Social Make-up Research Articles

Exploring the population and social structure of the Kyiv Eparchy through monastery service records from the 19th to early 20th century

The article aims to examine the informative potential and utility of service records from monasteries within the Kyiv Eparchy, spanning the period from the 19th to the early 20th century, in elucidating the status of Orthodox monastic communities and the social composition of their monastic life. The research methodology adheres to principles of objectivity, historicism, systematic analysis and critical evaluation of sources. Utilizing a method of historical reconstruction, this study seeks to construct a comprehensive understanding of the status of monasteries and the social makeup of their monastic communities from disparate historical evidence. A notable scholarly contribution of this study lies in its pioneering effort to investigate, analyze and assess the informational value of service records from monasteries within the Kyiv Eparchy during the specified period. Conclusively, service records, or formulary information, served as a prevalent form of annual reporting within monastic institutions throughout the 19th century. These unpublished documents serve as primary sources for documenting monastic life during the synodal period, playing a pivotal role in the administrative and communal life of monasteries and their inhabitants. Beyond simply detailing the composition of monastery brotherhoods and listing the names of monks and novices, these records contain rich insights into the individual lives of monastics. Examining such sources facilitates the identification of the number of monastics in Kyiv Eparchy monasteries, the motivations driving their monastic commitment, their roles within monastic communities, average demographics, social standing, educational attainment and even personal characteristics and behaviours. By leveraging these archival materials, scholars are afforded the opportunity to analyze the fluctuating demographics and composition of monastic communities within the Kyiv Eparchy throughout the synodal period, thereby enabling prosopographical investigations and contributing to a deeper understanding of Orthodox monasticism in the region.

Agency within Neighborhoods: Multi-Scalar Relations between Urban Form and Social Actors

This research provides an abstract representation of neighborhoods, accounting for the actors involved in the process of their formation and transformation as local entities embedded in a complex yet specific configuration of historical, social, structural, and political contexts. The analysis uses a conceptual framework combining Assemblage Theory and Actor–Network Theory to examine how both human and non-human actors or agents interact and consequently exert an impact on three different neighborhoods in Limassol, Cyprus. The methodology combines both qualitative as well as quantitative approaches. The tools used include space syntax, land use, and building typology, descriptive statistics of social factors, a photographic survey, observation of the built environment’s expressive features, and archival research of press articles. The findings reveal the extent to which global factors, such as colonialism and the mobility of wealthy populations from former Soviet countries, have an impact on the social makeup and expressive features of the environment, while local factors, such as block size and housing typology, have a strong impact on the use of public space. Furthermore, more complex networks may exhibit structural resilience or adaptability but may be, at the same time, more sensitive to varying and conflicting interests.

The deep paradox: from kernels to social makeup

Resumo O objetivo deste estudo é analisar a produção científica disponível sobre modelos de Deep Learning para diagnóstico de doenças de pele, com foco na diversidade étnico-racial, em coleções de imagens. Metodologicamente, o estudo caracteriza-se como uma revisão narrativa da literatura, de natureza exploratória. Excluíram-se artigos que não utilizavam algoritmos de aprendizagem profunda ou que não abordavam o diagnóstico de doenças de pele. Foram analisados 37 artigos e 7 coleções de imagens de lesões cutâneas. Os resultados mostram que três artigos mencionavam a origem populacional das imagens utilizadas no treinamento dos modelos de Deep Learning. Apenas uma coleção indicou a predominância populacional das imagens representadas, mas nenhum desses repositórios forneciam estatísticas detalhadas sobre a população participante. Conclui-se que a eficácia dos algoritmos em contextos de diversidade racial carece de evidências, e as pesquisas analisadas não apresentavam soluções para essa lacuna. Nesse contexto, este estudo destaca o paradoxo profundo entre o avanço tecnológico e a perpetuação de desigualdades sociais, enfatizando a necessidade de ajustes sociais em sistemas de inteligência artificial para promover equidade no acesso à saúde e evitar o viés algorítmico em tecnologias de diagnóstico.

