Presence Of Violence Research Articles

In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American anxiety of discovery by Annette Kolodny (review)

Reviewed by: In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American anxiety of discovery by Annette Kolodny Christine DeLucia In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American anxiety of discovery By Annette Kolodny. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2012. The presence of “Northmen” in the annals of North American history has often been shadowy, more subject to romance than rigorous investigation, Annette Kolodny demonstrates in this wide-ranging study of early European encounters with the Americas. Yet the experiences of the Norse in Vinland and related sites, circa AD 1000, deserve attention because they illuminate under-recognized dimensions of “contacts” between Indigenous peoples and would-be colonizers. They also suggest how contemporary mythologies have mobilized this past for cultural and political purposes, turning actual mariners and settlers into “plastic Viking[s]” (204): figures that could be molded into suitable, often heroic, forms by later residents of the United States, who worried intensely about origins, race and the legitimacy of their claims to place. Kolodny approaches the topic through literary studies, but draws upon interdisciplinary methods to combine textual analyses with findings of archaeology, ethnohistory, and Native studies. Following an introduction about controversies surrounding the concept of “prehistory” in the Americas, the book focuses on three aspects of Norse history, mythologizing and indigenous contacts. The first conducts close readings of Icelandic sagas, notably The Greenlanders’ Saga and Eirik the Red’s Saga, probing their internal narrative structures and possible historical referents. This section hones in on passages that narrate encounters with “Skraelings,” as the Norse characterized Indigenous peoples of Atlantic North America, and the presence of violence in these uncertain initial encounters. It also hypothesizes about which part of the Atlantic coastline may have been the location of Vinland (from Canadian maritime areas to sites further south), putting the sagas in conversation with archaeological and environmental assessments. As Kolodny notes, these sagas transformed over time because of natural morphing during oral storytelling, as well as editorial emendations by scribes who recorded them, sometimes at great temporal removes from the actual events. The second section examines how historians, antiquarians, literary luminaries and the public in the nineteenth-century United States cultivated fascination with Norse antecedents. Particularly during the American Romantic period, as commentators sought historicity for the young republic on par with Europe’s heritage, interest in these early Norse explorations spiked. Attention frequently fixated on material remnants that seemed to bespeak evidence of Norse presence. In southern New England, for example, human remains and burial items unearthed in Fall River, Massachusetts, became widely interpreted as Viking. Similarly, a round stone tower in Newport, Rhode Island, became interpreted as structural proof of Viking habitations. (Modern archaeological and historical investigations largely debunk those claims.) Kolodny situates these fascinations with origin stories within growing Anglo-American anxiety about a rising tide of immigrants from southern Europe, often denigrated as inferior to those of Anglo-Saxon descent, and concludes that playing up Norse “discoveries” satisfied nativist desires for primacy in the US nation, and in the rapidly changing region of New England specifically. Thus the Norse, and particularly Leif Eiriksson, challenged Columbus’s perch on the historical and mythic pedestal. As the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair developed public representations of American origins, these dueling narratives unfolded on a major stage. The book’s third section journeys across the Native Northeast to assess how Indigenous communities’ often closely held traditions may provide additional reflections on early Norse/Native encounters. Here the study ponders sources such as petroglyphs (inscriptions/incisions on rocks) that may convey Indigenous views of the earliest European settlements, as well as tribal oral traditions that relate accounts of contacts with “strangers.” Altogether, Kolodny finds that these oral traditions (from modern-day culture-keepers in communities including the Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot and Western Abenaki) are difficult to judge as firm evidence that these communities remember Norse encounters. The evolving quality of oral accounts in response to shifting circumstances and narrative needs, and the possible conflation of multiple European encounters, perhaps makes these sources less useful for providing details about the Norse specifically...

Violence in John Steinbeck

Abstract Suicides; domestic violence; lynching; botched abortions; fraternal beatings; heroes who boast about knocking people’s heads “plumb to squash” (The Grapes of Wrath, 28) merely a cursory glance at Steinbeck’s writing reveals the central presence of violence. Brutal force is never far from the surface of a Steinbeck story. Here I want to argue that there exists a deep tension between two different “presentations” of violence. One which naturalizes violence. The other according to which violence remains aberration, absolute wrong, that which should not be. These two presentations are in competition, vying with each other for control of his texts. You may share the academy’s historic disdain for Steinbeck’s style. Or you may agree with Kurt Vonnegut that “Holy smokes! Could he ever write!” (John Steinbeck: Centennial Reflections by American Writers 96). Either way, what is certain is that violence evokes some of his best writing.

