bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Consolidating Disaster Action’s Influence and Contribution
Authors: Eyre Anne , Dix Pam
Published: September 2021

This chapter highlights how, within ten years of its foundation, Disaster Action had become well established as an organisation and increasingly participated in consultations on planning for, and responding to, the needs of those directly affected by disaster. The involvement of Disaster Action members in committees and specialist working parties continued to develop as the emergency services, emergency planning professionals, and others sought to improve and develop procedures, guidance, and legislative processes for disaster prevention, planning, and response. As of 2014, the organisation is still regularly consulted by the statutory and voluntary services on how people's practical and emotional needs can best be met in the aftermath of disaster. It has become clear over the years that the influence of the organisation has spread far beyond its size. This is shown by the extent to which Disaster Action members continue to be invited to give presentations and participate in more and more national and international events and consultative processes. The chapter then looks at the awards and commendations that Disaster Action received for their work.
Introduction
Authors: Taylor-Guthartz Lindsey
Published: September 2021

This introductory chapter gives a brief background of the differences between Jewish communities in Israel, America, and Britain. Jewish denominational affiliation differs sharply in the two countries: in Britain, Orthodoxy — even if of a nominal kind — is still the default position of the majority of synagogue-affiliated Jews (69 percent), while in America Orthodox Jews are very much in the minority (10 percent). The chapter notes that trends in Israel typically take many years to filter into the Anglo-Jewish world. While women play a relatively larger role in Jewish practices in Jerusalem, Orthodox Jewish women are not only uninterested in greater ritual and study participation but are actively hostile to the idea. Though there have been some outstanding anthropological studies of Jewish women in both America and Israel, little research of this sort has yet been undertaken in Britain. The chapter elaborates that the book attempts to make a contribution to the understanding of current trends among Orthodox Jewish women worldwide by focusing on women in the unique context of British Jewry.
Contested Prayers and Powerful Blessings: Women’s ‘Unofficial’ Life in the Community
Authors: Taylor-Guthartz Lindsey
Published: September 2021

This chapter deals with unofficial communal activity. A wide range of informal communal activities provides women with opportunities for religious or spiritual self-expression and for creating ritual contexts that function as substitutes for the communal rituals closed to them. It is here that they show most creativity and originality, often adapting or even inventing rituals. In Israel, the related practice of women praying in the standard synagogue service but then conducting a separate women-only Torah reading has taken root in several places. Until recently, the only regular prayer service for women in London was in Stanmore under the auspices of Stanmore and Canons Park United Synagogue. Many women feel that these services constitute the high point of their religious lives, offering an opportunity for quiet reflection and participation. This also allowed women the opportunity to learn more about the service and individual prayers, the sense of active participation. Recently, a new trend has emerged within the British Orthodox community. Small groups of highly educated professionals in their thirties and forties from the Modern Orthodox sector of the community, have begun to hold services known as partnership minyanim, in which women lead non-obligatory parts of the service, as well as reading the Torah and haftarah and being called up to recite the Torah blessings. Women also give sermons at these services, and recite Kaddish if they are mourners. Consideration of these non-official communal rituals provides further support for the threefold division of Orthodox women into haredi, Modern Orthodox, and traditionalist groups.
Red Threads and Amulets: Women’s ‘Unofficial’ Life in the Family
Authors: Taylor-Guthartz Lindsey
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores unofficial domestic customs. The least visible aspect of Jewish women's lives is the individual customs or practices they perform in a domestic or everyday context, many learnt from female relatives, and the part these play in their religious lives. Individual practices are often so automatic that women do not reflect on them. In some cases, they receive so little attention from rabbis or in popular Jewish literature that women themselves discount or denigrate them as 'superstitions', even as they practise them. There has been a decline in older practices, which are more likely to be identified as magical or superstitious by women operating partly within a Western worldview, whereas more pietistic practices have increased in number among young women with higher levels of formal Jewish education. Other factors that facilitate and shape change in women's religious lives include developing technology in the Western world, such as the replacement of domestic manufacture by industrial production, leading to the demise of customs associated with these technologies, and the growing possibilities offered by the Internet in spreading knowledge of recently invented or expanded customs. Traditionalist women, though principally Western in their education and thinking, are still inextricably linked to their Jewish identity, which often includes customs and practices for which they might struggle to find a rationale, but which they are committed to observing. These customs provide a fertile field for women to adapt and reinterpret existing practices, and to invent new ones that express their most urgent concerns and aims.
Unfathomed Depths; Uncharted Mountains
Authors: Powell Jim
Published: September 2021

