Significant Social Events Research Articles

Gift Giving at the Court of Henry VIII: the 1539 New Year's Gift Roll in Context

The exchange of gifts at the New Year was a very significant social, political and financial event at the court of Henry VIII, just as it would have been at the courts of his English predecessors and European contemporaries. The process of gift exchange, including who made, received and gave gifts, was recorded each year in the gift roll. This article presents a detailed analysis of the 1539 gift roll, now in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, in the context of the other extant rolls for 1528, 1532 and 1534. Areas for discussion include a consideration of the range and significance of the gifts given and received by Henry and the role of the goldsmiths who made the king's gifts, including the weight, style and shape of the pieces commissioned. The article is supported by a full transcript of the 1539 gift roll, which is accompanied by extensive references comparing this gift roll to the other surviving gift rolls.

Jung Ji-Woo's Happy End: Modernity, Masculinity, and Murder

In a brilliant and enigmatic film, Happy End, director Jung Ji-woo has indexed all of these themes: shifting gender hierarchies, the valorization of aggressive masculinity, the establishment of a modern national identity, and the social uncertainties of a faltering economy. Happy End is a film clearly situated within the significant political, economic, and social events of the period within which it was made.

San Diego: An Introduction to the Region, Fourth Edition (review)

Reviewed by: San Diego: An Introduction to the Region, Fourth Edition Carlos Tovares (bio) San Diego: An Introduction to the Region, Fourth Edition Philip R. Pryde , Editor San Diego, Sunset Publications/ Pearson Custom Publishing, 2004. San Diego has occupied a fascinating and complex place in the U.S. urban system. It has been the least typical U.S.-Mexican border city, and within California it has been perceived as a fundamentally different form of urbanism than Los Angeles. More recently, San Diego has been increasingly implicated in broader processes of economic restructuring and has seen its economy and population continue to grow. San Diego is California's second-largest city, but the population of the metropolitan statistical area is less than half the size of the San Francisco CMSA. Since 1976, San Diego: An Introduction to the Region has served as a significant resource for people interested in the geography and history of the region. After 12 years, the fourth edition of the book was published in 2004. The new edition includes updated population data using the 2000 census, new photos and illustrations, revised chapter bibliographies, and a new chapter specifically on environmental preservation. The editor of San Diego, Philip Pryde, is an emeritus professor at San Diego State University. Pryde contributed 6 of the 19 chapters and revised or collaborated with others on 4 additional chapters. The other contributors are current or former San Diego State University professors. The biggest strength of San Diego is the broad range of topics covered by the 19 chapters. Although there is a focus on history, geography, and environmental issues, there are also chapters on the economy, demographics, transportation, urban planning, and the city of Tijuana. The first chapter is a brief overview of San Diego County's history. Typical of the chapters in the book, it is a detailed and well-written [End Page 122] narrative including figures and photos that complement and inform the writing. Appendices chronicle significant social and ecological events, such as the connection of San Diego to the eastern United States by rail in 1885 and the 2003 fires, and English language translations of Spanish-language place names. The second chapter is about the region's geomorphology, covering the roles of coastal erosion, mountain building, faulting, and folding in the formation of the region's topography. The use of maps provides a good spatial orientation of the county's landforms and topographic features. The book is not divided into sections, but chapters are grouped together thematically. Chapters two and three focus on the environmental history of the region. Chapters four and five address population issues. The remaining chapters cover a variety of topics. There are discussions of land resources, marine resources, and environmental preservation efforts. The chapter on water discusses long-term precipitation patterns and the efforts to secure a stable water supply. The chapter discusses the building of dams and reservoirs for the supply of water and the control of flooding and runoff. San Diego County has a substantial agricultural sector and it is discussed from geographical and historical perspectives in a separate chapter. Topics examined include current trends in agriculture, including the decline of some crops, such as eggs, tomatoes, and oranges, and the rise of newer products, such as organic fruits and produce. The urban dimensions of the region are addressed in chapters on the economic base of San Diego, the sizes and characteristics of other cities in the region, and the description of historically significant neighborhoods. San Diego County also has extensive natural areas, including beaches and mountains. Much of the eastern portion of the county is a state park. The chapter on recreational facilities provides extensive information on the locations, sizes, and characteristics of numerous parks and recreation areas. The chapter on Tijuana by Barbara Friedrich and Alan Osborn is informative and insightful. The authors provide an overview of the city's historical development before and after World War II. The roles of maquiladoras and the North American Free Trade Agreement [End Page 123] in the shaping of Tijuana's landscape are examined, but not at the expense of a broader economic perspective. Friedrich and Olson include a section on cross-border cooperation...

