Ned Schantz
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195335910
- eISBN:
- 9780199868902
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335910.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, Women's Literature
For over two hundred years of narrative culture, when female characters try to get together, crazy things happen. Indeed, the greater the means at women’s disposal, the more severe and twisted is the ...
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For over two hundred years of narrative culture, when female characters try to get together, crazy things happen. Indeed, the greater the means at women’s disposal, the more severe and twisted is the anxious reaction. But behind this broad anxiety lurks a powerful ideal of sympathetic and strategic female networks, an ideal that takes its intimate shape from the expectations of communications media, and that underwrites the very culture that would deny it. The book examines novelistic culture from the British novel to Hollywood film as a series of responses to the threat and promise of female networks. In texts from Clarissa, Emma, and The Portrait of a Lady to Sorry, Wrong Number, Vertigo, and You’ve Got Mail, it argues that a recurring gothic nightmare haunts plots of courtship and marriage, and that the concept of female networks illuminates the exits, for culture and criticism alike. And while this study must of necessity visit an uncanny realm of lost messages and false suitors, telepathy and artificial intelligence, locked rooms and time-traveling stalkers, these occult concerns only confirm the power at stake in the most basic modes of female communication, in gossip, letters, and phones.Less
For over two hundred years of narrative culture, when female characters try to get together, crazy things happen. Indeed, the greater the means at women’s disposal, the more severe and twisted is the anxious reaction. But behind this broad anxiety lurks a powerful ideal of sympathetic and strategic female networks, an ideal that takes its intimate shape from the expectations of communications media, and that underwrites the very culture that would deny it. The book examines novelistic culture from the British novel to Hollywood film as a series of responses to the threat and promise of female networks. In texts from Clarissa, Emma, and The Portrait of a Lady to Sorry, Wrong Number, Vertigo, and You’ve Got Mail, it argues that a recurring gothic nightmare haunts plots of courtship and marriage, and that the concept of female networks illuminates the exits, for culture and criticism alike. And while this study must of necessity visit an uncanny realm of lost messages and false suitors, telepathy and artificial intelligence, locked rooms and time-traveling stalkers, these occult concerns only confirm the power at stake in the most basic modes of female communication, in gossip, letters, and phones.
MARION TURNER
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199207893
- eISBN:
- 9780191709142
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199207893.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This book has tried to explore some of the ways in which social antagonism was articulated and addressed in Geoffrey Chaucer's textual environment. It appears that producers of texts in late ...
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This book has tried to explore some of the ways in which social antagonism was articulated and addressed in Geoffrey Chaucer's textual environment. It appears that producers of texts in late 14th-century London were profoundly concerned with problems of civic dissent and social division. The explosiveness of the climate in which Chaucer lived and wrote is dramatically exemplified in the example of John Constantyn, a cordwainer in the city of London whose hard fate bears witness to the heightened atmosphere of anxiety about rebellion, gossip, and faction in the 1380s. Chaucer's writings suggest that discursive turbulence cannot be tamed, that voices of aggression and dissent will make themselves heard, that societies will repeat the self-destructive behaviour of their predecessors, that people will betray each other, and that social groups will always fragment.Less
This book has tried to explore some of the ways in which social antagonism was articulated and addressed in Geoffrey Chaucer's textual environment. It appears that producers of texts in late 14th-century London were profoundly concerned with problems of civic dissent and social division. The explosiveness of the climate in which Chaucer lived and wrote is dramatically exemplified in the example of John Constantyn, a cordwainer in the city of London whose hard fate bears witness to the heightened atmosphere of anxiety about rebellion, gossip, and faction in the 1380s. Chaucer's writings suggest that discursive turbulence cannot be tamed, that voices of aggression and dissent will make themselves heard, that societies will repeat the self-destructive behaviour of their predecessors, that people will betray each other, and that social groups will always fragment.
Kenneth H. Craik
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195330922
- eISBN:
- 9780199868292
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195330922.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
The network interpretation of reputation advanced in this book depicts the everyday flow and storage of information about a person throughout the extensive lifelong network of all of those other ...