This chapter investigates Britain’s cotton supply and usage during the war. It examines all the issues that have been misinterpreted or ignored: cotton imports, bale weights, cotton re-exports, wastage in spinning, raw cotton stocks, stocks of cotton goods, exports of cotton goods and investment in new mills. There was nothing abnormal about the cotton market in 1859–61. Without the war, there would have been no allegation of pre-war over-production, no assertion of the glutting of overseas markets. The chapter offers an alternative explanation of why short-term working, which led to the Lancashire cotton famine, began in October 1862 when there was not yet a scarcity of cotton. The international cotton trade needed a large pipeline of stock. The outbreak of war, followed by the Confederate embargo and the Union blockade, paralysed the world market and caused an abrupt fall in demand. The conclusion is that, for the three main years of the war, British yarn production was at 36 per cent of the market requirement, and that about 4.5 billion lb of raw cotton was denied to Britain in the seven years to the end of 1867.
Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus
Authors: March Jennifer R.
Published: September 2021

Oedipus Tyrannus by the great tragedian Sophocles is one of the most famous works of ancient Greek literature. The play has always been admired for the unity of its plot; every bit of every scene counts towards the dramatic effect. The action is concentrated into a single day in Oedipus’ life; his heinous crimes of unwittingly committing patricide and incest by marrying his mother all lie long ago in the past, and now, in the action of this one day, there awaits for him only the discovery of the truth. Oedipus is portrayed as a noble king, deeply devoted to his people and they to him. Proud of his earlier defeat of the Sphinx, he is determined to save his city once again, and he unflinchingly pursues the truth of who he is and what he has done, unaware that it will bring him to disaster. The spectators, familiar with Oedipus’ story, wait in horrified suspense for that terrible moment of realisation to arrive. And when it does, Oedipus survives it: he takes full responsibility for what he has done, accepts the grief and the pain, and carries on, remaining indomitable to the end. Sophocles gives no answer as to why Oedipus is made to suffer his tragic fate. Jenny March’s new facing-page translation brings alive the power and complexities of Sophocles’ writing, with a substantial introduction and a detailed commentary which is keyed to important words in the translation and aims to be accessible to readers with little or no Greek.
From Substitution to Co-presence: Translation, Memory, Trace and the Visual Practices of Diasporic Italian Artists
Authors: Polezzi Loredana
Published: September 2021

The essay examines how female artists working in the context of Italian American and Italian Australian communities use gendered practices, images, and objects to construct a visual genealogy of migration that reminds us of its roots not just in trauma but also in desire. Their work embraces metaphorical as well as material forms of translation to invoke the double-edged nature of migration and of its memory: the ability to look towards the future while maintaining the threads that link us to our past. Their creative practices substantiate a vision of translation which refutes fixed binary models based on notions of substitution and replacement, pointing instead towards the dynamic processes that allow us to travel, migrate, self-translate, while actively constructing individual and collective narratives that insist on continuity and co-presence. Translation, then, acts not as a form of erasure but as a trace, testifying to and making visible the tension between continuity and discontinuity that lies at the heart of transnational experiences and transcultural narratives.
“Partout Etrangère”: Romaine Brooks
Authors: Hawthorne Melanie C.
Published: September 2021

The case of Romaine Brooks (1874-1970) illustrates the loss of autonomy and self-definition that women may experience as a result of not having a claim to citizenship in their own right. Drawing on original research, the chapter recounts how Brooks unwillingly became a mother, but rejected that identity, and lost her American citizenship by marrying a British man. Like Vivien, Brooks lived transnationally: she was born in Rome to American parents, educated primarily in Europe, and lived most of her adult life in Italy and France, with occasional visits to the US. Like Vivien, she was independently wealthy, and this status afforded her some privilege, but it could not shield her entirely from being defined by others in important areas of her life.
Conclusion: Interlocutory Cultures
Authors: Webb Jack Daniel
Published: September 2021

The conclusion considers the relations between and across the key moments in the chapters explored in this book. In particular, it explores the dynamic of vacillating ideas about Haiti over time; the way in which Haiti both faded but also returned at certain points to take up a burning relevance in the British imagination. This dynamic relied, the chapter argues, on the agency of Haitians in presenting their views to British counterparts in the face of efforts to ‘silence’ or otherwise disregard Haitian ideas. The chapter conceptualises this pattern of fading and return through the theoretical paradigm of spectrality. Much like ideas about Haiti, the spectre always has the potential to return with a burning significance. The chapter ends by gesturing forwards and meditating, briefly, on key events in the twentieth century, namely the invasion of Haiti in 1915 and the emergence of anti-colonial pan-Africanism.
Introduction
Authors: Grimm Joshua
Published: September 2021

It was Saturday, March 14, when Tinder users at the South-by-Southwest (SXSW) festival noticed a new profile of an attractive 25-year-old woman named Ava. Those who swiped right saw a short bio that simply read, ‘I like to draw. And busy intersections in cities’ (...
‘At the Expense of Human Values’
Authors: Grimm Joshua
Published: September 2021

