriate pictograms and mechanics, and tailored the pilot serious game to the local cultural context. Evaluations and feedback from end users took place in rural villages and suburban Kathmandu in Province Three. Field evaluation sessions used mixed methods. Researchers observed game play and held focus group discussions to elicit qualitative feedback and understand engagement, motivation, and usability, and conducted a paired pre- and post-game knowledge assessment.ResultsThe MANTRA serious game is contextualized to rural Nepal. The game teaches 28 learning objectives in three modules: maternal health, neonatal health, and geohazards, through picture matching with immediate audio and visual feedback. User feedback from focus groups demonstrated high engagement, motivation, and usability of the game.ConclusionsThis MANTRA study is a unique mHealth intervention of a serious game to teach core health and geohazards messages to low-literacy audiences in rural Nepal. Although the mobile game is tailored for this specific context, the developmental process and insights could be transferable to the development of other games-based interventions and contextualized for any part of the world. Successfully targeting this low-literacy and illiterate audience makes the MANTRA development process the first of its kind and a novel research endeavor with potential for widespread impact and adoption following further game development.Trial registrationThis project was approved by the University College London Ethics Committee in London, United Kingdom [10547/001], and the Nepal Health Research Council in Kathmandu, Nepal [Reg. No. 105/2017]. All participants provided informed written consent.

Teológiai érvelések, hitoktatás és misztérium- ábrázolás a 18. századi csíksomlyói ferences színpadon (1.)

In the grammar school of Csíksomlyó (Șumuleu Ciuc), a Franciscan site of Marian pilgrimage in Transylvania, 104 school plays were produced by the pupils between 1721 and 1786. These were predominantly mysteries in the vernacular: Good-Friday Passions, Judgement-Day Dramas and the odd play for Corpus Christi Day or the Assumption. This annual tradition of education as well as pastoral care preserved the characteristics of mediaeval West European mysteries for the longest time and in the farthest geographical location. This paper addresses the question of how these mysteries presented theological or dogmatic facts as staged Poor Man’s Bibles, that is, theatrical catechesis. The first part examines the 106 types of New Testament scenes and their 71 Old Testament antitypes. The following Roman Catholic dogmas were staged in Csíksomlyó: the Trinity; the Creation of the World; the Fall of the Devils; the Fall of Humanity; the Incarnation of the Christ (the so-called Heavenly Trial, Proces de Paradis); the Immaculate Conception, Virginity, Assumption, and Intercession of the Virgin Mary (Maria Advocata); the doctrine of the Eucharist. The theological teachings were cast in the form of human and allegorical figures and presented by the grammar-school students to a numerous and predominantly illiterate audience on a three-level stage, in mother-tongue performances of illustrative verse, in a style adequately sacred as well as easy to comprehend.

MANTRA: a serious game improving knowledge of maternal and neonatal health and geohazards in Nepal

Abstract Background Mobile technology is increasingly important for delivering public health interventions to remote populations. This research study developed, piloted, and assessed a serious game for mobile devices that teaches geohazard, maternal, and neonatal health messages. This unique mHealth intervention aimed at low-literacy audiences in low resource settings is part of the Maternal and Neonatal Technologies in Rural Areas (MANTRA) project: Increasing maternal and child health resilience before, during, and after disasters using mobile technology in Nepal. Specifically, we assess impact of the serious game to improve knowledge gain in our target audience. Methods Co-creation with the MANTRA team and local stakeholders in Nepal identified core needs, developed appropriate pictograms and mechanics, and tailored the pilot game to the local cultural context. Through picture matching with immediate audio and visual feedback, the game teaches 28 learning objectives in three modules: maternal health, neonatal health, and geohazards. To assess the game, 35 participants were recruited in Kathmandu and villages in Kavre district. Sessions consisted of pre-test assessment, playing the game, post-test assessment, and a focus group to elicit qualitative feedback. Results The knowledge assessment quantified knowledge gain. Overall, the group averaged a normalized 6.8 point improvement (p = 0.000022). Change in the geohazard module was 9.5 points (p = 0.001), followed by maternal health (7.4 points, p = 0.007), and neonatal health (4.3 points, p = 0.83). Four learning objectives had statistically significant change (p < 0.05). Feedback demonstrated high engagement, motivation, and usability of the game. Conclusions This MANTRA study is a unique mhealth intervention of a serious game to teach core health and hazards messages to low-literacy audiences in rural Nepal. The pilot intervention demonstrated statistically significant knowledge improvement among participants. Key messages The pilot MANTRA mobile serious game intervention is a novel idea, to bring public health knowledge to difficult to reach vulnerable populations, including often ignored illiterate audiences. The pilot MANTRA mobile serious game intervention demonstrated a statistically significant knowledge improvement of geohazard, maternal, and neonatal health learning objectives among participants.