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The network interpretation of reputation advanced in this book depicts the everyday flow and storage of information about a person throughout the extensive lifelong network of all of those other individuals who have come to know that person. This demonstration of the underlying components and development of a person’s reputation affords examination of such issues as truth in reputation, how persons are both the agent and resultant of their reputations, the mutual relevance of reputation and personality, the psychological structure of libel law, and three distinct stages in the evolution of a person’s posthumous reputation network. The explicit network approach provides guidance for addressing such questions as How can we estimate the total membership size of a person’s lifelong reputational community? What adaptive social functions does gossip serve? What does the libel court of London teach us about the risks of communicating information about specific other persons and of defaming and being defamed? What changes occur in the flow of information about persons upon their death? This integrative network conception of reputation brings together a wide range of subfields in the social sciences and humanities into a coherent framework. They include biographical studies, cultural history, evolutionary psychology, gossip research, libel law, organizational psychology, personality assessment, publicity and public relations, social cognition, social network analysis, and social representation theory. The comprehensiveness of the network interpretation of reputation spotlights new forms of interdisciplinary analysis and shows how scholars and scientists in a broad array of disciplines have something important to contribute.Less
The network interpretation of reputation advanced in this book depicts the everyday flow and storage of information about a person throughout the extensive lifelong network of all of those other individuals who have come to know that person. This demonstration of the underlying components and development of a person’s reputation affords examination of such issues as truth in reputation, how persons are both the agent and resultant of their reputations, the mutual relevance of reputation and personality, the psychological structure of libel law, and three distinct stages in the evolution of a person’s posthumous reputation network. The explicit network approach provides guidance for addressing such questions as How can we estimate the total membership size of a person’s lifelong reputational community? What adaptive social functions does gossip serve? What does the libel court of London teach us about the risks of communicating information about specific other persons and of defaming and being defamed? What changes occur in the flow of information about persons upon their death? This integrative network conception of reputation brings together a wide range of subfields in the social sciences and humanities into a coherent framework. They include biographical studies, cultural history, evolutionary psychology, gossip research, libel law, organizational psychology, personality assessment, publicity and public relations, social cognition, social network analysis, and social representation theory. The comprehensiveness of the network interpretation of reputation spotlights new forms of interdisciplinary analysis and shows how scholars and scientists in a broad array of disciplines have something important to contribute.
Kenneth H. Craik
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195330922
- eISBN:
- 9780199868292
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195330922.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter analyzes the ongoing social communication process through which news, observations, and impressions about an individual circulate along that person’s reputational network via chat, ...
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This chapter analyzes the ongoing social communication process through which news, observations, and impressions about an individual circulate along that person’s reputational network via chat, gossip sessions, occasions of qualified privilege, and more formal means. In the network interpretation of reputation, the daily ebb and flow of information through the media of various forms of communication and discourse will be deemed the “discursive reputation,” referring to what is said about the person. Reputational networks are activated by social communication. In everyday life, we are surrounded by and awash in chat and gossip, and much of it is about specific persons. Much of what we know about most individuals we claim to know is indirect in this sense, derived from everyday, informal surveillance.Less
This chapter analyzes the ongoing social communication process through which news, observations, and impressions about an individual circulate along that person’s reputational network via chat, gossip sessions, occasions of qualified privilege, and more formal means. In the network interpretation of reputation, the daily ebb and flow of information through the media of various forms of communication and discourse will be deemed the “discursive reputation,” referring to what is said about the person. Reputational networks are activated by social communication. In everyday life, we are surrounded by and awash in chat and gossip, and much of it is about specific persons. Much of what we know about most individuals we claim to know is indirect in this sense, derived from everyday, informal surveillance.
Rebecca Krawiec
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195129434
- eISBN:
- 9780199834396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195129431.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion in the Ancient World
Lays out the narratives and explores the issues of various periods of crisis that prompted Shenoute's letters to the female monks. The issue themselves are wide ranging: Shenoute's exercise of power ...