Ex Machina plays against type extremely well, and it is, in part, particularly effective because of the genre tropes are relatively consistent. There’s really only one term to cinematically describe a reclusive, temperamental genius working on a project he hopes will change humanity: the mad scientist. In the history of science fiction film, the mad scientist has traditionally either been directly responsible for a crisis (potential or realized) by creating the problem, or indirectly responsible by trying to control something so powerful that no one could possibly control it. The latter was used largely in the 1950s and 1970s by reflecting the two perceived threats during those eras: atomic/nuclear power and pollution, respectively. But in these films, the extent of the power being studied must be balanced against what that scientist is trying to accomplish. In Ex Machina, Nathan’s portrayal is a fascinating one, embodying the Silicon Valley, “work hard, play hard” bro-culture we see in the U.S. tech industry, and he’s able to completely detach his own actions/desires from his work, a cognitive dissonance that allows him to create a line of slaves at the same time he tries to reproduce artificial intelligence. This chapter will place Nathan within the larger context of science fiction’s history of mad scientists, analyzing similarities and determining what those differences mean.
Goodbye, World
Authors: Grimm Joshua
Published: September 2021

The ending of Ex Machina as the audience sees it is a powerful one, with Ava achieving her much-desired independence. However, while the final version ends with Ava standing at a busy intersection watching humans, it’s not the only version that was considered. There was also an original ending showing (that was ultimately cut) where the final shot showed definitively that Ava was actually less human that we were led to believe, and fans have argued that there should also be a “Caleb Cut” ending where the last thing the audience sees is Caleb trapped in a room. However, that theatrical ending is crucial for rooting the film in Ava’s point-of-view, not Caleb’s. While that feminist lens is essential to the director’s vision of the film, that ending still may not be as euphoric as audiences seem to think.
Jurassic Park
Authors: Bullock Paul
Published: September 2021

‘Constellations: Jurassic Park’ explores how Steven Spielberg used the film to investigate several key themes that have been important to him across his career. These themes are: nature and humankind’s relationship with it, the importance of cinematic fantasy and how it shapes our view of the world, and the impact of toxic masculinity on both men and women. The book also looks at how Spielberg blends genres across his career as a whole and Jurassic Park specifically. This is particularly true of the science fiction and horror genres, which are used in Jurassic Park to create a film that is both cathartically scary and thematically satisfying. These points are contextualised within the wider scope of Spielberg’s life and career to understand how Jurassic Park acted as bridging point between the light entertainments he had been known for up to that point (Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, for example) and the more serious filmmaking he focused on after its release (Saving Private Ryan and Lincoln).
Pliancy and Weakness (Character Examinations)
Authors: Hoel Jon
Published: September 2021

This chapter is an in-depth analysis on each of the individual characters in the film Stalker and their relations with one another and the plot. This includes an elongated comparison to Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, as well as comparisons with some western films, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Matrix, as well as a look at some of Tarkovsky’s other films, including, notably, Solaris, his other Science-fiction film, made a couple of years previously to Stalker. The chapter also takes a look at Tarkovsky’s tendency to underwrite female characters in his films, through the lens of an uncomfortable interview he gave in 1984, on the subject.
The Blood on Satan's Claw
Authors: Evans-Powell David
Published: September 2021

Widely regarded as one of the foundational 'Unholy Trinity' of folk horror film, The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971) has been comparatively over-shadowed, if not maligned, when compared to Witchfinder General (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973). While those horror bedfellows are now accepted as classics of British cinema, Piers Haggard's film remains undervalued, ironically so, given that it was Haggard who coined the term 'folk horror' in relation to his film. In this Devil's Advocate - the first monograph dedicated solely to an analysis of the film, and released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the film’s release - David Evans-Powell explores the place of the film in the wider context of the folk horror sub-genre; its use of a seventeenth-century setting (which it shares with contemporaries such as Witchfinder General and Cry of the Banshee) in contrast to the generic nineteenth-century locales of Hammer; the influences of contemporary counter-culture and youth movement on the film; the importance of localism and landscape; the relationship between cultural notions of nature and civilisation; and the film as an expression of a wider contemporary crisis in English identity.
Agents of Order
Authors: Evans-Powell David
Published: September 2021

This chapter will assess the relationship between order and disorder in the film through a detailed examination of the key authority figures: the Judge, the Squire, the Curate, and the Doctor. The figure of the Judge receives particular attention as a contentious and problematic figure. In considering these authority figures, the chapter will develop a reading of the film as playing out the tensions of the 18th Century setting as Britain moved from an age of superstition into an Enlightenment age of reason. The chapter will explore the film as an example of, what Andrew Tudor has called, a paranoid horror narrative, and a contrast will be made with examples of secure horror narratives. This chapter will consider how this paranoia is expressed through the fundamental flaws, limitations and weaknesses of these authority figures.
It’s a Man’s World: Cruising’s Hypermasculine Universe
Authors: Ercolani Eugenio , Stiglegger Marcus
Published: September 2021