Äsopische geschichten in Meisterlied, Spruchgedicht und comedi

Abstract Hans Sachs, who, in upwards of 6000 poetic works, brought literature to the German-speaking urban middle and lower classes, adapted for his largely illiterate audience lengthy portions of Steinhöwel’s ›Esopus‹, including the ›Life of Aesop‹, turning them into Meisterlieder, Spruchgedichte, and a comedi. The ›Life‹ was the source, for one, of selected episodes which he could each rework adeptly for easy listening as individual shorter texts. In the work he wrote for the stage, ›Esopus der fabeldichter‹, moreover, he used his skill as dramatist to link a few episodes from the ›Life‹ and make of them a coherent plot with scenes not just strung loosely together, but united by an overarching theme.

Teaching Guatemalan traditional birth attendants about obstetrical emergencies

IntroductionGuatemala's Maternal Mortality Rate is 65th highest in the world at 120 deaths per 100,000 births. Contributing to the problem is traditional birth attendants (TBAs) attend most births yet lack knowledge about obstetrical emergencies. Government trainings in existence since 1955 have not changed TBA knowledge. Government trainings are culturally insensitive because they are taught in Spanish with written material, even though most TBAs are illiterate and speak Mayan dialects. The purpose of the observational study was to evaluate the effect of an oral training, that was designed to be culturally sensitive in TBAs’ native language, on TBAs’ knowledge of obstetrical emergencies. Methodsone hundred ninety-one TBAs participated. The study employed a pretest-posttest design. A checklist was used to compare TBAs' knowledge of obstetrical emergencies before and after the training. Findingsthe mean pretest score was 5.006±SD 0.291 compared to the mean posttest score of 8.549±SD 0.201. Change in knowledge was a P value of 0.00. Discussionresults suggest an oral training that was designed to be culturally sensitive in the native language improved TBAs' knowledge of obstetrical emergencies. Future trainings should follow a similar format to meet the needs of illiterate audiences in remote settings.

The Invention of the Oral: Print Commerce and Fugitive Voices in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Paula McDowell