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Lays out the narratives and explores the issues of various periods of crisis that prompted Shenoute's letters to the female monks. The issue themselves are wide ranging: Shenoute's exercise of power over the female community; his insistence on the gender separation of the male and female monks, including forbidding visits among relatives even as Shenoute himself visited the female community; incidents of female homoeroticism; a debate over what constituted proper monastic duties and proper corporal punishment; gossip; disputes over the quality of clothing the women were producing for male monks, including Shenoute's; and complaints about the excessive nature of Shenoute's leadership. All these topics, even in their diversity and their focus on conflict, provided Shenoute with the opportunity to teach all the monks, male and female, how to lead a salvific life in the monastery.Less
Lays out the narratives and explores the issues of various periods of crisis that prompted Shenoute's letters to the female monks. The issue themselves are wide ranging: Shenoute's exercise of power over the female community; his insistence on the gender separation of the male and female monks, including forbidding visits among relatives even as Shenoute himself visited the female community; incidents of female homoeroticism; a debate over what constituted proper monastic duties and proper corporal punishment; gossip; disputes over the quality of clothing the women were producing for male monks, including Shenoute's; and complaints about the excessive nature of Shenoute's leadership. All these topics, even in their diversity and their focus on conflict, provided Shenoute with the opportunity to teach all the monks, male and female, how to lead a salvific life in the monastery.
Ned Schantz
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195335910
- eISBN:
- 9780199868902
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335910.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, Women's Literature
With attention to major incarnations of the British novel, this chapter positions gossip as the central, disavowed source of interest in novelistic discourse. Reading Emma and The Portrait of a Lady ...
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With attention to major incarnations of the British novel, this chapter positions gossip as the central, disavowed source of interest in novelistic discourse. Reading Emma and The Portrait of a Lady closely, it tracks the seduction of the reader into gendered habits of scapegoating and sadism that characterize gossip at its worst. To counteract these dynamics, the chapter mobilizes untapped textual resources toward a more generous feminist mode of gossip, and thereby challenges conventional assumptions about character and plot from the status of Mrs. Elton to the fate of Isabel Archer.Less
With attention to major incarnations of the British novel, this chapter positions gossip as the central, disavowed source of interest in novelistic discourse. Reading Emma and The Portrait of a Lady closely, it tracks the seduction of the reader into gendered habits of scapegoating and sadism that characterize gossip at its worst. To counteract these dynamics, the chapter mobilizes untapped textual resources toward a more generous feminist mode of gossip, and thereby challenges conventional assumptions about character and plot from the status of Mrs. Elton to the fate of Isabel Archer.
Ned Schantz
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195335910
- eISBN:
- 9780199868902
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335910.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, Women's Literature
This thought experiment attempts to liberate Middlemarch from a predictable place in the novelistic culture of gossip, mobilizing the question of anachronism to locate the novel on the threshold of ...
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This thought experiment attempts to liberate Middlemarch from a predictable place in the novelistic culture of gossip, mobilizing the question of anachronism to locate the novel on the threshold of modern sound technology. Indeed, listening to Middlemarch with an ear for this coming future reveals an astonishing discourse of necrophilia, black magic, and resilient, time-traveling female networks. Installing the figure of radio as a bridge to our own moment, the epilogue thereby moves to reclaim the lost futures of the Victorian past as a resource for feminism.Less
This thought experiment attempts to liberate Middlemarch from a predictable place in the novelistic culture of gossip, mobilizing the question of anachronism to locate the novel on the threshold of modern sound technology. Indeed, listening to Middlemarch with an ear for this coming future reveals an astonishing discourse of necrophilia, black magic, and resilient, time-traveling female networks. Installing the figure of radio as a bridge to our own moment, the epilogue thereby moves to reclaim the lost futures of the Victorian past as a resource for feminism.
M.N. Srinivas
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198077459
- eISBN:
- 9780199081165
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198077459.003.0009
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
This chapter describes the quality of social relations in Rampura. The principle of reciprocity was basic to rural social life. Muyyi was the term used for exchange of labour, and it was resorted to ...
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This chapter describes the quality of social relations in Rampura. The principle of reciprocity was basic to rural social life. Muyyi was the term used for exchange of labour, and it was resorted to when the need for agricultural labour was at its peak. The omnipresence of hierarchical ideas had led to the proliferation and refinement of the symbols of superordination and subordination. The word moka or face was heard frequently in conversation. It stood for a person's image before others and for his self-respect. Friendship and enmity were both widely recognized relationships between individuals, families, and lineages. Gossip was an important activity in the village, and certain features of rural life provided an ideal soil for it. Envy was also a familiar phenomenon. Meanwhile, a sense of humour was an integral part of Indian village life, even though anthropological studies show no evidence of it.Less
This chapter describes the quality of social relations in Rampura. The principle of reciprocity was basic to rural social life. Muyyi was the term used for exchange of labour, and it was resorted to when the need for agricultural labour was at its peak. The omnipresence of hierarchical ideas had led to the proliferation and refinement of the symbols of superordination and subordination. The word moka or face was heard frequently in conversation. It stood for a person's image before others and for his self-respect. Friendship and enmity were both widely recognized relationships between individuals, families, and lineages. Gossip was an important activity in the village, and certain features of rural life provided an ideal soil for it. Envy was also a familiar phenomenon. Meanwhile, a sense of humour was an integral part of Indian village life, even though anthropological studies show no evidence of it.