This chapter analyses the masculinity present in Cruising and the subculture it sets out to describe: the communication codes, the language, and the near total absence of women. It taps into the social commentary Friedkin attempts to lay out regarding male sexuality and how it is externalized depending on context. Particular attention is given to Steve Burns and the plethora of men with whom he interacts. The chapter also focuses on the only fully fleshed-out female character present in the film, played by actress Karen Allen, whose career is taken into account and analysed.
Tough Skin, Rough Leather: The Faces of Cruising
Authors: Ercolani Eugenio , Stiglegger Marcus
Published: September 2021

This chapter analyses the roles played by the various character actors that took part in the film, among which we find such names as James Remar, Joe Spinell, Powers Boothe, and Paul Sorvino. This essay is also an analysis of the function of each character and their symbolic value.
A Foreign Body, a Cruising Star: Al Pacino as Steve Burns
Authors: Ercolani Eugenio , Stiglegger Marcus
Published: September 2021

The chapter focuses entirely on Al Pacino’s career preceding his role as Steve Burns in William Friedkin’s Cruising and all the films he participated in, from Me, Nathalie, Pacino’s first film role, to his critically acclaimed performances in classics such as The Godfather.
Peeping Tom
Authors: Walden Kiri Bloom
Published: September 2021

Reviled on it’s release, Peeping Tom all-but ended the career of celebrated director Michael Powell. The story of a murderous cameraman and his compulsion to record his killings, Powell’s film stunned the same critics who had acclaimed him for work he had made with Emeric Pressburger (as ‘The Archers’) in the years before. Luckily Peeping Tom was rediscovered and saved, largely due to the efforts of Martin Scorsese, and it is now considered a masterpiece of the Horror genre. In this Devil’s Advocate, published in the wake of the film’s 60th Anniversary, Kiri Bloom Walden charts the origins, production, and devastating critical reception of Peeping Tom, comparing it to another key film released in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The author has interviewed people close to Powell to gain new insight into how he approached making the films and reacted to the way it was initially rejected.
Peeping Tom as a proto-slasher
Authors: Walden Kiri Bloom
Published: September 2021

We explore the film in the wider context of the history of the Horror genre. This chapter looks at the idea that Peeping Tom can be seen as a proto-Slasher. Looking specifically at the Cinematography and use of the ‘killer’s Point of View’ shot we see how Peeping Tom has also gone on to influence later Horror films. This chapter includes analysis of camera technique and elements of the original script. We look at the film in relation to film theory, especially feminist film theory which has developed in relation to the act of looking and the role of the ‘male gaze’ in Horror films.
Peeping Tom’s lasting influence and rehabilitation
Authors: Walden Kiri Bloom
Published: September 2021

This chapter is about the rehabilitation of Peeping Tom, its transformation in status from cult classic to general acceptance as a masterpiece. It also covers Martin Scorsese’s personal mission to promote the film and subsequent friendship with Michael Powell. In 1994 Dilys Powell, one of the film critics who in 1960 had written a negative review, took another look at Peeping Tom and decided she had been completely wrong to damn it. This change in opinion was representative of a general shift in attitude towards Horror films. By the 1980s the film viewing audience had changed immeasurably and Peeping Tom was no longer the shock to the system it had been in 1960. It started to gain a ‘cult classic’ following as film fans caught it on late-night TV and Scorsese helped spearhead a critical reappraisal of the film.
Man! and the International Group
Authors: Lazar Hillary
Published: September 2021

From January 1933 through April 1940, Man! A Journal of the Anarchist Ideal and Movement served as the central connector for a transnational anarchist network that extended across multiple continents from North America to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. As the main organ of the “International Group”—an organization with chapters throughout the United States—Man! also linked radical immigrant communities throughout America. In addition to demonstrating the importance of print publications as an avenue for transatlantic and inter-ethnic connection, the story of Man! provides a lesser-known, early example of an international solidarity movement and critical window into political repression. With help from the American Civil Liberties Union, the several-year governmental effort to suppress the journal and deport its editors Vincent Ferrero and Domenic Sallitto as well as their colleague, Marcus Graham, became an international cause célèbre that sparked an international defense movement. Recounting the history of Man! and the International Group helps to bring this moment in transnational anarchist resistance to light, while elucidating the ways in which xenophobia-driven immigration policy can serve as a means for State-based suppression of political dissent.
Damned to Do Nothing
Authors: Altieri Riccardo
Published: September 2021

Using the example of the couple Rosi Wolfstein (1888-1987) and Paul Frölich (1884-1953), Riccardo Altieri's contribution shows a transnational double biography framed by a network of people who must be consulted to reconstruct the portrait of their lives. Open and closed sub-networks from various left-wing parties from the period before the First World War to after the Second World War are elaborated. The essay is intended as a practical example of the theoretical field of transmigration research of refugees from the Nazi regime, on whose life paths only a small number of sources have survived. Network research is capable of bridging such gaps in the archival tradition.
11 Concluding Remarks
Authors: Jacob Frank
Published: September 2021