Reviewed by: The Invention of the Oral: Print Commerce and Fugitive Voices in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Paula McDowell Jennifer L. Airey (bio) Paula McDowell. The Invention of the Oral: Print Commerce and Fugitive Voices in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2017. Pp. 353. $45. We are living in a moment of profound cultural change, as the movement from print to online culture has fundamentally shifted the ways in which we access and process information and monetize written content. Set in this context, Paula McDowell’s The Invention of the Oral: Print Commerce and Fugitive Voices in Eighteenth-Century Britain is an especially timely work, one that draws parallels between the developing technologies of the eighteenth century—in this case, the movement from oral to print culture—and our own. It is only in retrospect, McDowell argues, that we can fully understand the implications of such a monstrous cultural shift, but similarities have already emerged between eighteenth-century reactions to technological change and our own: concerns over what is being lost, fears about the democratization of access to content, and uncertainty about how to monetize new modes of information transmission. According to McDowell, the concept of the “oral” came into being in the eighteenth century as an umbrella term for a series of often unrelated concepts. Encapsulating at once beliefs about religious tradition, appropriate gender roles, and social class divides, reactions to the concept of orality in the eighteenth century offer insight into a wide variety of social and cultural attitudes. In drawing connections between the development of [End Page 494] eighteenth-century print culture and the emergence of the digital, McDowell’s book is both important and timely. As a work of scholarship on the eighteenth century, it is a masterful and often enlightening work, offering new interpretations of well-known works by authors such as Defoe, Johnson, and Swift, and engaging with previously understudied voices such as those of the Billingsgate fishwives and John “Orator” Henley. McDowell begins in her first chapter with a nuanced analysis of the concept of oral tradition as it emerged in the eighteenth century. While the word “tradition” is now used in predominantly secular ways, it had important religious resonance in the early modern period. For Catholics, who placed emphasis on the importance of priestly intercession between the individual and God, “the tradition of the church is of equal authority with scripture” (28). For Protestants, by contrast, who privileged Biblical text and the individual’s relationship with God, the concept of tradition was much more fraught. Protestants positioned scripture—and by extension writing—as “the most reliable method of preserving and communicating knowledge” (29). Of particular interest in this chapter is McDowell’s reading of Dryden; prior to his conversion, she argues, Dryden linked orality with the vulgar rabble. As a Catholic, however, he became more supportive of oral tradition, arguing in The Hind and the Panther that the Catholic Church “by Tradition’s force upheld the Truth” (39). The battle between print and oral authority was central to other eighteenth-century debates. English common law, for instance, was composed of many unwritten laws, and thus “seventeenth-century proponents of the Ancient Constitution appealed to the authority of an ancient, unwritten tradition of laws and customs to further their own political goals” (45). Meanwhile antiquarians lamented the loss of oral culture (including lower-class slang, popular ballads, and the oral poetry of the Scottish Highlands) resulting from the growth of print. Not all forms of oral transmission were viewed positively, however; the concept of old wives’ tales, for instance, reflects the disrespect in which women’s speech was consistently held. McDowell turns in chapter 2 to Swift’s treatment of speech in A Tale of a Tub. As a clergyman himself, Swift understood well the importance of dynamic oratory in the pulpit, and he suggested that Dissenters were dangerous precisely because they knew how to perform for largely illiterate audiences. Swift associated the physicality and emotion of the spoken sermon “with popular unrest and gender subversion from below” (67). Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year is the subject of McDowell’s third chapter. As...

The journey from pain to power: A meta-ethnography on women's experiences of vaginal birth after caesarean

Guatemala's Maternal Mortality Rate is 65th highest in the world at 120 deaths per 100,000 births. Contributing to the problem is traditional birth attendants (TBAs) attend most births yet lack knowledge about obstetrical emergencies. Government trainings in existence since 1955 have not changed TBA knowledge. Government trainings are culturally insensitive because they are taught in Spanish with written material, even though most TBAs are illiterate and speak Mayan dialects. The purpose of the observational study was to evaluate the effect of an oral training, that was designed to be culturally sensitive in TBAs’ native language, on TBAs’ knowledge of obstetrical emergencies.one hundred ninety-one TBAs participated. The study employed a pretest-posttest design. A checklist was used to compare TBAs' knowledge of obstetrical emergencies before and after the training.the mean pretest score was 5.006±SD 0.291 compared to the mean posttest score of 8.549±SD 0.201. Change in knowledge was a P value of 0.00.results suggest an oral training that was designed to be culturally sensitive in the native language improved TBAs' knowledge of obstetrical emergencies. Future trainings should follow a similar format to meet the needs of illiterate audiences in remote settings.

Building Nineteenth-Century Latin America: Re-Rooted Cultures, Identities, and Nations (review)