Holidays, Birthdays, and Postponement of Cancer Death

Articles in the medical literature and lay press have supported a belief that individuals, including those dying of cancer, can temporarily postpone their death to survive a major holiday or other significant event, but results and effects have been variable. To determine whether, for the patient dying of cancer, a "death takes a holiday" effect showing a reduction in deaths in the week before a significant event was associated with Christmas, the US holiday of Thanksgiving, or the date of the individual's birthday. Analysis of death certificate data for all 1,269,474 persons dying in Ohio from 1989-2000, including 309,221 persons dying with cancer noted as the leading cause of death. We measured the total number of cancer deaths in the 2 weeks centered on the event of interest and the proportion of these deaths that occurred in the week before the event to determine whether this proportion was significantly different from 0.5 by using an exact binomial test. The proportion of persons dying of cancer in the week before Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the individual's birthday was not significantly different from the proportion dying in the week after the event (P = .52, .26, and .06, respectively). However, among black individuals there was an increase in cancer deaths in the week before Thanksgiving (P = .01), whereas women showed an increase in cancer deaths in the week before their birthday (P = .05). There was no statistically significant excess of deaths in the postevent week in any subgroup. We found no evidence, in contrast to previous studies, that cancer patients are able to postpone their deaths to survive significant religious, social, or personal events.

La Saga du kava, du Vanuatu à la Nouvelle-Caledonie (review)

Reviewed by: La Saga du kava, du Vanuatu à la Nouvelle-Calédonie Dorothée Dussy La Saga du kava, du Vanuatu à la Nouvelle-Calédonie, by Annabel R Chanteraud. Collections Îles et Archipels, no 29. Bordeaux: CRET et DYMSET, 2001. ISBN 2-905081-40-6; 288 pages, figures, tables, photographs, appendixes, notes, written in French. €35. This "saga" of kava (Piper methysticum) is a revised PhD dissertation in cultural geography. This plant, cultivated only in Oceania, is famous for the particular properties of the drink extracted from its crushed and diluted roots—muscles loosen and a psychic state generally characterized by a peaceful detachment is created. In this work, Annabel R Chanteraud recounts the history of the consumption of kava in Vanuatu, and also in New Caledonia. She begins with precolonial history, when kava consumption was strictly regulated, reserved for the men, and confined in nakamal (men's house). She traces that history up to the present, when in the city as well as in the villages everyone can drink kava. The author has conducted lengthy fieldwork—administering survey questionnaires, engaging in participant observation, collecting statistics, and consulting the available literature. Chanteraud first presents a review of the literature on mythology related to the appearance and domestication of kava in Vanuatu. The various myths associate the birth of kava with that of the human societies in these islands. For the author, the mythology connects kava with the history of the settlement of the islands and the political development of these societies, corresponding with waves of Polynesian migration. The social rules of Vanuatu society, based on sexual dualism and the egalitarian sharing of tasks, can be read in the rites of preparation and consumption of kava that accompany significant social events. More widely, the history of consumption of kava provides a good vantage point from which to draw out the different elements of the history of the country, from what preceded first European contact to recent struggles for independence. In their aim to acculturate these colonized societies, the nineteenth-century missionaries restricted the consumption of kava, even to the point of total proscription on certain islands. That is why, beginning around 1910, the consumption of kava became a symbol of resistance to oppression. In the cities of Luganville and Port [End Page 459] Vila, it was the elders who first began to drink kava; they were followed by the youth, who had previously not consumed it. Urban kava bars offered a peaceful place where participants could weave together and tighten links among people from the same islands. Confirming kava's political uses, in the late 1970 s minister and independence leader Walter Lini held up kava as the agent of national reconciliation. Under the banner of reviving custom, he placed kava at the center of agricultural and economic planning. The government of Vanuatu promoted large-scale cultivation and also democratized the consumption of kava. This led to the opening of numerous places of consumption. Today, both cities in Vanuatu count an increasing number of such places, ranging from small, district nakamal (open only to men), to large, downtown kava bars (open to the public). The author next investigates the economic market for kava. The various fields of production, the techniques of cultivation, the fluctuations in the price for kilos of fresh kava roots and for cups of kava, and the profitability and stability of the market are described and analyzed. Possible medicinal outlets, as well as the creation of a seal of quality, are also discussed. Using New Caledonia as an example, Chanteraud dedicates the last part of her book to a description of how kava consumption has been exported beyond the borders of Vanuatu, with mounting success. At first, kava was prepared by and for ni-Vanuatu emigrants settled in Noumea; now it is consumed by increasing number of inhabitants of New Caledonia, both Oceanian and European. Thus, according to the author, kava drinking can be seen as a transcultural urban rite. It is necessary to note some deficiencies in the maps and source references in the book. Some maps (such as those on pages 17 and 215 ) lack scales and north/south orientations. Myths are not usually placed in...