‘The Girl was Stripped, Splayed and Penetrated’: Representations of Gender and Violence in Margie Orford's Crime Fiction

Internationally and locally, crime fiction is a literary genre that has been gaining large numbers of readers as well as increasing academic attention.These texts offer imaginative spaces where authors can expose and critique social problems. Margie Orford's crime fiction offers an avenue through which to explore the pervasive presence of violence in the lives of South African women and children. A number of feminist literary scholars have, however, questioned whether the traditionally male genre of the crime novel can be adapted by women authors to voice the experiences of female characters. Although the challenges presented by the genre are real, the analysis suggests that Orford succeeds, at least partially, in contributing to the larger feminist project of revealing the ubiquity of gender violence in contemporary society. The horrifically violent crimes that constitute the main plot elements of Orford's novels emerge as merely the most extreme examples of the gender violence that has become a normalized part of many women and girls' daily lived realities. This article offers a feminist literary analysis of Orford's novels through the rubric of foundational and contemporary gender scholarship.

Violência familiar e comunitária em escolares do município de São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

This descriptive study aimed to investigate the association between violence in the family, school and community experienced by school children/adolescents of the city of São Gonçalo (RJ), Brazil. Questionnaires were administered to the mothers/guardians to assess violence in the family and school and to children to check their perceptions of community violence. Multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis, two exploratory descriptive techniques, were employed. Data from 280 schoolchildren were analyzed. A total of 43.9% of mothers reported that their children had been physically abused in their homes. With regard to children's/adolescents' perception of community violence, 93.2% said they had experienced or witnessed these events in their communities. For both sexes there was the formation of a cluster of categories with the presence of violence among siblings, presence of severe physical assault and verbal assault committed by parents. Among girls, the presence of violence in the school formed a cluster with the highest category of violence in the community. In conclusion, it should be emphasized that public policies aimed at dealing with violence should expand their scope to the various forms of violence affecting children.

Cognitive and social factors influencing clinical judgment in psychiatric practice

M. Gladwell, in his popular book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, stated that the “important task of this book is to convince you that our snap judgments and first impressions can be educated and controlled… Just as we can teach ourselves to think logically and deliberately, we can also teach ourselves to make better snap judgments” 1, p. 15). To help determine if psychiatrists should make snap judgments and rely on first impressions, one can turn to research on cognitive and social factors that influence clinical judgment 2.

Assessment of Psychiatric Symptoms at a Level I Trauma Center Surgery Follow-up Clinic: A Preliminary Report

At Level I trauma centers, psychiatric consultation is readily available to inpatient surgical services. This study sought to characterize the psychiatric symptoms present in the surgical follow-up clinic. Patients aged 18 years and older were assessed over one month for symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with the Short PTSD Rating Interview (SPRINT), depression with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), alcohol abuse with the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT), and the presence of violence using the MacArthur Community Violence Instrument (MCVIa [victimization] MCVIb [perpetration]). Twenty-five individuals participated. Using the SPRINT, 13 (52.0%) met the cutoff for PTSD. For PHQ-9 depression, 11 (44%) were in the moderate to severe range. For AUDIT, five (20.0%) likely had an alcohol problem. Using the MCVI, 15 (60.0%) reported victimization and 12 (48.0%) reported perpetration. Elevated levels of psychiatric symptoms were found in the trauma surgery follow-up clinic. Psychiatric care embedded in this setting may be warranted.