The Ideal Meal: Masculinity and Disability among Host and Guests in Luke

In the Gospel of Luke, the social gathering of the meal appears again and again. It is a setting for Jesus’ interactions as well as a topic of conversation. Drawing on theories of disability and masculinity, this article examines the various meal scenes in Luke 14. The focus is on Jesus’ advice to the host about who to invite and who not to invite when hosting a meal (vv. 12–14). This saying constructs a complex and intersecting web of potential guests. Those that should not be invited, belong to the social world of the privileged man: his brother, friend, relative and rich neighbor. Representing different levels of his radius of trust, they all have something to give back. The preferred guests in Jesus’ parable, however, are those who lack the resources to give anything back, due to bodily disability and lack of means: “The poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind” (Luke 14:14, NRSV). The article thus examines how health, economic ability, and gender intersect. The ideal meal in the Gospel of Luke negotiates the complex social web of the ancient world. We suggest that disability and masculinity are key issues and scrutinize these categories to rethink the social make-up of ideal communities as suggested by Luke.

The Relationship Between Community Characteristics and Urban Sprawl in Driyorejo Sub-District, Gresik Regency, Indonesia

The Driyorejo sub-district is a buffer zone for the city of Surabaya due to limited land for the development of residential areas. Many areas are built up due to the influence of the city of Surabaya and that can be called urban sprawl. Urban sprawl is a phenomenon of urban expansion marked by a city’s size increase due to population growth and a rapid urbanization rate, or the movement of people from rural to urban areas. A level of urban sprawl with a high one can be found in the Driyorejo Sub-District, one of the sub-districts in the southern Gresik Regency. This study uses a quantitative method that is analyzed using correlation analysis to determine the relationship that occurs between urban sprawl and the characteristics of the community in the study area. According to the study's findings, three villages have low levels of urban sprawl, four have medium levels, and four have high levels. The relationship between the typology's findings and the neighborhood's social makeup—including its level of education, economic situation, the welfare of its families, and the cost of land—will then be apparent. People with pre-prosperous family status frequently reside in villages with a tall typology of urban sprawl because of the strong correlation between urban sprawl and the Pra Prosperous family. Additionally, those in the agricultural industry are closely related to urban sprawl. Theoretically, people working in agriculture are more likely to select the same location for their primary residence and employment.

The Relationship Between Community Characteristics and Urban Sprawl in Driyorejo Sub-District, Gresik Regency, Indonesia

The Driyorejo sub-district is a buffer zone for the city of Surabaya due to limited land for the development of residential areas. Many areas are built up due to the influence of the city of Surabaya and that can be called urban sprawl. Urban sprawl is a phenomenon of urban expansion marked by a city’s size increase due to population growth and a rapid urbanization rate, or the movement of people from rural to urban areas. A level of urban sprawl with a high one can be found in the Driyorejo Sub-District, one of the sub-districts in the southern Gresik Regency. This study uses a quantitative method that is analyzed using correlation analysis to determine the relationship that occurs between urban sprawl and the characteristics of the community in the study area. According to the study's findings, three villages have low levels of urban sprawl, four have medium levels, and four have high levels. The relationship between the typology's findings and the neighborhood's social makeup—including its level of education, economic situation, the welfare of its families, and the cost of land—will then be apparent. People with pre-prosperous family status frequently reside in villages with a tall typology of urban sprawl because of the strong correlation between urban sprawl and the Pra Prosperous family. Additionally, those in the agricultural industry are closely related to urban sprawl. Theoretically, people working in agriculture are more likely to select the same location for their primary residence and employment.

Avian Models of the Neurobiology of Anxiety: A Systematic Review

Objective: Anxiety is partly driven by changes in neuroendocrine signaling, which continues to be an area of study. Birds are a useful model to study anxiety disorders due to their unique behaviors and social makeup, leading to several observable behaviors indicative of anxiety. Methods: Using PRISMA guidelines, a systematic review of studies published from January 2000 to August 2022 in PubMed, PsycINFO and MedLine was conducted. Inclusion criteria included animal studies utilizing an avian model, examining the relationship between a neuroendocrine biomarker and behavioral displays of anxiety. Exclusion criteria included review articles, editorials, studies where anxiolytic drugs were used and studies where anxiety was not the primary studied behavior. Results: 376 articles were screened. 10 papers met the review criteria. Dopamine, serotonin and glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK-3β) were found to be inversely related to anxiety levels. Ghrelin and γ-Aminobutyric acid type A (GABAa) were directly correlated with anxiety levels. Corticosterone correlated in a bidirectional manner depending on when a stress was applied, however, lower levels at baseline were more predictive of less anxious birds. Pituitary adenylate cyclase was shown to increase anxiety but was also time-dependent. Arginine vaso-peptide was found to reduce anxiety, but was also context-dependent. Vasointestinal Peptide had no relation to anxiety. Conclusion: Birds display similar chemical responses to humans when anxious, and due to anxiety-related behaviors unique to birds, allow for an additional approach to the investigation of different neuroendocrine markers that are not always strongly considered when studying the neurobiology of anxiety in humans.