“Days of Heaven on Earth”: Presbyterian Communion Seasons in Nineteenth–Century Otago

Communion seasons were a distinctive and important part of nineteenth–century Presbyterian culture. This paper examines such occasions in the Presbyterian–dominated colony of Otago, New Zealand. Communion was a significant social event, and its preparatory fast days were holidays for the whole community. As a spiritual event, the communion season induced an experiential and emotive piety, belying common modern perceptions of nineteenth–century Presbyterianism as an ascetic and intellectualised faith. Over the period from the founding of the colony (1848) to the turn of the century, certain rituals of the communion season altered significantly. Some changes occurred in response to new ideologies such as temperance; others reflected a softening of traditional Calvinist theology in favour of a more inclusive religion, Presbyterians being invited to communion rather than having to prove themselves fit to attend. Such changes were not unique to Otago, and practice in the colony reveals a strong continuity with events in Scotland: the Presbyterian communion season proved a remarkably successful import to colonial Otago.

The archaeology of apoptosis

Human death has been recognised as a significant personal and social event for many thousands of years, and classical archaeologists have revealed the changing complexity of rituals associated with it. The study of cell death, however, is a much more recent event, although many of the molecular pathways involved have now been identified, at least in mammalian systems. In studying the loss of cells, the use of the term ‘death’ is, perhaps, not altogether appropriate both since it carries the cultural resonance associated with bodily death, and because we do not study cell death itself, but rather the processes that lead up to it. Mammalian cell death processes are complex and involve a dynamic equilibrium between death promoting and death inhibiting factors, suggesting that some components of death pathways may have a paradoxical survival function. Since parasites must survive an often hostile environment, they may be a useful model to study whether component molecules of mammalian death pathways originally formed modules of parasite survival strategies, and whether survival and death pathways coevolved.

Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture 1096-1996

This work provides a history of Jewish writing and thought in the German-speaking world. Written by 118 scholars in the field, the book is arranged chronologically, moving from the 11th century to the present. Throughout, it depicts the contribution that Jewish writers have made to German culture and at the same time explores what it means to the other within that mainstream culture. The contributors view German-Jewish literature as a historical and cultural phenomenon from a wide array of critical perspectives. Many essays focus on significant social and political events that affected the relationship between Germans and Jews: others concentrates on a particular genre, author, group of writers, cultural debate, or literary movement. Entries include an account of the Crusades in 1076, a treatment of Jewish mysticism in the Renaissance, a 17th-century memoir by a woman, the description of a meeting between Heinrich Heine and Karl Marx in 1843 and discussions of works by such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler, Joseph Roth, Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin, Elias Canetti, Hermann Broch, Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno and Peter Weiss.

Psychological health maintenance on Space Station Freedom

The scheduling of crew rotations for up to 180 days on Space Station Freedom presents a special challenge for behavioral scientists who are tasked with providing psychological support for the crews, their families, and mission flight controllers. Preflight psychological support planning may minimize the negative impact of psychological and social issues on mission success, as well as assist NASA management in making real-time mission planning decisions in the event of a significant social event (for example, the death of a family member). During flight, the combined psychological, emotional, and social stressors on the astronauts must be monitored, along with other aspects of their health. The Health Maintenance Facility (HMF) will have the capability of providing preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic assistance for significant psychiatric and interpersonal problems which may develop. Psychological support will not end with the termination of the mission. Mental health professionals must be part of the team of medical personnel whose job will be to facilitate the transition--physical and mental--from the space environment back to planet Earth. This paper reviews each phase of mission planning for Space Station Freedom and specifies those factors that may be critical for psychological health maintenance on extended-duration space missions.

Gender, Work and Leisure in the Eighties - Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards

This paper reviews some of the major features of British sociological research on gender in the fields of employment, leisure and unpaid work carried out during the nineteen eighties. It examines both the achievements and the failings of such research. These include the development of feminist theory and methodology as well as the documentation of women's differential experiences. The article then traces the connections between the studies done during the eighties and the significant economic, political and social events of the decade, pointing out that not all of those events have been reflected in the research undertaken. Finally the paper considers what some of the major social, economic and political trends of the nineteen nineties might be and suggests some possible future directions for research on work and leisure, including the widening out of gender studies to include other dimensions of inequality.

