The Social Memory of Jane Porter and her Scottish Chiefs

2012 ◽  
Vol 91 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Morton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Novel ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Historical Romance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Culture And Cognition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Memories

Formed within the interplay of history, culture and cognition, the concept of social memory is introduced to evaluate a key element of Scotland's nineteenth-century national tale. Being never more than partially captured by state and monarchy, and only imperfectly carried by institutions and groups, the national tale has comprised a number of narratives. Within the post-Union fluidity of Scotland's place within Britain, and at a time of European conflict, this tale coalesced around social memories of the mediaeval patriot William Wallace. Distinctive to that process was the historical romance The Scottish Chiefs (1810), as it was merged with the public life of its author, Jane Porter (bap. 1776–1850). By situating this fictional account of the life of Wallace within the social memories of its author, and in society more widely, attention is directed towards a set of stories formed in Porter's own cognition. These living memories were forged in her childhood experiences of a new life in Scotland; her claim to have pioneered the historical novel, confirmed by her friend Walter Scott; her personal, familial, and fictional projections of her public self; and in how contemporaries returned to her, and made known to society, their reception of her personality, her deportment, and her fiction. It was in combination that a leading social memory of the nation's tale was formed out of living memory that could not have transcended time and place.

scholarly journals The Public Sphere in the Field of Power

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Calhoun
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Public Sphere

In this article I ask (1) whether the ways in which the early bourgeois public sphere was structured—precisely by exclusion—are instructive for considering its later development, (2) how a consideration of the social foundations of public life calls into question abstract formulations of it as an escape from social determination into a realm of discursive reason, (3) to what extent “counterpublics” may offer useful accommodations to failures of larger public spheres without necessarily becoming completely attractive alternatives, and (4) to what extent considering the organization of the public sphere as a field might prove helpful in analyzing differentiated publics, rather than thinking of them simply as parallel but each based on discrete conditions. These considerations are informed by an account of the way that the public sphere developed as a concrete ideal and an object of struggle in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain.

The Languages of Petitioning in Early Colonial India

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Jaffe
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western India ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Levels

With relatively few exceptions, personal petitions from individuals have received much less attention from historians than those from groups in the public political sphere. In one sense, personal petitions adopted many of the same rhetorical strategies as those delivered by a group. However, they also offer unique insights into the quotidian relationship between the people and their rulers. This article examines surviving personal petitions to various administrators at different levels of government in western India during the decades surrounding the East India Company’s conquests. The analysis of these petitions helps to refine our understanding of the place of the new judicial system in the social world of early-nineteenth-century India, especially by illuminating the discourse of justice that petitioners brought to the presentation of their cases to their new governors. The conclusion of this article seeks to place the rhetoric of personal petitioning within the larger context of mass political petitioning in India during the early nineteenth century.

scholarly journals Activating the edge: Investigating landscape architectures potential to utilise transport infrastructures public life generating ability

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jordan Kuiti
Keyword(s):  
Public Life ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Test Site ◽  
Transport Infrastructure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Functional Aspects ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Development ◽  
Large Groups ◽  
The City

<p>Transport infrastructure is a key aspect of any city. The ability to move large groups of people into and through the city can positively or negatively affect the public life associated with that city. With this in mind transport infrastructure is often designed in a very technical manner, which seeks to move maximum numbers of people around the system as fast as possible for the least amount of money. There seems to be a lack of embrace of other aspects associated with transport infrastructure. These other aspects include public life, place making, enjoyment, and what is the transport adding to the city? With the population of New Zealand’s cities increasing, more money is being allocated to transport infrastructure projects. With a change in approach these projects could work functionally but also offer other benefits, such as public life, new development, enhanced identity, and importantly a more liveable city for the inhabitants. Instead of the functional aspects of transport infrastructure being the only driver, a more holistic approach should be utilised which takes into account the social and public life generating potential. Wellington City has been chosen as a test site as it is an example of a city currently going through transport infrastructure upgrades whilst also struggling with future transport issues. Situated in a unique harbour setting the waterfront is split from the CBD with a traffic heavy six-lane road. The harbour offers a transport resource that is not being utilised. Ferry transport offers a new approach to transport in Wellington that offers greater benefits than just moving people around the system. This thesis proposes a fresh look at transport infrastructure in Wellington with the development of a ferry network designed to service the entire Wellington Harbour. Through researching the development potentials offered by transport networks this thesis argues that a holistic approach to transport infrastructure can have wider reaching benefits that just moving people around the system efficiently.</p>

From the Sacred to the Secular: Ethnic Identity and Monetary Value embodied in Jewish Ceremonial Textiles according to the Pinkassim of Amsterdam