Bernard Capp
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199255986
- eISBN:
- 9780191719592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255986.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Social History
This chapter explores some of the loose ends and contradictions within patriarchy, and the opportunities they offered for women to exercise some agency over their lives and the lives of others. ...
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This chapter explores some of the loose ends and contradictions within patriarchy, and the opportunities they offered for women to exercise some agency over their lives and the lives of others. Topics discussed include patriarchal theory, the lives of women without men (e.g., widows, women whose husbands worked elsewhere, women abandoned by their husbands), women in trade, and female social interaction, in particular, gossiping.Less
This chapter explores some of the loose ends and contradictions within patriarchy, and the opportunities they offered for women to exercise some agency over their lives and the lives of others. Topics discussed include patriarchal theory, the lives of women without men (e.g., widows, women whose husbands worked elsewhere, women abandoned by their husbands), women in trade, and female social interaction, in particular, gossiping.
Bernard Capp
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199255986
- eISBN:
- 9780191719592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255986.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Social History
This chapter examines women's experiences within marriage, and in particular the plight of those trapped in unhappy relationships. It addresses questions such as: How did they respond to their ...
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This chapter examines women's experiences within marriage, and in particular the plight of those trapped in unhappy relationships. It addresses questions such as: How did they respond to their predicament? How might they relieve or escape it? And how far were kin or friends, especially their ‘gossip networks’ able to provide effective help? None of the strategies available to women trapped in bad marriages could guarantee success, and some carried heavy risks. However, many women were nonetheless determined to play some part in shaping their own lives; they were agents as well as victims, and aware of several courses of action which offered at least some prospect of relief. A woman's best prospects generally lay in triggering the active support of her gossips by working the grain of community opinion, appealing simultaneously to their compassion, solidarity, and self-interest.Less
This chapter examines women's experiences within marriage, and in particular the plight of those trapped in unhappy relationships. It addresses questions such as: How did they respond to their predicament? How might they relieve or escape it? And how far were kin or friends, especially their ‘gossip networks’ able to provide effective help? None of the strategies available to women trapped in bad marriages could guarantee success, and some carried heavy risks. However, many women were nonetheless determined to play some part in shaping their own lives; they were agents as well as victims, and aware of several courses of action which offered at least some prospect of relief. A woman's best prospects generally lay in triggering the active support of her gossips by working the grain of community opinion, appealing simultaneously to their compassion, solidarity, and self-interest.
Bernard Capp
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199255986
- eISBN:
- 9780191719592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255986.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Social History
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It reviews the discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that the gossip network was a social construct that was at once ...
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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It reviews the discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that the gossip network was a social construct that was at once supportive and divisive, creating boundaries and based on exclusion as well as inclusion. It provided a valuable tool for survival, but was also an important weapon against personal adversaries, neighbours who refused to conform, and outsiders.Less
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It reviews the discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that the gossip network was a social construct that was at once supportive and divisive, creating boundaries and based on exclusion as well as inclusion. It provided a valuable tool for survival, but was also an important weapon against personal adversaries, neighbours who refused to conform, and outsiders.
Christian Kay and Margaret Mackay
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748622818
- eISBN:
- 9780748653362
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748622818.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Scottish Studies
This book celebrates the rich diversity of the Scots language and the culture it embodies. It marks two important events in Scots language scholarship: the completion of the Dictionary of the Older ...