The ‘kampung formula’: Infrastructural adventurism and public art in Semarang, Indonesia

Describing the artistic and curatorial work of the Indonesian art collective Hysteria over the last 15 years, this paper considers public art as a practice of devising relations with various urban sites and actors. I focus on Hysteria’s core strategy of organising art festivals and exhibitions in kampungs– working-class urban neighbourhoods – with the aim of creating novel spaces for artistic expression, showing that the kampung serves both as inspiration for artistic experimentation and improvised public space in the absence of proper art infrastructure. Further, kampung space allows economically precarious artists to engage the city, that is, explore its social make-up and uncover economic opportunities. A long-term perspective on Hysteria’s work reveals that activities provide members as well as involved artists with valuable urban knowledge and connections. Turning the kampung into a subject of public art and infrastructure of encounter through what I call the ‘ kampung formula’, Hysteria managed to establish itself as a representative of the poor and key interlocutor of urban development agencies, becoming eligible for a number of pro-poor project grants. Describing the relational network of art, kampung and the wider city, I therefore propose to see public art as a kind of ‘infrastructural adventurism’ that provides glimpses into various aspects of both formal and informal economies in the Indonesian city and extracts knowledge and value from marginal urban places.

Parties, Voters and Political Change in Early Twentieth-Century Manchester: Reconnecting Politics and Society.

In the wake of the linguistic turn the 'new political history' has recognized the importance of both political language and social context. In practice, however, over recent years much political history of the pre-1918 period has become increasingly focused on language and party, relegating society and economy to the margins. This study emphasizes the interconnectedness of party politics and society, arguing that smaller municipal electoral districts offer potential new insights into the impact of religion, class, gender and ethnicity upon both, party policy and practice, and voter behaviour. Parties adapted their campaign strategies and policy stances to reflect their understanding of the social make-up of local electorates. Voter responses to party campaigns could be strongly influenced, but not determined, by individual or group perceptions of social standing. By exploring the connected fortunes of all three major parties new light is shed on the development of local political culture before 1914. The article also assesses the shifting strengths and weaknesses of Conservative, Liberal, and Labour parties, and contributes to historiographical debates on the politics of slum and suburban communities, and the pre-war trajectories of the major parties.

Curtailing crime dynamics: A mathematical approach

IntroductionCrime and criminal activities have huge influences on society and societal development. The social makeup of the society has a significant impact on the propagation of crime within a population. It is a well-known reality that crime spreads across society like an infectious disease, despite the fact that there are many elements that might affect this dynamic. So, understanding crime and the factors influencing its spread are essential in formulating policies to reduce the prevalence and impacts of crime.MethodsWe formulate a deterministic mathematical model using a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations incorporating education programs as tools to assess the population-level impact on the spread of crime. The model has a global asymptotically stable crime-free equilibrium whenever a certain criminological threshold, known as the effective reproduction number RE, is less than unity.Results and discussionThe model is fitted with prison data reported from July 2021 to June 2022 by the State of Illinois in The United States. The simulations are carried out to assess the population-level impact of the widespread use of the intervention programs and the compliance rate in the State of Illinois. We hypothetically fixed the efficacy of the intervention programs at 25% while varying the compliance rate (by the general public). With no compliance, a high level of active criminal population was recorded. As the compliance rates were significantly improved, the active population level decreased. The global sensitivity analysis is performed primarily to determine the parameters with the most effect on the spread of crime in the State of Illinois. The results demonstrate that the effective community contact rate, βc, for the criminally active individuals is the main driver of crime in the State of Illinois.

Health, diet, and mortuary practices in the countryside of Byzantine and post‐Byzantine Boeotia: The case of Hagios Sozon in Orchomenos

AbstractThis paper explores issues of health, diet, and mortuary practices in the countryside of Boeotia, Central Greece, during the Byzantine and post‐Byzantine periods (12th‐19th centuries AD). Boeotia was one of the Byzantine Empire's most important economic and artistic centers with a flourishing life in the cities and the countryside alike and a varied (socially and culturally) population. The human remains unearthed in connection to the church of Hagios Sozon in Orchomenos were analyzed to investigate the everyday challenges and social makeup of the inhabitants in the countryside. The examination of paleopathological lesions and stable isotopes (carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur) in combination showed moderate living conditions, a homogenous terrestrial diet, and signs of mobility, while the consumption of freshwater food sources was not detected, despite the vicinity to Lake Copais. Finally, social differentiation was suggested through the construction of a family burial structure and the mortuary treatment for preterms, perinates, and infants.