Images ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-34
Author(s):  
Julie-Marthe Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Market Value ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religious Ritual ◽  
Monetary Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
Written Sources

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Jewish intelligentsia developed a historical and scholarly interest in material objects of Jewish culture. In new exhibitions they organized, ritual objects that had been associated exclusively with religious observance, were moved to the public domain and divested of their purely religious ritual function. In a secular setting, Judaica became an expression of Jewish ethnic identity defined by its surrounding and religion, and evoked a new appreciation as objets d’art that implicitly assumed a monetary market value. This article examines whether this expression of ethnic identity and aesthetic and monetary appreciation developed first in the context of nineteenth-century secularism. By presenting three case studies based on written sources, I argue that ethnic and monetary value were already manifest in prior centuries and underline the value of written sources for an understanding of the social and cultural historical context of Jewish ceremonial objects.

Pages from a Yellow Press: Print Culture, Public Life and Political Genealogies in Modern Brazil

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-379
Author(s):  
JAMES P. WOODARD
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Original Formulation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Radical Republicanism

AbstractAn examination of the Brazilian newspaper O Combate, this article accomplishes four goals. First, it defines the politics of a periodical long cited but little understood by historians. Second, it documents O Combate's place, alongside other ‘yellow press’ outlets, in the making of a ‘public sphere’ in São Paulo. Third, it situates the same publications' role in the bringing into being of a more commercial, publicity-driven press, which would shed the yellow press's radicalism and abet the collapse of the public sphere of its heyday. Fourth, it suggests that O Combate's radical republicanism was one fount of the democratic radicalism of the late 1920s and early 1930s, as well as of the regionally chauvinist constitutionalism of 1932–7. In this rare application of the ‘public sphere’ idea to twentieth-century Brazil, readers may also detect an account closer to Jürgen Habermas’ original formulation than that found in the historiography of nineteenth-century Spanish America.

Priesthood and Politics in the Nineteenth Century: The Turbulent Career of Thomas Mcdonnell

1987 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith F. Champ
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Pyramidal Structure ◽  
The Social

THE CONSEQUENCE of the Cisapline attempt to ‘grapple with the social and intellectual transformation of the modern world” and to bring about a ‘revision of the pyramidal structure of the Tridentine Church” was the greater assimilation of English Catholics into contemporary society. Encouraged by a new sense of freedom, clergy and laity participated more actively in English public life’ and dismantled much of the closed élite community of the recusant period. This led to a brief phase in which both clergy and laity exercised their new-found freedoms, but which was dogged by disputes. Arguments raged between liberalism and authority, and between sectarian ideals and non-denominational activities. They were eventually resolved in a restoration, by 1850, of the pyramidal structure of the Tridentine Church, in which the role of the laity was subject to the authority and guidance of the clergy.

The Social Architect and the Myopic Mason: The Spatial Politics of the Muséum d'Histoire naturelle in Nineteenth-Century Paris

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 601-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Young Lee
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
Comparative Anatomy ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Spatial Politics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Georges Cuvier ◽  
The Social

ArgumentDuring the first half of the nineteenth century, the Muséum d'Histoire naturelle was both workplace and home to functionalist Georges Cuvier and morphologist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, whose doctrinal differences became enmeshed with political dialogues regarding social reform. Surprisingly, the public not only viewed the arrangement of the collections in terms of the social platforms they were understood to be supporting, but critiqued the Muséum's buildings as expressions of their anatomical dispute. The Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 pushed these critiques forward, suggesting to some observers that true reform of the natural sciences would begin by reforming the Muséum's architectural program, thereby placing the goals of Comparative Anatomy in correct relationship to human progress.

Attitudes and Responses to Vagrancy in Ireland in the Long Nineteenth Century

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia Crossman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Criminal Offence ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Considerable Debate ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Special Category

This essay focuses on a special category of Irish crime: vagrancy. While vagrancy was a criminal offence in its own right, it was often its association with other forms of criminality and immorality that ensured ‘tramps’ could be viewed with fear and contempt in the Irish countryside. The relationship between crime and poverty has been a subject of considerable debate in numerous scholarly fields. This essay makes the important point that tramps were viewed with suspicion, not on account of their poverty intrinsically, but rather because they consciously rejected social norms in favour of an itinerant lifestyle. The ‘tramp problem’ occupied the attentions of the public and the administrators alike at the turn of the century: the former sometimes startled by the arrival at their door of a ‘big lazy fellow’ demanding relief, and the latter busily issuing circulars to magistrates and police imploring them to clamp down on the offenders. In the end, however, an unsatisfactory justice system predicated on punishment merely reinforced existing prejudices and did little to alleviate the social inequality that gave rise to vagrancy in the first place.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document