Abstract and Keywords to be supplied.
Endgames
Authors: Kadish Doris
Published: September 2021

This chapter traces Rahv’s disintegrating relationship with Partisan Review and explains why he could no longer play the leadership role of “secular rabbi.” It considers the magazine’s alleged ties with the CIA. It discusses changes in Rahv’s personal life: moving to Boston, joining the faculty at Brandeis, remarrying, founding a new magazine, Modern Occasions. It relates Rahv’s story to that of Hanneh Arendt, whose publication of Eichmann in Jerusalem provoked a bitter split within Partisan Review. Arendt’s and Rahv’s attitudes toward Jewishness and Israel are discussed. It considers his animus toward Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer and enthusiasm for the New Left, which provoked a public rift with longtime associate Irving Howe. It delves into the mysterious circumstances surrounding Rahv’s death and bequest to Israel. I relate my own attitudes during the sixties to Rahv’s, notably regarding new intellectual movements and feminism.
For the Trouillots: An Afterword to the English Translation of Ti difé boulé sou istoua Ayiti
Authors: Jonassaint Jean
Published: September 2021

Jean Jonassaint discusses the intellectual history of the Trouillot family, including Hénock and Ernst Trouillot, and shows how Ti difé boulé sou istoua Ayiti is innovative within the field of Haitian historiography. He includes a close reading of the differential typography used by the author, and reflections upon the genesis of this translation and his relationships with the Trouillot family and the translation team.
Sylvia Pankhurst vs the British Empire
Authors: Béliard Yann
Published: September 2021

This chapter examines the particular type of anti-imperialism defended in the columns of the Workers’ Dreadnought between its creation in 1917 and its demise in 1924. In a period marked by unprecedented levels of labour militancy, Sylvia Pankhurst’s paper provided its readers with a political vision that distinguished itself from the other working-class publications on offer in Britain at the time, by its commitment to the new brand of anti-colonialism advocated by the Bolsheviks via the Communist International. The sheer space devoted to imperial questions in its columns made it different from the labour weeklies printed in the pre-First World War era, as did the varied angles from which British imperialism was denounced. Attacks on military interventions abroad were complemented with a critique of economic exploitation, of informal imperialism, and integrated within a systemic analysis of imperialism as a world order. The chapter focuses on two original features: the weekly’s attention to what imperial domination implied for women – a focus that owed a lot to Pankhurst’s persistent feminist engagement – and its criticism of bourgeois nationalism in the colonies – a theme that Pankhurst would later abandon in her shift from communism to panafricanism. The final part deals with the coverage of labour revolts in the Dominions and the colonies, and the innovative perception of Asiatic workers as the vanguard of the international socialist revolution.
For Socialist Revolution or National Liberation?
Authors: Smith Evan
Published: September 2021

In the post-war period, several world events, such as the installation of the so-called People’s Democracies in Eastern Europe, the victory of the Chinese Communist Party and the beginnings of decolonisation across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, led the international communist movement to foresee a period of socialist advance, frustrated by the outbreak of the Cold War. As the Party at the centre of the largest empire at the time, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) had become a conduit between anti-colonialists across the empire and Moscow. While a number of scholars have focused on the role of communists in national liberation movements in the colonies, this chapter focuses on how links with these movements and broader anti-colonial rhetoric was developed by the Communist Parties in the settler colonies, particularly South Africa and Australia. These Communist Parties acted as local representatives of the international communist movement within their spheres of influence, assisting in the anti-colonial struggle in surrounding areas. From the late 1940s until the 1960s, the CPGB, alongside the CPSA and the CPA, were greatly involved in building solidarity with anti-colonial movements across the British Empire. This chapter seeks to uncover the transnational links created by these parties in the era of decolonisation and the ways in which the Communist Parties in the Dominions worked with fraternal organisations in the colonial sphere.
Conclusion
Authors: Kirk Neville
Published: September 2021

Despite their diverse and distinct characteristics and the wide range of topics they cover, the essays in this edited collection share important common assumptions, guiding principles, approaches, claims and conclusions. These are made more explicitly in some of the essays than others and it would be a mistake to artificially impose a common uniformity on the essays whether methodologically, conceptually or substantively. Yet it is important in a book which promotes an integrated approach to the closely related areas of empire, imperialism, labour and anti-colonialism to tease out and make explicit, where necessary, these areas of commonality and similarity, while at the same time being duly attentive to diversity and distinctness. This conclusion also signposts, on the basis of the material presented in the essays, areas of potentially fruitful future research.
Afterword
Authors: Béliard Yann
Published: September 2021