Deliberating Inequality: A Blueprint for Studying the Social Formation of Beliefs about Economic Inequality

In most contemporary societies, people underestimate the extent of economic inequality, resulting in lower support for taxation and redistribution than might be expressed by better informed citizens. We still know little, however, about how understandings of inequality arise, and therefore about where perceptions and misperceptions of it might come from. This methodological article takes one step toward filling this gap by developing a research design—a blueprint—to study how people’s understandings of wealth and income inequality develop through social interaction. Our approach combines insights from recent scholarship highlighting the socially situated character of inequality beliefs with those of survey experimental work testing how information about inequality changes people’s understandings of it. Specifically, we propose to use deliberative focus groups to approximate the interactional contexts in which individuals process information and form beliefs in social life. Leveraging an experimental methodology, our design then varies the social makeup of deliberative groups, as well as the information about inequality we share with participants, to explore how different types of social environments and information shape people’s understandings of economic inequality. This should let us test, in particular, whether the low socioeconomic diversity of people’s discussion and interaction networks relates to their tendency to underestimate inequality, and whether beliefs about opportunity explain people’s lack of appetite for redistributive policies. In this exploratory article we motivate our methodological apparatus and describe its key features, before reflecting on the findings from a proof-of-concept study conducted in London in the fall of 2019.

Quantifying social organization and political polarization in online platforms.

Mass selection into groups of like-minded individuals may be fragmenting and polarizing online society, particularly with respect to partisan differences1-4. However, our ability to measure the social makeup of online communities and in turn, to understand the social organization of online platforms, is limited by the pseudonymous, unstructured and large-scale nature of digital discussion. Here we develop a neural-embedding methodology to quantify the positioning of online communities along social dimensions by leveraging large-scale patterns of aggregate behaviour. Applying our methodology to 5.1 billion comments made in 10,000 communities over 14 years on Reddit, we measure how the macroscale community structure is organized with respect to age, gender and USpolitical partisanship. Examining political content, we find that Reddit underwent a significant polarization event around the 2016 USpresidential election. Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, individual-level polarization is rare; the system-level shift in 2016 was disproportionately driven by the arrival of new users. Political polarization on Reddit is unrelated to previous activity on the platform and is instead temporally aligned with external events. We also observe a stark ideological asymmetry, with the sharp increase in polarization in 2016 being entirely attributable to changes in right-wing activity. This methodology is broadly applicable to the study of online interaction, and our findings have implications for the design of online platforms, understanding the social contexts of online behaviour, and quantifying the dynamics and mechanisms of online polarization.

Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South by Gracjan Kraszewski

Reviewed by: Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South by Gracjan Kraszewski Carl C. Creason (bio) Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South. By Gracjan Kraszewski. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2020. Pp. ix, 196. $45.00 cloth; $37.99 ebook) In the spring of 1864, Jesuit priests at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau suspended classes to celebrate the "good news" of Confederate victories in Louisiana (p. 50). Months later, in neighboring Mississippi, federal troops arrested Bishop William Henry Elder of Natchez for refusing to offer a prayer in support of President Abraham Lincoln. And, in July 1864, Bishop Patrick Lynch of [End Page 92] Charleston arrived in Rome to meet with Pope Pius IX. The American prelate, commissioned as an official Confederate diplomat, traveled to Italy in hopes of securing papal recognition of the Confederacy. All of these events serve as examples of what historian Gracjan Kraszewski terms "Catholic Confederatization." In Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South, Kraszweski examines the nature of "Catholic commitment to and involvement in the Confederacy," demonstrating that, for the majority of white southern Catholics, religious and political identities "were not in tension; rather, they mutually reinforced each other" over the course of the Civil War (pp. xvii–xviii). Organized both chronologically and thematically, Catholic Confederates includes six chapters that examine the lives of prominent southern Catholics. Presented together, these case studies provide a representative portrait of the overall white southern Catholic experience. Chapters devoted to the wartime activities of bishops and priests as well as lay soldiers and civilians highlight the spectrum of Catholic Confederatization. Even though "almost all Southern Catholics were somehow involved in the Confederate nation," the degree and manner of Confederatization differed among Catholics for a variety of reasons (p. xix). Chaplains and soldiers remained the most "highly politicized" Catholics, donning rebel uniforms and supporting southern independence on the battlefield (p. xvii). Confederatization among members of the hierarchy, however, ranged from Bishop Lynch's overt display as an international lobbyist to Bishop Elder's position that he prayed only for a quick end to the war. As Catholic Confederates shows, southern prelates often couched their Confederate sympathies in messages advocating peace. Kraszewski's interpretations, then, call into question those religious leaders who claimed to be apolitical or neutral. And, finally, the chapter on sister-nurses focuses on a group of Catholics who participated in the Confederacy "without politicization" (p. 95). Catholic Confederates makes important contributions to the fields of Civil War religion, nineteenth-century southern Catholicism, and [End Page 93] Confederate nationalism. Kraszewski frames his study as an examination of a minority group within the newly established Confederate nation. In doing so, Catholic Confederates builds on the work of Emory Thomas, Drew Gilpin Faust, Anne Sarah Rubin, and other historians who have analyzed loyalty, identity, and citizenship in the Civil War South. Scholars of the Confederacy will benefit from Kraszewski's study of non-Protestant as well as immigrant expressions of nationalism, thereby broadening our understanding of the social makeup of the Confederacy. Historians of U.S. Catholicism, on the other hand, will appreciate Kraszewski's "Confederatization thesis," an alternative to the "Americanization thesis," which has influenced much of the historiography since the mid-twentieth century. While the Americanization thesis highlights the problems Catholics faced with assimilation, often depicting them as "others" or "outsiders," the Confederatization thesis posits that Catholics "were fully integrated members of [Confederate] society" (p. 141). As such, Kraszewski's work supports the arguments of recent publications by Andrew H. Stern, David C. R. Heisser, and Adam L. Tate, all of whom demonstrate that Catholicism thrived as an element of antebellum-southern and Confederate cultures. Throughout Catholic Confederates, Kraszewski illustrates how Catholics seemed "practically indistinguishable from Southern Protestants" (p. xxi). Differences of theology and modes of worship appear in sections about chaplains dispensing the sacraments in campgrounds and on battlefields. However, these activities are presented as examples of accepted religious diversity. In large part, Catholic inclusion in the Confederate nation crystallized because Church leaders either accepted or publicly endorsed slavery and the racial order established by the institution. Kraszewski joins a growing body of scholars who...

A social virus: Intergroup dehumanization and unwillingness to aid amidst COVID-19 − Who are the main targets?

Previous studies have shown that external threats, such as financial crises and natural disasters, might fuel negative attitudes, emotions, and behaviors towards outgroup members. However, it is unclear what types of outgroups are likely to be targeted when an external threat is taking its toll. In this study, we examine two types of outgroups that might be at risk of becoming victims of intergroup hostility. The first is the “ultimate scapegoat” outgroup which has a long history of negative relations with the ingroup. The second is the "context-dependent" outgroup which is viewed as an outgroup only in certain contexts. We utilized the COVID-19 crisis and the highly diverse social makeup of Israeli society to explore the extent to which each type of outgroup would be targeted. Results from our study (N = 664), conducted during the first peak of COVID-19 in Israel, show that higher levels of exposure to COVID-19 predicted lower willingness to aid outgroups and that outgroup dehumanization mediated this association. However, this held true only when the target outgroup was a context-dependent outgroup. When the target group was the ultimate scapegoat, exposure to COVID-19 did not predict ingroup willingness to aid them. Our findings contribute to our theoretical and practical knowledge on how intergroup hostility proliferates during external threats and, as such, are valuable to scholars, practitioners, and policymakers working to reduce intergroup tensions during large-scale crises.

Tracking sixty years of income diversity within neighborhoods: The case of Chicago, 1950-2010

Lack of economic integration at the neighborhood scale is viewed as a significant problem given its association with aggregated advantage (concentrated wealth) or disadvantage (concentrated poverty). Scholarship on neighborhood-level social make-up has most often focused on the problem of racial and economic segregation, but we believe there are important insights and lessons to be drawn from analyzing the spatial, socio-economic and temporal patterns of neighborhoods that are income-diverse. How should income diverse neighborhoods be defined and measured, and what factors are associated with them in different time periods? We explore these characterizations using tract-level census data for Chicago covering three census years: 1950, 1980, and 2010. Very few tracts were persistently diverse in all time periods, and the profile of income diverse tracts changed with each decade. In 1950, diverse tracts were dense, White, and had lower median income than non-diverse tracts. Thirty years later, diverse tracts were gentrified, but they were not different racially, nor in built form, from non-diverse tracts. By 2010, diverse tracts were back to having lower median income, but unlike in 1950, they now had fewer Whites, fewer Blacks, and far more Hispanics than non-diverse tracts.