Reviewed by: Building Nineteenth-Century Latin America: Re-Rooted Cultures, Identities, and Nations Lee Skinner Keywords Nineteenth-Century Latin America, Latin American Cultural Studies, Print Culture, Visual Culture, Gender Studies, Popular and Elite Discourses William G. Acree Jr. and Juan Carlos González Espitia, eds. Building Nineteenth-Century Latin America: Re-Rooted Cultures, Identities, and Nations. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2010. 312 pp. Recent years have seen the publication of several excellent collections of essays devoted to nineteenth-century Latin American cultural studies. Works such as Beyond Imagined Communities: Reading and Writing the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America, edited by Sara Castro-Klarén and John Charles Chasteen, and special numbers of journals such as Revista Iberoamericana’s issue on cultural change and periodical reading in nineteenth-century Latin America (January–March 2006), to adduce but two examples, have amplified our understanding of the complex ways in which hegemonic and nonhegemonic discourses functioned in the nineteenth century and how the divisions between elite and popular cultures were constructed and deconstructed. This collective scholarly labor has also done much to counteract and supplement the persuasive and powerful, but often totalizing, interpretations proposed by Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities and Doris Sommer in Foundational Fictions. Acree and González Espitia’s anthology may now be added to the extant corpus of such volumes. Building Nineteenth-Century Latin America unites essays by historians and literary and cultural critics, all of whom examine different discursive phenomena from within rather than from without. The works have in common their desire to offer insight into movements, groups, and sociocultural manifestations that to date have not been studied from a cultural studies perspective. Thus Patricia Lapolla Swier’s essay on José Martí finds space next to González Espitia’s piece analyzing representations of syphilis in both “high” culture (poetry, fiction) and “low” culture (magazine advertisements). Indeed, the chapters here also share the refusal to privilege one form of discourse over another. It is welcome to find a collection offering essays that vary widely in terms of content, but that also maintain a similar theoretical approach. The volume is organized into three thematic units: print culture and the power of images; parties and performances; and, finally, a section on “ideologies, revelations, and hidden nations.” Framing the collection in this way casts the first two sections as focused on easily identifiable phenomena, while the third is positioned as a discussion of ideologies, as if the first two were free of ideology. Still, the commonality of the critical perspectives among almost all the essays gives Building Nineteenth-Century Latin America a coherence that compensates for the rather forced aspect of the book’s tripartite division. Hugo Achugar’s insightful “Foundational Images of the Nation in Latin America,” translated deftly by Acree, opens the book. Achugar argues that [End Page 115] images were as central to the nation-building project as Sommer’s foundational fictions, and analyzes a “high culture” painting—Juan Manuel Blanes’s El juramento de los Treinta y Tres Orientales (1877)—as well as images that literally circulated on money and postage. He stresses the nonhegemonic nature of money and postage; private banks and postal systems held sway for much of the century, minting their own money and printing their own stamps. For Achugar this means that non-state powers participated in creating national imaginaries and foundational discourses. This essay is followed by Acree’s own “Words, Wars and Public Celebrations: The Emergence of Rioplatense Print Culture,” which asserts that print culture was crucial in the revolutionary period to royalists and pro-independence partisans alike. Acree acknowledges that it is difficult to assert that urban revolutionary-period newspapers would have reached a rural or illiterate audience, a fact that seems especially pointed after Achugar’s careful dissection of visual culture’s extended reach in the previous essay. This exemplifies how the essays in Building Nineteenth-Century Latin America enter into dialogue with one another. Indeed, much of Acree’s essay traces the interplay between print and visual cultures. For example, printed matter was publicly displayed and read aloud during festivals, while journals made written descriptions of those festivals available to those who did not attend the celebrations...

Religion or Culture? Change among the Papuans in the Upper-Digul Area, 1956–1967

In August 1958, Meeuwis Drost (1923-86) was the first missionary for the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland (Vrijgemaakt), or Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated) to start proselytising among the Papuans of the Upper-Digul area in Netherlands New Guinea. He later recalled how that day: “I simply started with Genesis one. And they listened!” Drost finished teaching the entire Old Testament within one year. To start at the beginning seems logical and is in fact the approach used by most missionaries of the Liberated churches. Transfer of religious and cultural knowledge was seen as an important aspect of their work, especially with an illiterate audience. The Protestant religious landscape in the Netherlands had fragmented heavily during the nineteenth century. Two secessions from the Dutch Reformed Church in 1834 and 1886 led to the formation of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands in 1892. Its tendency to depose those who refused to adhere to its theological views resulted in the Vrijmaking (Liberation) in 1944. Although the Liberated churches were one of many Protestant branches, they were very secure in their own theological views. Consisting of exclusive political, religious, educational and even recreational organisations they formed a mini-pillar in Dutch society.