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This book celebrates the rich diversity of the Scots language and the culture it embodies. It marks two important events in Scots language scholarship: the completion of the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST) in 2001 and the publication of its final volumes in 2002. The thirteen chapters that comprise the book cover many aspects of Scottish life as illuminated by the words used to describe it. The writers are linked by the fact that they have all made use of the wealth of information in DOST to advance their research. Their topics include the use of DOST in reading literature, in tracing the consumption of cereals and wine in early Scotland, in elucidating place names and terms used in shipping, building and measurement, and in defining such complex concepts as homicide and the role of ‘gossip’. Nor is the history and structure of the dictionary itself forgotten. There is a study of its development from its beginnings in the 1920s, together with biographical notes on its editors over the years. There are also chapters drawing comparisons with the Middle English Dictionary, the Linguistic Atlas of Older Scots and the proposed historical dictionary of Scottish Gaelic.Less
This book celebrates the rich diversity of the Scots language and the culture it embodies. It marks two important events in Scots language scholarship: the completion of the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST) in 2001 and the publication of its final volumes in 2002. The thirteen chapters that comprise the book cover many aspects of Scottish life as illuminated by the words used to describe it. The writers are linked by the fact that they have all made use of the wealth of information in DOST to advance their research. Their topics include the use of DOST in reading literature, in tracing the consumption of cereals and wine in early Scotland, in elucidating place names and terms used in shipping, building and measurement, and in defining such complex concepts as homicide and the role of ‘gossip’. Nor is the history and structure of the dictionary itself forgotten. There is a study of its development from its beginnings in the 1920s, together with biographical notes on its editors over the years. There are also chapters drawing comparisons with the Middle English Dictionary, the Linguistic Atlas of Older Scots and the proposed historical dictionary of Scottish Gaelic.
Jon Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520284319
- eISBN:
- 9780520959910
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520284319.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The history of Hollywood’s postwar transition is framed by two spectacular dead bodies: Elizabeth Short, AKA the Black Dahlia, found dumped and posed in a vacant lot in January 1947 and Marilyn ...
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The history of Hollywood’s postwar transition is framed by two spectacular dead bodies: Elizabeth Short, AKA the Black Dahlia, found dumped and posed in a vacant lot in January 1947 and Marilyn Monroe, the studio era’s last real movie star, discovered dead at her home in August 1962. Short and Monroe are just two of the many left for dead after the collapse of the studio system, Hollywood’s awkward adolescence during which the company town’s many competing subcultures -- celebrities, moguls, mobsters, gossip mongers, industry wannabes, and desperate transients – came into frequent contact and conflict. Hard-Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles focuses on the lives lost at the crossroads between a dreamed-of Los Angeles and the real thing after the Second World War.Less
The history of Hollywood’s postwar transition is framed by two spectacular dead bodies: Elizabeth Short, AKA the Black Dahlia, found dumped and posed in a vacant lot in January 1947 and Marilyn Monroe, the studio era’s last real movie star, discovered dead at her home in August 1962. Short and Monroe are just two of the many left for dead after the collapse of the studio system, Hollywood’s awkward adolescence during which the company town’s many competing subcultures -- celebrities, moguls, mobsters, gossip mongers, industry wannabes, and desperate transients – came into frequent contact and conflict. Hard-Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles focuses on the lives lost at the crossroads between a dreamed-of Los Angeles and the real thing after the Second World War.
Robin Briggs
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198225829
- eISBN:
- 9780191708947
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198225829.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter discusses the importance of reputations in the construction of the witch, or in the minds of those who appeared as witnesses. Topics covered include times and places for rumour and ...
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This chapter discusses the importance of reputations in the construction of the witch, or in the minds of those who appeared as witnesses. Topics covered include times and places for rumour and gossip, families at risk, social memory and testimony, healing witches, and restraints on persecution.Less
This chapter discusses the importance of reputations in the construction of the witch, or in the minds of those who appeared as witnesses. Topics covered include times and places for rumour and gossip, families at risk, social memory and testimony, healing witches, and restraints on persecution.
Philip Waller
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199541201
- eISBN:
- 9780191717284
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199541201.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter considers how people became professional writers is one subject of this chapter, looking at new schools of journalism as well help and advice given to novices by the more established. A ...
