The Ideology of the Arena

1996 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Gunderson
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Social Vision ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Roman World ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The Social ◽  
Roman Provinces

The Roman arena is often described as an exotic or peripheral institution. Alternatively, it has been seen as a culturally central institution. In this case one traditionally assumes either that the arena is used to pacify the lower classes or that it expresses themes of violence at the heart of Roman society. In the first view the arena's politics are cynical; in the second they are often described as decadent or full of despair. While none of these readings should be neglected, this essay argues that the arena can be examined as a productive institution which helps in the maintenance of Roman social relations from the top to the bottom and from the violent to the banal. When viewed in the light of Louis Althusser's idea of the ideological state apparatus, the arena can be read as political and psychological without recourse to notions of cunning calculation or psychic crisis. The arena is not only normal, but it participates in the production of normativity. This study pays particular attention to the ways in which the arena enables a specific kind of vision of the Roman world. In this vision the Roman nobiles in general and, later, the emperor in particular are reaffirmed as legitimate authorities: the rulers perhaps need the arena more than does the mob. The arena is also a locus at which the relations of domination which subsist between Rome and its subjects and between the sexes are reproduced in both the social and theatrical senses: the arena stages culturally vital spectacles. Indeed the export of the arena into the Roman provinces also entails the exportation of the Roman social structures which the arena serves. The Romanness of the arena is in fact so pervasive that even many of the hostile appraisals of the arena which come to us from antiquity reproduce the hierarchical social vision which the arena enables even as the institution itself is repudiated. Accordingly all representations of the arena need to be read within the logic of the arena itself. The ideology of the arena has no outside.

Commending a freedman. Virtues and masculinities in the recommendation letters of Cicero and Pliny the Younger

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 401-418
Author(s):  
Lisa Hagelin
Keyword(s):  
Social Complexity ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Imperial Rome ◽  
Gender Discourse ◽  
Pliny The Younger ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Roman World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cardinal Virtue

This article explores Roman freedmen’s masculine positions expressed as virtues, qualities, and ideals in the recommendation letters of Cicero and Pliny the Younger. It discusses whether there were specific freedman virtues, qualities, and ideals and what consequences their existence or absence had for freedmen’s constructions of masculinity. A critical close reading of the texts is applied, combined with theories of masculinity, where hegemonic masculinity is a key concept. It is concluded that there were no virtues or qualities that were specific or exclusive to freedmen. A distinct set of virtues for freedmen did not exist in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome, since much the same behaviour and qualities are seen as manly and desirable for freedmen as for freeborn male citizens of high birth. However, freedmen cannot comply with the hegemonic masculinity in full, since they cannot embody the Roman masculine ideal of the vir bonus and cannot be associated with the Roman cardinal virtue virtus, which was central in the construction of masculinity in the Roman world. This illustrates the complex Roman gender discourse and, on the whole, the social complexity of Roman society.

Darwinian Dynamics of Depression

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (11) ◽  
pp. 1029-1037
Author(s):  
John Price
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Loss Of Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Depressive States

Darwin's theory of sexual selection offers a challenge to psychology and psychiatry. We select each other, and have been doing so since social life first evolved. But who is selected and what happens to those who are not selected? What social structures have evolved to contain the unselected? What behaviours have evolved to manage the selection process? How do the selected relate to the unselected and what behaviours have evolved to manage this asymmetry in social relations? What mental states have evolved to characterize the selected and the unselected? These questions should be kept in mind when we observe and study the social structures, behaviours and mental states that we see displayed before us in all the variety of nature. It is suggested that a significant amount of current psychiatric disorder, especially depressive states and both social and generalized anxiety disorder, have evolved because they managed the processes of being unselected and de-selected, and maintained the unselected in that social role without loss of life or physical incapacity, and enabled the unselected to contribute to general social well-being.

Gladiators as a Class

2021 ◽  
pp. 556-566
Author(s):  
Valerie M. Hope
Keyword(s):  
Social Isolation ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cohesive Group

The amphitheatre has been described as a microcosm of Roman society. In the amphitheatre the social divisions and distinctions that defined Roman society were exposed to all. From the worst seats to the best seats, from slaves to the emperor, from dirty clothes to regal purple, visually (and audibly) society was on show. At the heart of this was the arena itself, where the gaze of all fell upon the gladiators. These men (and women) were, in principle, the lowest of the low; despised and hated, debased outcasts from society. In reality their place in society and their relationship to and with those who gazed upon them was more complex. This chapter will investigate how gladiators were viewed both by others and by themselves, and the extent to which gladiators were regarded as a cohesive group, even a ‘class’. It will explore how the lowly legal status of gladiators, their social isolation and the stigma of infamia, co-existed with society’s admiration for fighting prowess and its need for heroes and sex-symbols. It will also explore how gladiators shaped their own identity and created their own social structures, ‘families’ and hierarchies within the gladiatorial barracks. One of the challenges in investigating gladiators is moving beyond the stereotypes and prejudices created by elite authors; to this end this chapter will look not just at literary sources, but also inscriptions, epitaphs and gladiatorial tombstones and burials. This evidence highlights the central dichotomy that faced gladiators and defined their life; that they were both isolated from but integral to Roman society.

scholarly journals The scaling of social interactions across animal species

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis E. C. Rocha ◽  
Jan Ryckebusch ◽  
Koen Schoors ◽  
Matthew Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Power Law ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Physical Contact ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Spatial Proximity ◽  
Social Contacts ◽  
The Social