"Our Grandparents Used to Say That We Are Certainly Ancient People, We Come From the Chullpas ": The Bolivian Chipayas' Mythistory

"Our Grandparents Used to Say That We Are Certainly Ancient People, We Come From the Chullpas":The Bolivian Chipayas' Mythistory Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz (bio) Introduction1 In this paper I will study the story2 that the Bolivian highland Chipayas tell about their origin and past. This oral tradition is closely related to the present. Not only does it explain and justify why they live where they do and how they do, but it also explains their often tense relationship with their immediate neighbors, the Aymaras. In the story, mythical and historical discourse are fused in order to construct their ethnic identity. Before examining the narrative in detail, it is necessary to discuss briefly the two theoretical concepts that underlie my analysis: ethnic identity and mythistory. Ethnic Identity The concept of ethnic identity is a construct that a sociocultural group creates to signal its self-definition, both for its own members as well as for outsiders. This understanding of identity, which is not static but undergoes changes, helps the group members shape and express perceptions of their own group and relationships with other groups. These perceptions can reflect the pride of belonging to a group and/or they can be a response to prejudice and discrimination, and in many cases both factors reinforce one another. The boundaries that result from this group-defining process can be physical (reflected, for example, in the competition over natural resources or access to markets) as well as conceptual (manifest, for example, in a certain interpretation of the past or a tradition, be it invented or not). Because social and ethnic groups always interact with other groups, this construct affects and changes a group's internal perceptions of identity and at the same time influences how a group shapes its image of other, especially neighboring, groups. This construct also contributes to the image that these neighboring groups form regarding the group in question.3 Mythistory Both history4 and myth5 are normally verbal explanations of the past. They are used to construct socially and culturally relevant past events, are often related to public rituals, and are told by a narrator who tends to be a recognized representative of the group. Both history and myth claim to be authoritative and legitimate, and both highlight a continuing relevance of the past to the present and future. However, one of the most important tasks of myth is to interpret sociocultural values and give them meaning and importance in contemporary life. While history may be seen similarly, it is not typically used as a learning experience, although it may be intended as such. The most distinctive differences, which have largely determined our basic conceptual separation of myth and history, are medium and author. Myth is usually transmitted orally (and can be supported by visual means, such as rock shapes or paintings and/or rituals that enact the myth). However, when we analyze it, it has almost always been transferred to and transformed into writing, most often by an outsider. History tends to be transmitted in writing, but it is frequently communicated through oral or visual means (such as exhibitions or television), and this was even more the case in the past, when paintings and oral discourse were the only means of conveying "history" to an illiterate audience. It is also often enacted in public ceremonies, for example in commemoration. In this sense there is no clear boundary between a "fixed" written transmission and a "fluid" oral transmission. The other major difference is authorship. Myth has no identifiable authors; it is conceived of as a narrative that belongs to and is produced by the community, although, of course, it is practically impossible to study how myth develops over time in its own environment, without "outside" interference; therefore, little is known as to the function and role of the narrator and the audience in the shaping and reshaping of the text.6 History, on the contrary, normally has an individual as author, but once we start asking about the composition and editing process of a book, including the selection of sources as well as changes due to invited critique, the seemingly clearly defined authorship becomes elusive. As I...

Teaching Guatemala Midwives About Postpartum Hemorrhage

To evaluate the effect of a culturally sensitive teaching unit on traditional midwives' knowledge of nursing interventions to prevent and treat postpartum hemorrhage (PPH). Sixteen midwives participated in a 1-day training program at a Refuge International Health Clinic in the remote town of Sarstun, Guatemala. The quasi experimental study used a one-group, pretest-posttest design. Researchers used a PPH Behavioral Checklist from the American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM) to assess and compare knowledge of PPH interventions before and after the PPH teaching. The final analysis included 13 traditional midwives as the subjects. The culturally sensitive teaching improved traditional midwives' knowledge and skills about nursing interventions to manage PPH (pretest M = 1.385/8, posttest M = 4.846/8). Results of this pilot project suggest a culturally sensitive oral teaching in the primary language of the participants positively affects traditional midwives' knowledge and skills to manage PPH. Future training should be presented in a similar format to meet the needs of illiterate audiences in resource-poor settings.