Wyndham Lewis's ‘Very Bad Thing’: Jazz, Inter-War Culture, and The Apes of God

The relationships between jazz and modernist writing have in recent years increasingly interested musico-literary scholars. Much of this interest centres on links between modernism, jazz, and the Harlem Renaissance, whose music and art extend ‘far beyond its geographic boundaries as well as beyond the relational boundaries of time’. 1 As evidence of this trans-national and trans-temporal influence, especially as it applies to Anglo-American culture, writers like T. S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, and Philip Larkin, among others, have all been considered in relation to jazz and New York in the 1920s and 1930s. 2 Such studies contribute to the growing significance of African-American traditions within modernist scholarship and provide increasingly nuanced pictures of jazz’s impact upon literary modernism (both as creative stimulus and as ‘despised’ phenomenon). However, these interpretations of the jazz ‘influence’ need to be understood as more than a reductive dichotomy. For instance, Fitzgerald was attuned to the prevalence of jazz in twentieth-century modernity, and his jazz allusions ‘anxiously suggest that beneath the surface of [what he saw as] the music’s frivolous gaiety lurks the presence of violence and chaos, which threatens to erupt at any moment.’ 3 Therefore, his complex representations of jazz music–the fact that he wrote about jazz and its cultures so extensively in his fiction and non-fiction in the first place–indicate that he recognised jazz as a specifically modern, observable fact which was crucial to realistic portrayals of inter-war life. In this regard his work, and that

Violence at School and Alcohol and Tobacco Consumption in Students of Secondary Education

Adolescence is a transitional process between childhood and adulthood (Antona, Madrid and Alaez, 2003), which involves physical, cognitive and social changes (Johnson, Roberts and Worrell, 1999). During this stage, risky behaviours are often developed, including alcohol and tobacco consumption. Alcohol is the most psychoactive substance consumed among adolescents, aged 14-18, followed by tobacco in Spain (DGPNSD, 2009). The teenagers who use alcohol and tobacco have a higher probability of having problems of aggresiveness and violence and it is also related to health problems (Bellis et al., 2005; Gil and Gil-Lacroix Lacroix, 2006; Room, Babor and Rehm, 2005). Several studies (Bond, Carlin, Thomas, Rubin and Patton, 2001; Cangas, Gázquez, Perez-Fuentes, Moldes and Rubio, 2007; Piñero-Ruiz, López-Espín, Cherry and Torres-Cantero, 2012) have linked the presence of violence at school disturbing the environment and having negative consequences for the health and behaviour to a higher frequency in the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. In this study, 2552 questionnaires were collected with ages among 12-16 years from the Murcia Region. The results showed that students with aggressive behaviours at school have a higher frequency of alcohol and tobacco consumption.

Torcedores de futebol: violence and public policies in Brazil before the 2014 FIFA World Cup

The representation of Brazilian torcedores prevailing in Europe refers to the exuberance and the carnival. However, the Brazilian reality is somewhat different, although this aspect is predominant. After introducing the creation and evolution of torcidas organizadas, this paper explores the relationship between fans, the rise of violence in relation to the major cities' metropolization, the presence of violence in everyday life, the modes of thought of the police and the inefficiency of the judicial system. Finally, the paper analyses the fundamental transformation of public policies to reduce the phenomenon of violence, especially in view of the World Cup 2014.

Group Violence, Ethnic Diversity, and Citizen Participation: Evidence from Indonesia

We study the impact of violent conflict on social capital, as measured by citizen participation in community groups, defined by four activity types: governance, social service, infrastructure development and risk-sharing. Combining household panel data from Indonesia with conflict event information, we find an overall decrease in citizen contributions in districts affected by group violence in the early post-Suharto transition period. However, participation in communities with a high degree of ethnic polarization is less affected, and is even stimulated for local governance and risk-sharing activities. Moreover, individual engagement appears to depend on the involvement of other members from the same ethnic group, which points toward building of intra-ethnic social networks in the presence of violence. Finally, our results show the danger of generalization when dealing with citizen participation in community activities. We find a large variety of responses depending on the activity and its economic and social functions. We also find large observed and unobserved individual heterogeneities of the effect of violence on participation. Once an appropriate nomenclature of activities is used and controls for heterogeneity are applied, we find that the ethnic and social configuration of society is central in understanding citizen participation.