AbstractSocial animals self-organise to create groups to increase protection against predators and productivity. One-to-one interactions are the building blocks of these emergent social structures and may correspond to friendship, grooming, communication, among other social relations. These structures should be robust to failures and provide efficient communication to compensate the costs of forming and maintaining the social contacts but the specific purpose of each social interaction regulates the evolution of the respective social networks. We collate 611 animal social networks and show that the number of social contacts E scales with group size N as a super-linear power-law $$E=CN^\beta$$ E = C N β for various species of animals, including humans, other mammals and non-mammals. We identify that the power-law exponent $$\beta$$ β varies according to the social function of the interactions as $$\beta = 1+a/4$$ β = 1 + a / 4 , with $$a \approx {1,2,3,4}$$ a ≈ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 . By fitting a multi-layer model to our data, we observe that the cost to cross social groups also varies according to social function. Relatively low costs are observed for physical contact, grooming and group membership which lead to small groups with high and constant social clustering. Offline friendship has similar patterns while online friendship shows weak social structures. The intermediate case of spatial proximity (with $$\beta =1.5$$ β = 1.5 and clustering dependency on network size quantitatively similar to friendship) suggests that proximity interactions may be as relevant for the spread of infectious diseases as for social processes like friendship.

Hybridised materialisms: The ‘twists and turns’ of materialities in feminist theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-281
Author(s):  
Najate Zouggari
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Materialisms ◽  
Materialist Feminism

This article examines the conceptualisation of materialities in feminist theory through two paradigmatic examples: (French) materialist feminism and new materialisms. What can be interpreted as an opposition between different paradigms can also be disrupted as long as we define what matters as a relation or a process rather than a substance or a lost paradise to which we should return. New materialisms indeed help to investigate aspects such as corporeality, human/non-human interaction and textures, but the role of feminist materialism is invaluable in highlighting the social structures of power relations; more than ever, it makes a decisive contribution to the understanding of domination, such as the social relations and hierarchies implied in femosecularism conceptualised in this article. Ultimately, the tool of hybridised materialisms aims to articulate the theoretical perspective of materialist feminism with that of the new materialisms – in order to avoid the binarism between materiality and culture.

scholarly journals Coloniality and Mental Health, Neurological and Substance Abuse (MNS) Disorders in Guyana’s Prisons Today

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Queenela Cameron ◽  
Dylan Kerrigan
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Substance Abuse ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Population Management ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
British Guiana ◽  
Social Actions ◽  
The Social ◽  
British Colony

There is a relationship between the social actions and social structures laid down during colonialism, and the social hierarchies and inequalities that developed as British Guiana moved slowly from British colony to Independent Guyana. From slavery and indigenous marginalisation, to indentureship and colonial social relations, modern Guyana emerges from the legacies of an Imperial project, and most notably “enslavement, immigration, and population management” (Anderson 2019). In the context of Guyana’s prisons today, the echoes and ghosts of this Imperial project can be said to still haunt the grounds and insides of these decaying buildings, as well as stalking the lives and minds of inmates themselves.

'Your Heart Is Not Warm Unless You Steal!'

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ada I. Engebrigtsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Moral Judgement ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
Historical Periods ◽  
Individual Objects

A proverb common in Romania, generally referring to gypsies, claims that 'your heart is not warm unless you steel'. During the author's fieldwork in a village in Transylvania it was, obvious, however, that the moral judgement on theft and stealing varies greatly according to context. The article discusses the social construction of theft in different empirical contexts and historical periods from wartime looting in India to theft of state property in Romania and how the definition and judgement in each case are embedded in social relations and social structures. The article's main objective is to unmask social relations of power and domination that are often hidden behind definitions and judgements concerning the acquisition of the property of others. Thus theft cannot be understood as either legal or moral; instead, it ties together the moral and the legal, the collective and the individual, objects and persons in different ways in different contexts.

scholarly journals Understanding and designing sociotechnical scenarios: a multi-theoretical approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Alysson Prado ◽  
Cecilia Baranauskas
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Real World Problem ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

Technology evolution is pushing the limits of our comprehension of the world and of ourselves, blurring the boundaries between people and objects. To understand this interweaving of ubiquitous computer systems and their dynamic social relations different theoretical sources are necessary. Socially Aware Computing provides a deep understanding on how information systems emerge from and interact with the social context, whereas Actor-Network Theory represents a promising referential to explain how people and artifacts mutually actuate to render social structures. In this paper, we assess the paradigmatic compatibility of these two theories, proposing a blend that provides a single basis to enrich the understanding of complex scenarios for designers of sociallyaware technology. In the sequence, we present an application of such proposal in a real-world problem. Finally, we discuss how this approach can be further extended to model nondeterministic interactions involving people and devices in social situations.

The SRM Approach to Family Assessment

2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 216-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
William L. Cook
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Risk Behaviors ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Family Dynamics ◽  
Family Assessment ◽  
High Risk Behaviors ◽  
Analysis Group ◽  
The Social ◽  
Direction Of Effects

Abstract. In family systems, it is possible for one to put oneself at risk by eliciting aversive, high-risk behaviors from others ( Cook, Kenny, & Goldstein, 1991 ). Consequently, it is desirable that family assessments should clarify the direction of effects when evaluating family dynamics. In this paper a new method of family assessment will be presented that identifies bidirectional influence processes in family relationships. Based on the Social Relations Model (SRM: Kenny & La Voie, 1984 ), the SRM Family Assessment provides information about the give and take of family dynamics at three levels of analysis: group, individual, and dyad. The method will be briefly illustrated by the assessment of a family from the PIER Program, a randomized clinical trial of an intervention to prevent the onset of psychosis in high-risk young people.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document