The King James Version Then and Now

For four hundred years, the King James Bible has been the principal Bible for millions of English-speaking Christians. Vocabulary and spelling have changed so that readers frequently misunderstand this Bible and find it difficult to read. Yet the language still finds its way into our daily speech and public discourse. The translation was a major influence on the standardization of the English language precisely because the translators were not attempting to create significant literature. Their aim was to produce a Bible that a largely illiterate audience could understand when it was read aloud. Its origins are found in the history and politics of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. When the English church broke with Rome, English Bibles were needed to confirm that rupture. However, the struggles first between Roman Catholics and Protestants, and then between the establishment Anglicans and Puritans, led to the situation by 1600 where the Geneva Bible was favored by the Puritans, but the Bible authorized for use in all the churches was the Bishops' Bible. When James I came to the English throne in 1603, the Puritans asked for more reform and authorization of the Geneva Bible. James ordered instead a new translation, and established a process and set of principles to ensure it was free of Calvinist doctrine and would support the monarchy and the established church. The Bible included the Apocrypha, which was normally included in printings until 1826. The Bible was published in 1611 in two versions. It is not known which was first. Different printers introduced numerous misprints and corrections over the years. Even today there are several different versions of the King James Bible published in America. There is no such thing as an original, flawless King James Bible.

De la parodie à la propagande. La résistance anticoloniale vue par les graphistes vietnamiens à partir des années 1950

In Hà-Nội in the 1950s, a number of Vietnamese painters produced a series of comic strips aimed at propagating the party ideology. These comic strips recounted the stories of the heroes of the resistance in pictures. Unfortunately, with the passage of time and political and economic changes in the country, these drawings were lost or forgotten. A handful resurfaced two years ago at an antique dealer’s shop and were acquired by a Bangkok collector which leads to the goal of this article. The aims are to reconstruct these drawings’ individual pasts and also question their fate. This essay will focus on one series in particular, The Story of Nguyễn Quốc An by Tôn Đức Lương in 1953. Trained at the Indochina School of Fine Arts, the artist adapted European drawing techniques for propaganda tactics. Easy for young readers and virtually illiterate audiences to understand, these comic strips found a purpose within party politics. They were abandoned in the 1960s with the wake of the war due to changes in political strategies and rediscovered in the 21st century.

Chinese Shadow Theatre: History, Popular Religion and Women Warriors (review)