This afterword recaptures the sense of uncertainty that accompanied the final decades of the British Empire. It is easy to forget the array of possible futures that emerged from anti-colonial resistance, in particular when it took the shape of massive working-class movements, before such initiatives from below were constrained by the framework of the new nation-states. It is easy to forget the dreams and practical attempts of the radical minorities who believed that coordinated efforts across borders might lead not only to the destruction of the British Empire but to that of capitalism and imperialism in general, and to its replacement by some form of universal socialism. Our edited volume helps understand why the 1945-1965 anti-colonial revolts were eventually not led under the flag of socialist internationalism but under that of national liberation. It also emphasises the roads not taken, to retrieve, in a gesture inspired by E.P. Thompson’s philosophy, the sheer sense of openness and opportunity so prevalent in the phase when the foundations of the British Empire started to shake. This afterword also outlines several dimensions that may deserve more attention in future research.
‘A girl! He ought to be whipped’ The Hasid as Homo Ludens
Authors: Assaf David
Published: September 2021

This chapter begins with a well-known account of the visit by Salomon Maimon to the court of the Magid Dov Ber of Mezritsh. It notes that Maimon visited Mezritsh at the end of the 1760s, when he was himself a young married man of 16 or 17 years of age. It also discusses how Maimon, despite his disappointment with Hasidism, eventually became a maskil and a philosopher, which suggested an appreciation for those first Hasidim he met. The chapter looks at independent testimonies that confirm the reliability of Maimon’s memoirs and his encounter with Hasidism, which includes his account of three homilies delivered by the Magid. It reviews Maimon’s explanation as to why he became disillusioned with Hasidism and how he attributed his change of mind to an event he witnessed at the court of the Magid, when a man was punished for having a daughter.
Individualism, Truth, and the Repudiation of Magic as the Tsadik’s Prerogative
Authors: Brown Benjamin
Published: September 2021

This chapter describes Rabbi Simhah Bunem of Pshiskhe as a Polish tsadik who created an elitist, individualist, almost anarchic form of Hasidism. It discusses the Hasidism that emphasized the inner dimension of divine worship, required the individual to be true to himself, and decried the culture of miracle-work that prevailed in the courts of many other tsadikim. It also mentions Menahem Mendel, who is commonly depicted as a typical Galician-style tsadik, whose popular branch of Hasidism was centred on the tsadik’s absolute supremacy over the ordinary Hasidim. The chapter highlights how Menahem Mendel encouraged his Hasidim about worshipping simply without seeking to transcend everyday practical observance. It clarifies what inspired the elitist Simhah Bunem with the desire to visit Menahem Mendel.
Table Talk and the Bond of Reading A Jewish Broadsheet for Meals
Authors: Bar-Levav Avriel
Published: September 2021

This chapter talks about Jewish rituals that are considered highly dynamic as they constantly evolve, change, and erode once they emerge. It examines the emergence and spread of Jewish rituals between the mid-seventeenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, detecting numerous changes that have undergone over time. It also cites newly emergent sensibilities, communication technologies, towering personalities, influential books and other printed materials, and the spread of new ideologies as combined factors that modify or alter the course of Jewish ritual practices. The chapter presents an unknown broadsheet that illustrates Jewish domestic table rituals as they developed in eastern Europe during the eighteenth century. This broadsheet comprises of various texts that are studied and performed at mealtimes and is considered an example of the creation of personalized rituals.
The Vilna Talmud as a Reflection of Changing Patterns of Study
Authors: Fram Edward
Published: September 2021

This chapter discusses the publication of the Babylonian Talmud by ’the Widow and Brothers Romm’ between 1880 and 1886 in Vilna, which is considered a landmark event from the perspective of rabbinic culture. The Babylonian Talmud included almost all of the commentaries and reference tools that had become part and parcel of printed volumes of the Talmud starting in the late fifteenth century. It talks about the ’Vilna Shas,’ which was considered a far cry from talmudic texts that had been known in the age of manuscripts and the early stages of print. It also mentions the fourteenth-century vellum Munich Codex Hebraicus MS 95, the oldest complete text of the Babylonian Talmud, which was noted to have sporadic corrections and glosses in the text and margins. As printing evolved in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, publishers added more material to volumes of the Talmud.
At the Centre of Two Revolutions
Authors: Brown Iris
Published: September 2021

This chapter talks about the Beit Ya’akov (Bais Yaakov), the extensive network of haredi educational institutions for girls that ranged from kindergartens to vocational teacher-training seminaries. It mentions the founder of Beit Ya’akov, Sarah Schenirer, who was labelled the ’mother’ of all haredi women and became an iconic figure as she was the only woman in haredi society to have inspired a foundation myth. It also refers to Dr Leo Deutschländer, who set Beit Ya’akov on a sound financial and pedagogical basis that spearheaded its rapid expansion. The chapter recounts the foundation of Beit Ya’akov in 1918 and the appointment of Rabbi Judah Leib Orlean as its director in 1935, which marked a conservative turn in the development of the institution. It identifies the most influential factors and figures that shaped the development of the Beit Ya’akov network prior to the Holocaust.
Being and Becoming
Authors: Lorenz Jan
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores conversions to Judaism in pre-modern confessional states that were recognized as central to the experience of European Jews and became common in antiquity in the last two centuries BCE. It talks about the procedure and legal ramifications of conversion to Judaism that first emerged in the reforms that were retroactively attributed to Nehemiah and Ezra. It also explains how conversions to Judaism are considered as a social organization of difference of the situational reorganization of ethnic boundaries, which responds to the perceived threat of Hellenism and assimilation. The chapter looks at accounts of transition to Judaism from early modern western Europe, which were generally kept in secret as they ran the risk of ostracism by the surrounding Christian world. It discusses how individuals who became Jewish at the time were being driven by intellectual and theological reasoning.
Introduction
Authors: Tuszewicki Marek
Published: September 2021