Common mental disorders in pregnancy in the context of interpartner violence

Pregnancy is generally described as a period with a high incidence of common mental disorders (CMD) in the life cycle of many women who incur the risk of developing mental problems including depression, post-traumatic stress and drug abuse. Our objective with this study was to gauge how the presence of violence in Portuguese pregnant women affected their psychopathology. One hundred and eighty-four pregnant outpatients of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department of the Hospital Pedro Hispano in Matosinhos, Oporto, Portugal with an average age of 29 and in their last 3 months of pregnancy were the subjects of this study. These participants were divided into two groups: one of abused women (n= 107) and another of non-abused women (n= 77). In order to be able to compare them, both groups were assessed with the Conflict Tactic Scale 2, the Brief Symptom Inventory and the Inventory of the Clinical Evaluation of Depression. It was observed that pregnant women who had suffered violence during pregnancy exhibited some form of CMD during pregnancy. Another important finding was the evidence of the negative impacts that domestic violence had on the mental health of women.

Speaking in Tongues: Metapictures and the Discourse of Violence in Caribbean Art

Violence, trauma, and memory are fundamental factors of Caribbean modernity but have thus far been underexamined within art history and criticism. This essay explores the invisible yet palpable presence of violence in the genre of family portraiture and the contemporary redeployment of this genre in Edouard Duval-Carrie's Mardi Gras at Fort Dimanche (1992) and Ebony G. Patterson's Entourage (2010). As metapictures (following W. J. T. Mitchell), Duval-Carrie and Patterson's art detonate the expectation of stillness attached to genre. Instead, these works challenge, illuminate, and reform interdiscursive Caribbean epistemologies of violence, trauma, and memory that continue to reverberate across space and time.

Legal mechanisms in European Union and Serbia which aimed to protect women from domestic violence

Violence against women is the most common form of domestic violence. This problem has long been ignored, because it is considered that family relations, e.g. relations between married and unmarried partners are a private matter and the state's obligation was to refrain from any interference. However, since the problem of domestic violence against women has become increasingly common, the attitude of the international community began to change, and it was increasingly emphasizes the need to create adequate legal mechanisms to provide protection to the victim. In this sense, in the United Nations, and the European Union a number of laws were enacted. In Serbia, there is also both, criminal and civil law regulation that seeks to prevent domestic violence and to punish perpetrators and protect victims. In addition to adequate legal mechanisms, which can always be improved, it is necessary to take certain initiatives by states that can lead to improved awareness among the people about the presence of violence, and the ways in which they can help.

Protective and Risk Factors Associated with Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health in the English-speaking Caribbean: A Literature Review

To identify risk and protective factors associated with adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) in the English-speaking Caribbean through a structured literature review. Peer-reviewed articles published between January 1998 and December 2009 focused on the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents, aged 10-19 years, were included in this review. Articles were organized according to Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory. Research gaps were also identified. A total of 30 studies assessed ASRH. At the individual level, gender, psychosocial well-being, and mental health were key factors associated with ASRH. Within the microsystem, the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship, the presence of violence, substance abuse or mental health problems in the family, and peer relationships were important determinants of ASRH. Within the macrosystem, cultural attitudes had an effect on youth's sexual behavior and generally, safer sex practices appear to be increasing. Within the chronosystem, a history of physical and sexual abuse was associated with several ASRH outcomes. A research agenda that incorporates a multisystem approach and advocates for the inclusion of socially marginalized youth is needed to fully understand and adequately address ASRH in the Caribbean.

Aggression and psychopharmacological treatments in major psychosis and personality disorders during hospitalisation

A number of large-scale studies have shown that there is a relationship between many psychiatric disorders and aggression or violence. As no medication is currently approved for the treatment of aggression, pharmacotherapy (often involving drug combinations) is used on a trial-and-error basis with various degrees of response. The study involved 244 in-patients aged 19-83 years (mean 41.9 ± 11.3 SD). The Modified Overt Aggression Scale (MOAS) was used to assess any aggressive or violent behaviors occurring in the week before admission and upon discharge. Psychopathology was assessed using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scales (BPRS). All of the patients showed a significant improvement (p<0.001) in mean weighted total MOAS scores at the end of the study, with no significant differences between the various drugs or combination therapies. The patients who received combination treatments including antidepressants showed a worsening in the weighted total MOAS score (18.46% ± 114.31% SD); the patients who did not receive antidepressants had an improvement (13.61% ± 257.36% SD) (p=0.0069). Multivariate testing of the variables age, gender, substance/alcohol abuse, the duration of hospitalisation, the administration of mood stabilisers, and the use of typical or atipical antipsychotics showed that the severity of the psychopathological picture correlated significantly with the presence of violence, whereas the effect of combined antidepressant treatment on violent behavior was only relative.