Reviewed by: Chinese Shadow Theatre: History, Popular Religion and Women Warriors Bradford Clark Chinese Shadow Theatre: History, Popular Religion and Women Warriors. By Fan Pen Li Chen. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007. 343 pp. Cloth, $75.00. Fan Pen Li Chen’s previous book, Visions for the Masses: Chinese Shadow Plays from Shaanxi and Shanxi (reviewed in ATJ 23, no. 1) presented seven plays in new translations along with a comprehensive, highly accessible introduction to the form. In her second book on the subject of shadow theatre, Chen (a [End Page 179] professor of Chinese literature at SUNY-Albany and a consultant for the Center of Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, with which I am associated) greatly expands the depth and breadth of her discussion. This is a detailed examination of the form and provides three new translations as well. Chen underlines the importance of the study of this genre in her introduction: “Shadow theatre provides a rare window on the mentality of the largest but least studied group of the Chinese population. Through studying this marginal performing arts tradition, especially as it is preserved in its peripheral regions, one is able to discover aspects of Chinese culture that are at once ancient and pervasive among the non-elite silent majority” (3). Sadly, despite this importance, rural Chinese shadow puppetry is a threatened art. More than 85 percent of the troupes visited in the 1980s by scholar Jiang Yuxiang were no longer in existence by the end of the 1990s. Documentation of these forms before they disappear or become inaccessible outside of the context of tourism is clearly of vital importance. Emphasizing the literary and thematic aspects of the traditional repertoire, Chinese Shadow Theatre shows how the evolution of Chinese cultural and religious belief may be traced through its representation in this form of popular entertainment. Three interrelated subjects are examined: the origins and history of the Chinese shadow theatre and the myths that surround it, many of which have been repeated in multiple sources; popular religious belief and its role in the shadow and popular theatre; and the representation of women warriors within many shadow plays. Chen is a literary scholar, but her books are based upon extensive field research and documentation. She refers to fifteen different troupes that she has seen perform and whose members (along with multiple puppet carvers) she has interviewed. Her access to these practitioners and knowledge and discussion of the widely differing regional traditions, reflecting differing tastes in thematic content, provides her with perspectives upon the plays’ performative contexts. A study of the texts alone could not allow such insights, and she has thoroughly documented these companies and their performances. While a limited number of black-and-white photographs complement the text, one hopes future publications will more extensively highlight the visual aspects of her research. While the origins of shadow theatre are largely tied to local religious belief systems, by the Qing dynasty the dominance of short ritualistic plays (often featuring a tour of hell or episodes from the Taoist Investiture of the Gods ) was challenged by the popularity of performances depicting romantic, legendary, or historical themes. Despite being secular in content, these Quingera performances were also considered to be appropriate for religious occasions, due to the understanding that the gods’ tastes in entertainment were met by what pleases humans. Secular plays featuring martial content proved especially popular among the illiterate audiences, and it is within these plays that the woman warrior figures are most often found. Chen examines the representation of such martial women characters through discussions of individual plays and compares their portrayals with [End Page 180] what we know of female warriors in Chinese history or nonpuppet narratives. Woman warriors, of course, are well-known figures within local operas (including jingju) and stories, despite rarely appearing in actual military history. The striking contrasts between such heroines of stage, puppet screen, and film and their historical models speaks of how such figures serve to express popular fantasies and desires. Chen shows that while the woman warrior would appear to be a symbol of female agency and independence, her effort inevitably supports a male representative of a patriarchal social and political...

The Genesis of Whiteface in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Culture

The Irish American's progress from immigrant to citizen of the New World has been less the path of civic assimilation than the road of racial alchemy. (1) Between 1840 and 1900, Irish immigrants entered not only a New World, but also a new arena, where race rather than national origin was the prevailing idiom in discussing citizenship. They adapted quickly--thanks in large part to their previous history of oppression--becoming accepted citizens almost seamlessly, in the shortest time of any of the mass immigrant groups, but not before they had overcome their own share of racial discrimination at the hands of the now native population, the Anglo Americans (Jacobson 1-90). Part of becoming citizen-like for the Irish immigrants was a necessary abdication of the former reality of their existence, in favor of a nostalgic sentimentalizing through symbolic representation. Stereotypes which had formerly conditioned their existence would eventually come to symbolize just how far they had come in their quest for citizenship. To understand the road to citizenship the Irish constructed, it is necessary to excavate some of these long-held stereotypes and discover the parameters of the stereotype's vicissitudes against a measure of historical objectivity. This paper looks at the previously unconsidered racial stereotype of whiteface utilized by Anglo Americans in the middle of the nineteenth century to distance their working-class from those of the newly arrived immigrant Irish. The whiteface minstrel show was, like the parallel but better-recorded blackface tradition, an adaptation of the vaudeville tradition where a character was easily recognizable as a type of his race. (2) For the Irishman, it incorporated everything from Mose the Bowery B'hoy--made famous by Frank Chanfrau in the 1850--an elegant tough who spoke with a peculiar lingo and was always greeted with a cheer of recognition, to the later, more sympathetic depictions of Harrigan and Hart's Irish musical theater. The typical whiteface character was recognizable by the stovepipe hat he wore tipped over his forehead, by the shillelagh he carried for fighting, and by his makeup which exaggerated Irish physical characteristics, and, as Carl Wittke tells us, often consisted of red wigs, red noses, green whiskers, or little beards known as 'gaulways' or 'Galway Sluggers' (260). This whiteface mask, a common enough theatrical tool, was used mostly so that the largely illiterate audience would easily recognize the type of character portrayed and the humor elicited from his/her appearance. Eric Lott, in his insightful Love & Theft. Black/ace Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, discusses how the blackface minstrel show, continually transgressed the color line even as it made possible the formation of a self-consciously working class (8). This is true even more substantially (but only in a one-way direction) for the whiteface minstrel show, which borrowed from the blackface its symbolic mask of visual identification in order to constitute the Irish as something other than the American white working class. (3) Whiteface and blackface were not only associated in theatricality; in a more profound sense, they both replicated similar stereotypes based on racist readings of black physiognomy. Essentially, the stereotyped Irishman, for a time, through whiteface, became pejoratively black; that is to say that, during the post-famine period, in an attempt to disclaim any appeal to citizenship, whiteface was used typologically to cast the Irishman as black in the popular press and public arena. This paper's investigation of the genesis of whiteface will strive, first of all, to offer conjectures on the ideology behind the creation and designation of this specifically American typology, and then to trace the historical development of the whiteface type through theater and into the cultural and literary scene, where it took on its most simianized form. …

