In 1704, Mary Astell, known by many scholars as the “first English feminist,” published Moderation Truly Stated, her contribution to the national debate over “occasional conformity.” This was the practice of periodic participation in the sacraments of the Church of England—above all, taking communion—in order to become eligible for public office. This practice was defended as an exercise of the virtue of “moderation,” viewed as the opposite of zeal and associated with politeness and reasonableness. In this article I recover Astell’s (...) critique on this new notion of moderation, as well as her own alternative conception of the virtue of moderation as scripture moderation, which she envisioned as zeal and indifference towards the right ends. My aim is threefold. First, to explore the dangers of conceiving of moderation as an “antidote to zeal,” which Astell argued would be detrimental to truth, salvation, and moral progress. Second, to demonstrate that her own conception of moderation as zeal and indifference towards the right ends was a radical subversion of the discourse on moderation at the time. Third, to shed light on the role of the Occasional Conformity debate in the transformation of moderation from a Christian virtue of temperance and control into a “modern” virtue construed as politeness and opposed to zeal, which was to become dominant in eighteenth-century England. (shrink)

While the demands for greater engagement in science in general and regulatory science in particular have been steadily increasing, we still face limited understanding of the empirical resonance of these demands. Against this context, this paper presents findings from a recent study of a potential participatory opening of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, a prominent regulatory scientific organization in the field of risk governance. Drawing upon quantitative surveys of the public and selected professional experts as well as in-depth (...) qualitative expert interviews, we identify a general support for greater engagement in science-based risk assessment. However, we also find significant contestation concerning its potential enactment and its normative and strategic merit. Underlying these contestations, we identify the persistence of a normal view of science and decisionist understanding of risk assessment, which create conflicting legitimacy demands for BfR and other regulatory scientific organizations. Together with concerns about imbalances in the power to participate, especially in highly specialized engagement processes, these pose significant challenges for the institutionalization of more participatory practices. (shrink)

The first scientific questionnaire to establish gender and sexual “intermediate” identities “objectively” was published in 1899 by the internationally renowned sexologist and pioneer of LGBTI emancipation, Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935). In this article, I show that this questionnaire changed how interactions took place between psycho-medical professionals and people who did not conform to sexual or gender norms. Rhetorically, the questionnaire created a delicate balance between self-expression and objectification of the subject. It broke down already existing semiautobiographical case histories into a list (...) of characteristics, behaviour, and inclinations; all predicated on a conventional binary view of gender. I conclude that the questionnaire paradoxically activated and reified conventionally binary-gendered phenomena precisely by offering gender nonconformist people a robust frame for (gender-fluid) self-understanding; an inheritance still haunting us today. (shrink)

Oral history makes a critical contribution in articulating the perspectives of people often overlooked in histories written from the standpoint of dominating class, gender, ethnic or professional groups. Using three interrelated approaches — life stories, oral history, and narrative analysis — this paper analyzes family responses to psychiatric care and mental illness in oral history interviews with family members who experienced mental illness themselves or within their family between 1930 and 1975. Interviews with three family members in Alberta, Canada are (...) the primary focus. These stories provide an important avenue to understand the meaning and transformations of mental health‐care from the point of view of families. Family members’ stories reveal contradictory responses to the dominant cultural discourse. Using a performative framework of interpretation, the narratives reveal a complex interplay between medical, social and cultural conceptions of mental illness, deepening our understanding of its meaning. The history of mental health‐care can be substantially enriched by the analysis of family members’ stories, not only revealing the constructed nature of mental illness, but also illustrating the family as a mediating context in which the meaning of mental illness is negotiated. (shrink)

This paper examines gender‐specific transformations of nursing practice in institutional mental health‐care in Alberta, Canada, based on archival records on two psychiatric hospitals, Alberta Hospital Ponoka and Alberta Hospital Edmonton, and on oral histories with psychiatric mental health nurses in Alberta. The paper explores class and gender as interrelated influences shaping the work and professional identity of psychiatric mental health nurses from the 1930s until the mid‐1970s. Training schools for nurses in psychiatric hospitals emerged in Alberta in the 1930s under (...) the influence of the mental hygiene movement, evolving quite differently for female nurses compared to untrained aides and male attendants. The latter group resisted their exclusion from the title ‘nurse’ and successfully helped to organize a separate association of psychiatric nurses in the 1950s. Post‐World War II, reconstruction of health‐care and a de‐institutionalization policy further transformed nurses’ practice in the institutions. Using social history methods of analysis, the paper demonstrates how nurses responded to their circumstances in complex ways, actively participating in the reconstruction of their practice and finding new ways of professional organization that fit the local context. After the Second World War more sophisticated therapeutic roles emerged and nurses engaged in new rehabilitative practices and group therapies, reconstructing their professional identities and transgressing gender boundaries. Nurses’ own stories help us to understand the striving toward psychiatric nursing professionalism in the broader context of changing gender identities and work relationships, as well as shifting perspectives on psychiatric care. (shrink)

