Text Posts – Page 3 – Crisis and Catharsis

Category: Text Posts (page 3 of 4)

Historical Interpretations of the Salem Witch-Trials, 1692 with Anika Choudhury

Salem Witch Trial Scene – (Original Caption) Salem Witch Trial. Accusation of bedeviled girl. After an engraving by Howard Pyle.

The supernatural, magic, and witchcraft persisted to be a part of the United States belief system as a result of a sincere, generational fear of the unknown. In American history, early modern European migrants and New England Puritans feared anything paranormal, and most importantly, witches that could harm their families. There were many factors involved which led to the accusations of witchcraft in Puritan society. Some of the biggest reasons for why accusations ravaged Salem included fear, the belief in both good and bad witchcraft, the willingness of physicians to utilize witchcraft as a form of medical diagnosis, politics, and potential ergot poisoning. Sadly, for those accused of witchcraft in Salem, the factionalism of both the Town and Village provided the ideal conditions for what is most widely regarded as the greatest witch-hunt in American history.

The Gendered Narrative of Witch-Hunting Through the Centuries with Alexa Frankelis

August 7, 2020 / Post Editor / 0 Comments

Trial of George Jacobs of Salem for Witchcraft, T. H. Matteson, 1855

Colonists used the belief of witchcraft to grapple with psychological tensions and concerns that had developed out of trying to make sense of their new external worlds, ultimately embedding witchcraft into the cultural belief system of the United States. In England, the Church suppressed any voice or power women may have had by limiting their societal roles. On the other hand, the Puritans believed that men and women were “equal” in the eyes of God. When arriving to the new settlements, Colonists needed to rely on both men and women to do their designated roles faithfully. This was to ensure the success and stability of their communities. Accusations of women practicing witchcraft in New England came about because the strict moral doctrine that Puritans adhered to created gendered societal roles and fear concerning the inability to attain salvation.

Witchcraft and Crises in the Early Modern Atlantic World, 1450-1692: Introduction to a series with Richard Tomczak

July 30, 2020 / Post Editor / 0 Comments

Woodcut of witches flying

In the early modern Atlantic World, witchcraft was woven into the fabric of cultural beliefs, traditions, and behaviors. At the core of the witch-trials was the prominent belief that the physical, material world intertwined with that of the spiritual. This belief in divine and evil intervention in the material world played an integral role in the harm associated with witchcraft. People used this intervention to explain the unexplainable: sickness, environmental phenomenon, and unusual beliefs or rituals deemed heretical.

Looking Back at Forms of Protest During the Colonial Period with Baylee Browning-Atkinson. Part 3: Challenging Relationships of Authority and Deference: New Jersey Land Riots and the Leisler Rebellion

July 24, 2020 / Post Editor / 0 Comments

In the third installment of this series we will be looking at two examples of colonists challenging established relationships of authority and the deferential society of the early colonial period through the New Jersey Land Riots and Leisler’s Rebellion. Before we talk about the specific challenges to authority it is important to understand what it was to have public power in the early colonial period. As I have come to understand it, power and authority were generally acknowledged by an unspoken social contract. Early colonial society was very deferential. Authority was given to those of a higher social standing with the accompanying wealth and connections because it was believed that those who had no material wants were more detached from their own needs and could thus concern themselves with the interests of the commonweal. If a public figure was not acting in the interests of the public good then the people had the prerogative to express their dissatisfaction and remind the offending figure of the duty their privilege conveyed.

Looking Back at Forms of Protest During the Colonial Period with Baylee Browning-Atkinson. Part 2: Commercial Protest, Merchants and Consumers.

July 11, 2020 / Post Editor / 0 Comments

Today we will be looking at some forms of protest and dissent which colonial merchants and consumers engaged in, as well as some interesting incidents that followed. After the French and Indian War, or the Seven Years War as it was known globally, the British Parliament passed a series of acts imposing taxes and importation duties on food and material goods in an effort to pay for the war and future defense of the colonies. Years of inconsistent, unenforceable, and incomprehensible policies established a loose, laissez faire style of colonial governance that was very favorable to the colonies. Many in the economic, merchant, and supply occupations prospered and contributed, through their trades, to the relatively higher quality of life and opportunities in the colonies as a whole. As a result, a majority of the colonists were resentful of the efforts of such men as the British Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend to reassert imperial control over the economy and governance of the colonies. So, how did colonists voice their discontent with imperial policy? Let’s get into it.

Looking Back at Forms of Protest During the Colonial Period with Baylee Browning-Atkinson. Part One: Methods of Resisting Enslavement and the 1741 Slave Uprising Conspiracy.

July 3, 2020 / Post Editor / 0 Comments

Immediately following the murder of Mr. George Floyd Americans took to the streets to voice their support, sorrow, frustration, anger, and disappointment in a manner and magnitude that people of my generation have not seen, and America has not seen, since the Civil Rights era. In the midst of a global pandemic no less! Current events have me thinking back to our early beginnings as a collection of provincial colonies clustered along the North American coast. The First Amendment protects our most valuable rights: religion, speech, and the ability to protect these rights through peaceful assembly and petition.