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This chapter considers how people became professional writers is one subject of this chapter, looking at new schools of journalism as well help and advice given to novices by the more established. A clear refrain is writers' insecurity and impecuniousness. Relatively few lived by the pen and fewer still lived well. Yet most ordinary occupations were hazardous and ill-paid, and writing as a career continued to attract because of the romance associated with the exercise of imagination and the creation of literature of lasting significance. While the vast majority failed to become independent writers, many thousands were proud to be part-time authors and to find outlets for their poetry and stories in the expanding newspaper and periodicals market. The chapter also examines writers' mutual assistance in manipulatiing publicity media — interviewing or writing about each other, or planting items in gossip columns — as the fashion for personal journalism, another facet of the New Journalism, developed. Douglas Sladen, initiator of a remodelled Who's Who, was a key figure in this promotion of writers to celebrity status and, while satirised by Pinero and others, most were pleased to have their names in the public eye.Less
This chapter considers how people became professional writers is one subject of this chapter, looking at new schools of journalism as well help and advice given to novices by the more established. A clear refrain is writers' insecurity and impecuniousness. Relatively few lived by the pen and fewer still lived well. Yet most ordinary occupations were hazardous and ill-paid, and writing as a career continued to attract because of the romance associated with the exercise of imagination and the creation of literature of lasting significance. While the vast majority failed to become independent writers, many thousands were proud to be part-time authors and to find outlets for their poetry and stories in the expanding newspaper and periodicals market. The chapter also examines writers' mutual assistance in manipulatiing publicity media — interviewing or writing about each other, or planting items in gossip columns — as the fashion for personal journalism, another facet of the New Journalism, developed. Douglas Sladen, initiator of a remodelled Who's Who, was a key figure in this promotion of writers to celebrity status and, while satirised by Pinero and others, most were pleased to have their names in the public eye.
C. A. J. Coady
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199276011
- eISBN:
- 9780191706110
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276011.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, General
Given that testimony is a fundamental and fundamentally reliable source of information, having a status akin to perception and memory in our fabric of understanding, then questions arise about how to ...
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Given that testimony is a fundamental and fundamentally reliable source of information, having a status akin to perception and memory in our fabric of understanding, then questions arise about how to comprehend those categories of testimony that seem inherently misleading. Some of these are the ‘pathologies of testimony’ discussed in this chapter: gossip, rumour, and urban myth. It is argued that philosophers have paid insufficient attention to the phenomenology of these three and that what has been said suffers from certain defects. The chapter explores both the conceptual structure of gossip, rumour, and urban myth, and the social and moral significance that they have. It concludes with comment on the epistemic value (and dis-value) of such pathologies.Less
Given that testimony is a fundamental and fundamentally reliable source of information, having a status akin to perception and memory in our fabric of understanding, then questions arise about how to comprehend those categories of testimony that seem inherently misleading. Some of these are the ‘pathologies of testimony’ discussed in this chapter: gossip, rumour, and urban myth. It is argued that philosophers have paid insufficient attention to the phenomenology of these three and that what has been said suffers from certain defects. The chapter explores both the conceptual structure of gossip, rumour, and urban myth, and the social and moral significance that they have. It concludes with comment on the epistemic value (and dis-value) of such pathologies.
Judith Fletcher
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199559213
- eISBN:
- 9780191594403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559213.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter analyses the performative status of Creon's interdiction against the burial of Polyneices by tracing its trajectory throughout the play. It argues that although the interdiction seems to ...
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This chapter analyses the performative status of Creon's interdiction against the burial of Polyneices by tracing its trajectory throughout the play. It argues that although the interdiction seems to have institutional force, it is in reality a deformed speech act, since Creon does not possess the authority to make law. An Athenian audience of citizens would recognize that the democratic voice, necessary for the creation of law, has been silenced. Antigone offers a contesting speech when she announces that she will bury her brother; in her exchange with Creon she functions as an exemplar of democratic free speech. Antigone, however, does not possess the authority to say that she will bury her brother since this was not a role performed by women in fifth‐century Athens. Nonetheless she activates a shadow democracy whose critique of the interdiction in the streets of Thebes resembles the informal discursive processes of the Athenian legislature.Less
This chapter analyses the performative status of Creon's interdiction against the burial of Polyneices by tracing its trajectory throughout the play. It argues that although the interdiction seems to have institutional force, it is in reality a deformed speech act, since Creon does not possess the authority to make law. An Athenian audience of citizens would recognize that the democratic voice, necessary for the creation of law, has been silenced. Antigone offers a contesting speech when she announces that she will bury her brother; in her exchange with Creon she functions as an exemplar of democratic free speech. Antigone, however, does not possess the authority to say that she will bury her brother since this was not a role performed by women in fifth‐century Athens. Nonetheless she activates a shadow democracy whose critique of the interdiction in the streets of Thebes resembles the informal discursive processes of the Athenian legislature.