This chapter gives an extensive background of Jewish folk medicine. It explains that the aim of writing this book is to bring to light the wealth of notions connected with the folk medicine of Ashkenazi Jews living in eastern Europe around 1900s. Folk medicine is long tarred by the derogatory description 'superstition.' The term 'folk medicine' is usually used to describe remedies and treatment methods specific to traditional culture and which do not fall within the contemporary dominant biomedical model. Magic practices are one area of activity often categorized as 'folklore'. They tend to be perceived as bizarre and mysterious, and are commonly associated with bats, garlic, and arcane incantations. Folk medicine was a complex system which comprised both natural and magic elements of highly diverse provenance.
In the Family Circle
Authors: Tuszewicki Marek
Published: September 2021

This chapter discusses the role that family and community played when it came to health and medicine. People were rarely left alone to struggle with physical afflictions. They were surrounded by both immediate and more distant relations as well as neighbours, among whom there was usually no shortage of home-grown specialists or concerned advisers. They had the choice to seek relief from practices based on folk beliefs or those founded upon conventional medicine. Early modern medicine prioritized the decisions taken by the patients themselves. Doctors subordinated their judgement to their patients' narratives, and were expected to pay more attention to the sick person's interpretation of their own illness. There are four basic 'grades' of action in case of ailments: ignoring them; taking a home-made remedy or tried and trusted medication; treatment by a healer; and, if all else failed, consultation with a medical professional. The choice of treatment procedure depended on a range of factors: the severity of the illness, the patient's personality, their familiarity with treatment methods and the range of remedies stocked in the medicine cupboard at home, the availability of official and unofficial medical or paramedical services, and the financial standing of the patient and those in his or her immediate circle.
Tsadikim and Physicians
Authors: Tuszewicki Marek
Published: September 2021

This chapter discusses the role of tsadikim and how the Jews viewed physicians. The Jewish population of eastern Europe was caught in the middle of a conflict between traditional treatments, represented by Orthodox circles, and the modern alternatives propagated by educated physicians. Tsadikim were often perceived as allies in the struggle for health and life. In the Talmud this was the term used to denote individuals of exceptional piety and probity, suffused with the grace of heaven in recognition of their virtues. Rabbis were also considered tsadikim; throughout Jewish history they would be approached for advice and prayers for the sick. The treatment process took a variety of forms, which depended not only on the type of ailment but also on the healer's own preferences. The ultimate effort that a tsadik could expend for the good of his community was the sacrifice of his life. The death of a tsadik did not mean the end of life, but marked the beginning of the holy man's constant, uninhibited access to the divine throne. Doctors were not greatly trusted; they were seen as godless proponents of Enlightenment heresies who dressed in European fashion.
Microcosm and Macrocosm
Authors: Tuszewicki Marek
Published: September 2021

This chapter examines the far-reaching consequences of the persistent conviction in folk culture of the close bonds between the human body (the microcosm) and the world (the macrocosm). This conviction was not only the ground from which 'folk-type medicine' grew, but also key evidence that ancient theories surrounding the origins and functioning of the world, the anatomy and workings of the human body, and even astrology were very much alive in the medicine-related beliefs and practices of the residents of eastern Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century. The chapter contains examples of treatments employing methods inspired by folk mythology and expressed in a language that used an anthropomorphic and cosmological code, and of the consequences of the perception of humans as a reflection of the world around them.
Astrology
Authors: Tuszewicki Marek
Published: September 2021

This chapter discusses the role of astrology in Jewish medicine, which was another field of great significance for therapeutics. The Bible exhorted Israel not to fear 'portents in the sky' that caused the pagans to tremble. While they rejected the speculations of astrologers of other nations and doubted the accuracy of their predictions, the actual idea of astral influences recurred frequently in their own writings. Knowledge of basic astrological concepts was crucial to an understanding of many aspects of Jewish culture, above all the calendar and the rabbinic discussions surrounding it. The conviction that the seven planets influenced human life and health, in particular at the hour of one's birth, had put down deep roots in the popular consciousness. The Jews perceived a link between the movements of the heavenly bodies and the comparable phenomena of dying and returning to life that they observed in nature. In the folk imagination, the image of the sky was enriched by the conviction that everybody had a light, or lamp, up there which was extinguished with their death. It is pertinent to add that the sun, moon, and stars (and sometimes also the seven planets) featured extremely frequently in the texts of Jewish conjurations. They were mentioned above all in incantations, alongside the attributes of God and religious paraphernalia endowed with an aura of sanctity. Astrology was an intrinsic aspect of views on the rules governing the world that dominated thought in Jewish society until the early twentieth century.
Conclusion
Authors: Tuszewicki Marek
Published: September 2021