Crisis and Catharsis on the Great South Bay with Baylee Browning-Atkinson

June 3, 2020 / Post Editor / 0 Comments

Birds Eye View of the Fire Island Surf Hotel

With approval from Governor Flower, Jenkins had purchased the debilitated Surf Hotel from proprietor David Sturges S. S. Sammis for the inflated price of between $210,000 and $250,000. In the 1850s Sammis opened the hotel, an immensely popular and profitable summer resort in its time that had fallen into disrepair by the 1890s. After the purchase Jenkins had the site cleaned up and staffed with a manager and physician, and police guards. In anticipation of the passengers of the Normannia and their five-star quarantine, “Forty French cooks and waiters” were requested but never arrived. They “were stopped at Babylon and stoned,” effectively preventing them from embarking for Fire Island. For selling the property to the state as a quarantine site Sammis was threatened with a tar and feathering by unidentified individuals.

The Rise of Superheroes When We Needed Them Most with Anastasia Iorga

May 28, 2020 / Post Editor / 0 Comments

Captain America Decks Hitler

“I knocked out Adolf Hitler over 200 times,” says Captain America in his title Marvel Studios film. And we laughed, because Chris Evans’ comedic timing is gold, but also because, good, knock him out again. Captain America was first published by Timely Comics, Marvel’s predecessor, in 1941, and he was a quick favorite during the wartime for obvious reasons. He fought for what was right, and every time he got knocked down, he got back up again, and that’s what the people needed during World War II. It should come as no surprise, then, that during the tail end of the Great Depression and into the long years of World War II, we have something referred to as the golden age of comics.

Escapism, crisis and precariousness Pt. 2 with Giovanni Bello

May 18, 2020 / gbello / 1 Comment

As Mark Johnson points out, while “many claimed to be put off by the shocking and explicit nature of the Black Mirror’s first episode”, the second episode “might be a more representative introduction to the series” because in the first one the “technology is present, although is arguably less central than other concerns”. Precisely, one of the features of the series is to expose some of the technological phenomena that are happening right now in a manner that they would lose their familiar qualities so their sinister edges become more evident. That is something that the series second episode “Fifteen Million Merits” does fully.

“Fifteen Million Merits” shows a society focused on the production of energy that, at the same time, is absorbed by the consumption of entertainment through a regime as violent as the one that forces people to work. But where is the difference between the society that this chapter portrays and reality? The difference resides for example in the fact that in the episode we do not know exactly what energy is produced for, we don´t know what people work for. In other words, what “Fifteen Million Merits” does is overshadow the productive character of the economy to make us concentrate on the most sinister features of its relationship with entertainment.

As the authors of the Frankfurt School pointed out almost one century ago, the relationship between capitalism and the entertainment industry is not a secondary relationship, there lies the essence of capitalism. This relationship is highly complex, and it can be pointed out that the entertainment industry not only socially reproduces the ideology of capitalism but is the basis of the consumption dynamics that give life to global capital. That is why “Fifteen Million Merits” is not only showing the most sinister side of consumerism in the digital age. It shows that the alienation of all the members of society forced to produce continuously without knowing the purpose is exactly the same as the alienation to which they are led by senseless consumerism.

Competition: America’s Favorite Pastime, Even When We Can’t Go Anywhere with Anastasia Iorga

May 13, 2020 / Post Editor / 1 Comment

I think it was around the second week of quarantine here in New York that I discovered marble racing. I was on Twitter, naturally, and I saw a video start up from someone or some account, I don’t remember, but I do remember thinking, “Wow, it mustbe bad if I can’t stop watching this.” It was a marble racing video from something called Marbula 1, and yes, it is just as good as it sounds. Marble racing got some pickup on Twitter as a result of some popular accounts reposting their videos, even earning air time on ESPN The Ocho, and with the quarantine putting a stop to most sports’ seasons, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise. We have something of a history of reviving sport and competition even when the future seems bleak.

Category: Text Posts (page 3 of 4)

Historical Interpretations of the Salem Witch-Trials, 1692 with Anika Choudhury

The Gendered Narrative of Witch-Hunting Through the Centuries with Alexa Frankelis

Witchcraft and Crises in the Early Modern Atlantic World, 1450-1692: Introduction to a series with Richard Tomczak

Looking Back at Forms of Protest During the Colonial Period with Baylee Browning-Atkinson. Part 3: Challenging Relationships of Authority and Deference: New Jersey Land Riots and the Leisler Rebellion

Looking Back at Forms of Protest During the Colonial Period with Baylee Browning-Atkinson. Part 2: Commercial Protest, Merchants and Consumers.

Looking Back at Forms of Protest During the Colonial Period with Baylee Browning-Atkinson. Part One: Methods of Resisting Enslavement and the 1741 Slave Uprising Conspiracy.

Crisis and Catharsis on the Great South Bay with Baylee Browning-Atkinson

The Rise of Superheroes When We Needed Them Most with Anastasia Iorga

Escapism, crisis and precariousness Pt. 2 with Giovanni Bello

Competition: America’s Favorite Pastime, Even When We Can’t Go Anywhere with Anastasia Iorga

Tags

Archives

Options

Search This Site

Category: Text Posts (page 3 of 4)

Tags

Archives

Options

Subscribe with Email

Search This Site