Iron fist or nimble fingers?: An anatomy of Erdogan's strongman politics

ABSTRACT Populist strongman rulers of our times have two contradictory portraits. They appear messianic saviours committed to rooting out corrupt politicians and kindling a moral rejuvenation. They also appear pragmatists unafraid to get their hands dirty in the rough and tumble of politics and commerce. How do strongmen carry these two faces without having to resolve their glaring contradictions? I locate the roots of Janus-faced strongmen in their partnership with overlapping networks of religion and business. Focusing on the case of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, I argue that his two faces are embedded in two different Muslim networks, the morally stringent Islamists and the realist Gülenists. The idioms generated by these networks, ‘Homo Islamicus’ and ‘Golden Generation,’ have profoundly shaped the content and style of Erdogan's politics. I use these idioms to delineate these networks’ social makeup and show how (1) they hold the strongman accountable beyond the law and the ballot in the national sphere and (2) externally serve as informal diplomats calibrating his image abroad. I further argue that the strongman-network partnership is a fragile and high-stakes arrangement as their falling-out can leave the strongman hallowed out and the network fragmented. This research allows us to reimagine the strongmen of our times as socially accountable figures whose political prospects hinge less on an iron fist than nimble fingers knitting a delicate web of clients and informal diplomats.

Urban attributes and the spread of COVID-19: The effects of density, compliance and socio-political factors in Israel

Current debates identifying urban population density as a major catalyst for the spread of COVID-19, and the praise for de-densification and urban sprawl that they entail, may have dire environmental consequences. Juxtaposing competing theories about the urban antecedents of COVID-19, our key argument is that urban political attributes overshadow the effects of cities' spatial characteristics. This is true even when considering levels of compliance with movement restrictions and controlling for demographic and socio-economic conditions. Taking advantage of Israel as a living lab for studying COVID-19, we examine 271 localities during the first 3 months of the outbreak in Israel, a country where over 90% of the population is urban. Rather than density, we find social makeup and politics to have a critical effect. Cities with some types of political minority groups, but not others, exhibit higher infection rates. Compliance has a significant effect and density's influence on the spread of the disease is contingent on urban political attributes. We conclude with assessing how the relationship between the politics of cities and the spread of contagious diseases sheds new light on tensions between neo-Malthusian sentiments and concerns about urban sprawl and environmental degradation.

“Improving the Race”: The Discourse of Science and Eugenics in Local News Coverage, 1905–1922

In the early twentieth century, journalism contributed to the eugenics movement before it reached national and global saliency. Local newspapers played a role in writing about eugenics in Columbia, Missouri, that integrated “scientific” discourse with questions about the social and cultural makeup. Examining the Missouri School of Journalism’s newspaper, the Columbia Missourian, and the city’s newspaper, the Columbia Tribune, shows that the media discourse focused on three themes: 1) “race suicide” and its implications for designating social value; 2) elevating the “superior race” through purity and racial difference; and 3) promoting the politics of respectability. This article contributes to previous research on early journalism by analyzing how local news production incorporated “objectivity” as a practice that in turn elevated eugenics as a legitimate form of science.

Roman History

Some questions never go out of fashion. My main focus in this issue is the spread of Roman power across the Mediterranean, with multiple new publications appearing on this oldest of subjects. First up is Dexter Hoyos’ Rome Victorious. This work of popular history aims to cover what Hoyos dubs in his subtitle The Irresistible Rise of the Roman Empire, though that is rather an odd choice, since Hoyos stresses that Rome's imperial efforts did not always succeed. Hoyos walks us through the unification of Italy and the acquisition of the Republican provinces in the first two chapters, taking the narrative up to the death of Caesar in 44 bc. The next two chapters consider the consequences of those conquests: what a province actually meant, how it was controlled, and the effects both on the new territories’ inhabitants and on Rome's social and political make-up. In Chapter 5, Hoyos turns to the extensive imperial efforts of Augustus and those around him; those of his successors over the next two centuries are dealt with in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 surveys the shifting make-up of the Romans as a result of their conquests, focusing on the spread of citizenship and the changing origins of senators, generals, and artists. Chapter 8 looks at legitimate and illegitimate rule in Rome's provinces, Chapter 9 considers both Rome's self-reflexivity on imperial questions and the view from those regions themselves, and Chapter 10 bolsters the latter by treating concrete resistance to Rome. Chapter 11 looks at the degree to which the provinces became Roman.