This concluding chapter pulls together all the points from the previous chapters. Jewish folk medicine represented a body of beliefs and practices many of which were known to the ethnography of both eastern Europe and its western, Slavic-Germanic borderlands. It was not distinguished by any one particular approach to health issues, nor did it draw exceptionally frequently on magic. It perpetuated a model of the treatment process in which the patient's own opinion played a central role, both with regard to the nature of the illness and in terms of the choice of remedy. The Jews of eastern Europe, like their Christian compatriots, perceived health to be a matter of vitality. Members of the traditional Jewish community were united in their views on sin and the belief in the ubiquity of demons, sorcery, and the evil eye, a legacy of previous generations. The intrigues of sorcerers and the evil eye were also considered a significant threat, and much energy was expended on putting in place measures providing protection from misfortunes of this nature, and no less on their diagnosis and rectifying their consequences. A broad treatment of the subject of Jewish folk medicine is of greater value than merely educational. The role of the Jews in the overall mosaic of east European treatment modes and methods is unlikely to have been limited to the reproduction of models sourced from kabbalah or gematria, or of Hebrew magic formulas.
Drug Use and Beat Writers
Authors: Mortenson Erik
Published: September 2021

The essay draws on fictional and nonfiction accounts of Beat drug use, distinguishing between mind-expanding drugs, such as marijuana, or hallucinogens, such as LSD, and more addictive substances, such as opiates and amphetamines. The essay contextualizes Beat drug use in western literary traditions, while also encouraging course instructors to consider the gender, race, and class differences in drug use and the persistent racial and class stereotyping fuelling anti-drug rhetoric
Teaching Kerouac’s Bilingualism
Authors: Melehy Hassan
Published: September 2021

Hassan Melehy explicates Jack Kerouac’s bilingualism (English/Quebecois), reviving an elided chapter in American history, the French-Canadian diaspora in New England. The essay presents strategies to teach Kerouac bilingualism in all of his novels, noting particularly Visions of Gerard, Dr. Sax, Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody, and Satori in Paris, all of which feature lengthy passages in Quebecois.
The Beat Generation and the “Rise of the Sixties” in the Visual Arts
Authors: Curtis Leslie Stewart
Published: September 2021

This essay highlights innovative painters, filmmakers, and assemblage artists who shaped what art historians have only recently began to call “Beat Art.” Featuring a paired art history/American literature course, the essay considers the multi- and interdisciplinary nature of Beat art as a prime mover in the anti-Vietnam War, civil rights, and women’s movements. Artists discussed include Wallace Berman, Wally Hendrick, Robert Rauschenberg, Jay DeFeo, and Alice Neel.
Investigating Global Convective Dynamos with Mean-field Models: Full Spectrum of Turbulent Effects Required
Authors: Warnecke Jörn , Rheinhardt Matthias , Viviani Mariangela , Gent Frederick A. , Tuomisto Simo , Käpylä Maarit J.
Published: September 2021

The role of turbulent effects for dynamos in the Sun and stars continues to be debated. Mean-field (MF) theory provides a broadly used framework to connect these effects to fundamental magnetohydrodynamics. While inaccessible observationally, turbulent effects can be directly studied using global convective dynamo (GCD) simulations. We measure the turbulent effects in terms of turbulent transport coefficients, based on the MF framework, from an exemplary GCD simulation using the test-field method. These coefficients are then used as an input into an MF model. We find a good agreement between the MF and GCD solutions, which validates our theoretical approach. This agreement requires all turbulent effects to be included, even those which have been regarded as unimportant so far. Our results suggest that simple dynamo models, as are commonly used in the solar and stellar community, relying on very few, precisely fine-tuned turbulent effects, may not be representative of the full dynamics of dynamos in global convective simulations and astronomical objects.
Extinction Correction and the [Fe ii] 1.26 μm/1.64 μm Intensity Ratio
Authors: Rubinstein Adam E.
Published: September 2021

From imaging observations of [Fe ii] emission in Herbig–Haro objects, I find a lower limit to the zero-extinction [Fe ii] 1.26 μm/1.64 μm intensity ratio of 2.6 and argue that this lower limit must be close to the true zero-extinction intensity ratio. My extinction determinations using this zero-extinction value yields results on well-studied HH objects consistent with results from other ionic-line spectra, whereas using nearly all theoretical values of [Fe ii] 1.26 μm/1.64 μm in the literature gives rise to unphysical results.