Where does Neo-Confucianismâe"a movement that from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries profoundly influenced the way people understood the world and responded to itâe"fit into our story of Chinaâe(tm)s history? This interpretive, at times polemical, inquiry into the Neo-Confucian engagement with the literati as the social and political elite, local society, and the imperial state during the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties is also a reflection on the role of the middle period in Chinaâe(tm)s history. The book argues that as (...) Neo-Confucians put their philosophy of learning into practice in local society, they justified a new social ideal in which society at the local level was led by the literati with state recognition and support. The later imperial order, in which the state accepted local elite leadership as necessary to its own existence, survived even after Neo-Confucianism lost its hold on the center of intellectual culture in the seventeenth century but continued as the foundation of local education. It is the contention of this book that Neo-Confucianism made that order possible. (shrink)

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, has been one of the two or three most influential books in the Chinese canon. It has been used by people on all levels of society, both as a method of divination and as a source of essential ideas about the nature of heaven, earth, and humankind. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Sung dynasty literati turned to it for guidance in their fundamental reworking of the classical traditions. This book explores how four (...) leading thinkers--Su Shih, Shao Yung, Ch'eng I, and Chu Hsi--applied the I Ching to these projects. These four men used the Book of Changes in strikingly different ways. Yet each claimed to find in it a sure foundation for human values. Their work established not only new meanings for the text but also new models for governance and moral philosophy that would be debated throughout the next thousand years of Chinese intellectual history. By focusing on their uses of the I Ching, this study casts a unique light on the complex continuity-within-change and rich diversity of Sung culture. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

RONQUILLO C, BOSCHMA G, WONG ST and QUINEY L. Nursing Inquiry 2011; 18: 262–275Beyond greener pastures: exploring contexts surrounding Filipino nurse migration in Canada through oral historyThe history of immigrant Filipino nurses in Canada has received little attention, yet Canada is a major receiving country of a growing number of Filipino migrants and incorporates Filipino immigrant nurses into its healthcare workforce at a steady rate. This study aims to look beyond the traditional economic and policy analysis perspectives of global migration (...) and beyond the push and pull factors commonly discussed in the migration literature. Through oral history, this study explores biographical histories of nine Filipino immigrant nurses currently working in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. Narratives reveal the instrumental role of the deeply embedded culture of migration in the Philippines in influencing Filipino nurses to migrate. Additionally, the stories illustrate the weight of cultural pressures and societal constructs these nurses faced that first colored their decision to pursue a career in nursing and ultimately to pursue emigration. Oral history is a powerful tool for examining migration history and sheds light on nuances of experience that might otherwise be neglected. This study explores the complex connections between various factors motivating Filipino nurse migration, the decision-making process, and other pre-migration experiences. (shrink)

Mimesis or imitation comes in many forms, from animal and plant mimicry to artistic copies 'from life'. This book offers eighteen essays addressing mimesis from diverse perspectives. From the recreation of galaxies to Iron Age torcs, from counterfeit dragons to modern waxworks, each chapter explores facets of material mimesis from prehistory to the present day. The Matter of Mimesis invites readers to compare practices of imitating, faking, and synthesising materials and objects in nature, art and science, raising questions about skills, (...) techniques and politics of making that transcend historical and disciplinary boundaries and inform both our past and future worlds. (shrink)

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, has been one of the two or three most influential books in the Chinese canon. It has been used by people on all levels of society, both as a method of divination and as a source of essential ideas about the nature of heaven, earth, and humankind. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Sung dynasty literati turned to it for guidance in their fundamental reworking of the classical traditions. This book explores how four (...) leading thinkers — Su Shih, Shao Yung, Ch’eng I, and Chu Hsi — applied the I Ching to these projects. These four men used the Book of Changes in strikingly different ways. Yet each claimed to find in it a sure foundation for human values. Their work established not only new meanings for the text but also new models for governance and moral philosophy that would be debated throughout the next thousand years of Chinese intellectual history. By focusing on their uses of the I Ching, this study casts a unique light on the complex continuity-within-change and rich diversity of Sung culture. (shrink)

This study examined cancer patients’ perceived emotional and informational support from a variety of interpersonal and media sources. We recruited patients from cancer patient association websites and online cancer forums and asked them to report to what extent they received support from interpersonal and media sources. Patients rated professional sources and personal sources as nearly equal sources of emotional support; however, professional sources were rated as significantly greater sources of informational support. Although family and oncologists were the most mentioned interpersonal (...) sources of support, they were also the most mentioned disappointing sources. Of the media sources, online interaction sources were rated as nearly equivalent sources of emotional support as interpersonal sources. That patients perceived emotional support, not only informational support, from various media sources is promising since interpersonal sources can be disappointing to some patients. (shrink)

Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), an influential life-span theory, suggests that older adults prefer persuasive messages that appeal to emotionally-meaningful goals over messages that appeal to knowledge-related goals, whereas younger adults do not show this preference. A mixed-factorial experiment was conducted to test whether older adults (≥65 years) differ from younger adults (25–45 years) in their preference for emotionally-meaningful appeals over knowledge-related appeals, when appeals are clearly developed in line with SST. For older adults we found the expected preference for emotionally-meaningful (...) appeals for cancer centers but not for grocery stores and travel organizations. As expected, in most cases, younger adults did not show a preference. Implications for SST-based communication research and for practice are discussed. (shrink)