Individual Decisions to Migrate During Civil Conflict

The existing literature on forced migration limits our understanding of how violence affects migration to competing destinations. This article adds to the literature on forced migration by studying how armed violence during a period of civil conflict in south-central Nepal influenced the likelihood of local, internal, and international migration. We find that violence has a nonlinear effect on migration, such that low to moderate levels of violence reduce the odds of movement, but when violence reaches high levels, the odds of movement increase. We also find that the effect of violence on mobility increases as the distance of the move increases. When we consider the influence of violence on microlevel decision-making, we find that the effects of individual and household-level determinants were mostly consistent with hypotheses derived from contemporary theories of voluntary migration and that no predictor of migration influenced the decision to migrate differently in the presence of violence.

Violence in the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales: a corpus-based approach

The purpose of this article is to carry out a corpus-based study on the presence of violence in a selection of eight tales by the Grimm's Brothers by looking at the terms which can be said to relate to the semantic field of violence. More specifically, this study will analyse a selection of eight tales in which the frequency of the words cut, dead and blood will be studied in detail. These words have been chosen due to their possible connection to violence after carrying out a quantitative analysis of the frequency of the whole main corpus. My initial hypothesis is that the corpus-based study of those eight tales would support my intuition regarding the high percentage of violence in the Brothers Grimm collection as opposed to the content of violence in a wider variety of texts. The study initially involved the analysis of frequencies of the lexical units in the Brothers' Grimm corpus and, secondly, a comparison of the results obtained in the frequency test to two reference corpora: the British National Corpus and the Cobuild Concordancer. The comparison and its results seem to indicate that there was a higher than average percentage of the use of words related directly or indirectly to violence.

Measurement and Correlates of Intimate Partner Violence Among Expectant First-Time Parents

Research on the implications of varying measurement strategies for estimating levels and correlates of intimate partner violence (IPV) has been limited. This study explored measurement and correlates of IPV using a community sample of 168 couples who were expecting their first child. In line with prior research, couple agreement regarding the presence of violence was low, and maximum reported estimates revealed substantial IPV perpetrated by both expectant mothers and fathers. Different types of IPV scores predicted unique variance in mental health problems and couple relationship distress among both the whole sample and the subsamples who perpetrated any violence. Discussion focuses on the methodological and substantive implications of these findings for the study of IPV during the transition to parenthood.

A response to patient-initiated aggression in general practice: Australian professional medical organisations face a challenge

Little is known about the incidence, prevalence, and impact of patient-initiated aggression against general practice staff in Australia or how medically related professional organisations respond to this. The few available Australian studies suggest that up to about two-thirds of Australian GPs experience patient-initiated aggression within a 12-month period. This paper reports on relevant professional stakeholder organisations' perceptions of and response to aggression perpetrated against their members working in Australian general practices. Thirteen organisations each nominated a representative to undertake a one-off semi-structured interview. Respondents informed the study findings from organisational, practice level, and Divisions of General Practice perspectives. While all professional organisations were cognisant of the presence of violence and aggression in Australian general practice, very few offered proactive measures in the management of difficult or aggressive patients, or practical support to their members. Organisations with fewer members involved in general practice were overall more supportive and proactive with regard to education, training, and publications than were organisations with a greater proportion of their membership involved in general practice settings. Respondents believed the current socio-political climate provided opportunity for a greater organisational response, but there was uncertainty regarding the appropriate response in view of a lack of evidence base.

Sexual behavior problems in children in Quebec youth protection services: Associated factors

Summary The objective of this study is to explore the factors associated with sexual behavior problems (SBP) of children toward other. The sample is composed of 187 children aged six to 11, which sample was part of a more substantial study, which included a representative sample of children under the care of child protective services. Five factors appeared to be associated to SBP: the child's temperament (mood and persistence), the presence of violence in the family within the last 12 months, the psychological distress of parents, and a child sexual abuse. These results seem to support, in part, some theories which explain SBP's in children.