Pamphlets, Propaganda and Witch- Hunting in Germany c.156o-c.1630

Historians of the European Witch-Hunt have, for the most part, paid only scant attention to the popular pamphlets on witchcraft, because they regarded such broadsheets as providing little more than entertainment literature for a sensation-seeking public. However, this study suggests that the pamphlets, particularly those published in Germany between 1560 and 1630, should be viewed from a more wide-ranging perspective. Greater consideration needs to be given to the pamphlets’ potential for ‘propaganda’ purposes, and for encouraging the common people to demand that the magistrates engage in witch-hunts. In a similar manner to the early Reformation broadsheets’ propagation of the evangelical message to a mass audience, witchcraft pamphlets helped to disseminate to the public the learned ideas about witches and their supposed demonic crimes. Pamphlets often adopted some of the propagandist techniques utilized by Reformation pamphleteers to convey ideas to a mainly illiterate audience: for example, they presented information in the form of a popular song, and they supplemented the written text with woodcut illustrations that drew on the common people’s predominantly visual culture. Through such devices, the peasantry were provided with information in a straightforward and easily comprehensible manner about conspiracies of destructive witches-witches that threatened to destroy the lower orders’ crops and livestock. Under the intensely distressing circumstances of serious climatic deterioration and severe subsistence crises associated with the onset of the ‘Little Ice Age’, ordinary men and women may have been especially receptive to the pamphlets’ message that evil witches were directly responsible for their economic troubles. Nuremberg’s city council, in particular, was deeply concerned about the pamphlets’ potential for inciting witch-scares, and it banned the sale of a recently published witch-newsletter. The city’s prompt act of censorship had practical consequences and helped to ensure that Nuremberg was not engulfed by the current witch-anxieties raging in neighbouring Bamberg and Wiirzburg. Pamphlets could certainly play an active part in promoting the persecutions, and they could act as a significant form of propaganda for the war waged against the demonic witch sect.

Teaching Colonial History Through Film

Georges Duhamel wrote in 1930 that the cinemawas ‘‘un divertissement d’ilotes, un passe-temps d’illettres, de creatures miserables, ahuries par leur besogne . . . une machine d’abetissement et de dissolution.’’ 1Over the course of the century, film has not merely served to distract miserable illiterate audiences, as Duhamel feared; it has also sought to inform, persuade, disturb, comfort, and entertain its viewers and has gained acceptance as a serious form of artistic and cultural expression. Attempting to trace the development of twentieth-centuryWestern culture without attending to cinema is unthinkable. The importance of cinema in twentieth-century culture has led me to experiment with the inclusion of film along with other historical sources in my course on France in the twentieth century. Rather than including film as it has traditionally been used in history and civilization courses—as an illustration of information already confirmed through readings and other written sources—I wanted to analyze film as a form of cultural practice. Such an approach involves treating film neither as a window on the past (as students often assume it is) nor as a vehicle for false history (as historians often assume it is) but rather as a historical product that both shapes and reflects the world around it.2 When a film is analyzed both as a vehicle of representations and in the context of its production, distribution, and reception, it can be a valuable