BONNIE S. McDOUGALL
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199256792
- eISBN:
- 9780191698378
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199256792.003.0021
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, South and East Asia
This chapter discusses rumour and gossip. At the time the first batch of letters was written, Lu Xun and Xu Guangping were unaware that gossip had already begun to circulate about them, so that when ...
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This chapter discusses rumour and gossip. At the time the first batch of letters was written, Lu Xun and Xu Guangping were unaware that gossip had already begun to circulate about them, so that when Lu Xun rewrote the text he added comments to castigate the gossip-mongers, whom he now regarded as having plotted against him, and to indicate his abhorrence of gossip. In 1926, as the rumours increased, so too did his ire and her concern, and they became a major topic in their letters, fully represented in Letters between Two, although the concrete detail was missing. By 1929, both of them were more relaxed about gossip and could even joke about it, but the detail was still deleted.Less
This chapter discusses rumour and gossip. At the time the first batch of letters was written, Lu Xun and Xu Guangping were unaware that gossip had already begun to circulate about them, so that when Lu Xun rewrote the text he added comments to castigate the gossip-mongers, whom he now regarded as having plotted against him, and to indicate his abhorrence of gossip. In 1926, as the rumours increased, so too did his ire and her concern, and they became a major topic in their letters, fully represented in Letters between Two, although the concrete detail was missing. By 1929, both of them were more relaxed about gossip and could even joke about it, but the detail was still deleted.
Yiannis Gabriel
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198290957
- eISBN:
- 9780191684845
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198290957.003.0008
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
The main theme of this chapter is computer stories, related by three groups of organizational participants, computer experts, managers and users. Computers are powerful tools and those who control ...
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The main theme of this chapter is computer stories, related by three groups of organizational participants, computer experts, managers and users. Computers are powerful tools and those who control them have power. To control them, one needs to speak their language. Even though the computer is symbolically hollow for routine users, it is used extensively for disseminating information, gossip, and stories. If power is one of the hidden agendas of computer stories at the workplace, especially of stories recounted by experts and managers, discomfort and apprehension are the underlying message of many. It is interesting that in no stories did the computer feature as the friend of the user, nor as party to heroic deeds. At the heart of these apprehensions may lie the sense that computers are already too clever and too powerful to be controlled by humans, while at the same time we have become too dependent on them to be able to function without them.Less
The main theme of this chapter is computer stories, related by three groups of organizational participants, computer experts, managers and users. Computers are powerful tools and those who control them have power. To control them, one needs to speak their language. Even though the computer is symbolically hollow for routine users, it is used extensively for disseminating information, gossip, and stories. If power is one of the hidden agendas of computer stories at the workplace, especially of stories recounted by experts and managers, discomfort and apprehension are the underlying message of many. It is interesting that in no stories did the computer feature as the friend of the user, nor as party to heroic deeds. At the heart of these apprehensions may lie the sense that computers are already too clever and too powerful to be controlled by humans, while at the same time we have become too dependent on them to be able to function without them.
John Kerrigan
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199248513
- eISBN:
- 9780191697753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199248513.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter discusses gossip and secrecy in one of Shakespeare's most famous works, Twelfth Night. Thanks to the efforts of iconologists and art historians, modern readers know more about fraud, ...
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This chapter discusses gossip and secrecy in one of Shakespeare's most famous works, Twelfth Night. Thanks to the efforts of iconologists and art historians, modern readers know more about fraud, conspiracy, and censorship in middle-period Jonson, and Renaissance secrecy is no longer as secret as it used to be. However, there have been some difficulties in separating secretarial inscription from iconography in Twelfth Night. Based on the discussions in this chapter, it is determined that Twelfth Night is able to push the reader's perception of secrecy during the Renaissance period beyond the usual categories.Less
This chapter discusses gossip and secrecy in one of Shakespeare's most famous works, Twelfth Night. Thanks to the efforts of iconologists and art historians, modern readers know more about fraud, conspiracy, and censorship in middle-period Jonson, and Renaissance secrecy is no longer as secret as it used to be. However, there have been some difficulties in separating secretarial inscription from iconography in Twelfth Night. Based on the discussions in this chapter, it is determined that Twelfth Night is able to push the reader's perception of secrecy during the Renaissance period beyond the usual categories.