Structural consequences of individual position in nondyadic social networks

The pattern of dyadic relationships among members of a population has often been used to obtain important information on the way that social structure can further or constrain social action. More recently, it has been proposed that nondyadic relationships can play a similar role. In this paper, a formalism is proposed that allows the dyadic structure and the nondyadic structure to be considered simultaneously. If this formalism is applied to the study of the structure arising from attendance at significant social events, it becomes possible to identify potential loci for social action. Still further, it is shown that information on individuals' structural perspectives with respect to such potential loci can be translated into conclusions about the individuals' positions in the dyadic structure. Such considerations can be used to evaluate the relative potential of these loci for social action.

‘Action and No Action’ – Aboriginal Children’s Classification of Films in an Isolated Community

Films are a significant social event in many isolated Aboriginal communities. It has been argued, however, that they are a disruptive influence on the transmission of traditional culture (Shimpo, 1978) and provide inappropriate models for behaviour (Thompson, 1983).This paper examines a small group of Aboriginal children’s perception and understanding of films in an isolated, traditionally oriented Aboriginal community. It focuses on the way in which a small group of Aboriginal informants classify films and attempts to examine the basis for some of the classifications. Finally, some conclusions are drawn about the extent to which the use of particular types of film classification can give an insight into the isolated community audiences’ knowledge and understanding of the social realities in the wider world outside the isolated community.

Two Decades of Change: A Ranking of Key Issues Affecting Intergovernmental Relations

This article describes the results of a 1981 survey of 1,000 randomly selected scholars of American government and politics who were asked to rank the most significant intergovernmental events and trends of the past twenty years. Responses were received from almost 40 percent of these scholars; no significant return biases were detected. These scholars ranked civil rights and voting rights acts as the most significant events of these decades. General Revenue Sharing and the reapportionment cases were ranked second and third in importance. The increased flow of federal dollars to states and local governments was ranked the most important trend affecting intergovernmental relations, followed by the increased public disaffection with government and the growing dependence of local governments on state and federal aid. The Vietnam War and the inflationary spiral it initiated was ranked as the most significant social event affecting the course of intergovernmental relations, followed closely by the energy crisis and the beginnings of the Great Society. The article also examines the effects of party identification, age, year of degree, government experience, region, and city size on scholarly attitudes toward these events and trends. While the overall rankings were not dramatically altered, partisanship, region, and city size all were factors found to be noticeably related to scholarly rankings of these important events and trends.

Liminality and Symbiosis in Popular American Protestantism

OPULAR has a peculiar elusiveness about it. One is often tempted to approach the study of religion through the contributions of the founders, the elite, the leaders, and the religious geniuses of a tradition. With supplemental investigations into the origins, growth, and history of religious groups and the responses of the leaders and groups to the significant cultural and social issues and events of the times, it could be supposed that the most important features of a religion have been taken into account. In part, such an assumption only reflects the nature of the historical method, attentive as it must be to the unique and outstanding persons, doctrines, and institutions of a tradition. In any case, popular American Protestantism has seemed to elude even the best historians of American religions. In a review of Sidney Ahlstrom's massive and synthetic A Religious History of the American People, Martin Marty comments:

Vietnam in Perspective

The wheel of fortune turns for most people but for the Vietnamese, it seems to have long remained immobile. Nearly two years ago, when the Paris Peace Agreement was signed, war-weary Vietnamese took heart that somehow the wheel would finally turn to their advantage. Although few were na?ve enough to expect miracles, or that the next couple of years would be an easy time, many began to talk of reconstruction. Most people had hoped that the framework es tablished in the Paris Agreement, agreed to by signatory parties, would somehow transform the bloody struggle of the battlefields to a less violent competition in the political arena. Unfortunately their hopes did not materialize. Indeed, all that the Paris Agreement has achieved thus far has been to put an end to the direct U.S. involvement in the Indochina conflict and allow President Nixon to fulfil his promise of bringing the boys home. As far as Vietnam is concerned, the fighting has continued unabated; casualties are still high; and the prospects for a rapid political settlement is just as illusory today as when the Agreement was signed. With the South Vietnamese economy rapidly deteriorating, ordinary Vietnamese discover that living in post-war Vietnam is not much of an improve ment from the days of the war itself. This paper attempts to review and assess the significant political, economic, and social events that took place in South Vietnam in 1974. In so doing, the major trends of the country will be brought into sharper focus.

Adolescent Initiation: A Thematic Study in the Secondary School

I submit that the initiation experience of an adolescent protagonist in literature corresponds in most cases to a paradigm observable in most primitive cultures where the initiation of their youth is a significant cultural and social event. Through initiation the novice in a primitive culture attains the status and prerogatives of an adult, leaving behind him the world of childhood and ignorance and passing into the world of adulthood and knowledge. Essentially, through initiation, he establishes his identity and assumes all the responsibilities of adulthood.