Michel Foucault takes the reader on a serendipitous journey in tracing the history of madness from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Utilizing original documents, the author recreates the mood, the place, and the proper perspective in the history of madness. Madness or folly is viewed as part of the human condition and to be examined and illuminated through one of its many facets. At the end of the Middle Ages madness was seen either as a tragic or comic phenomenon. The Renaissance, with Erasmus' Praise of Folly , demonstrated how imagination and its derivatives were to thinkers of that day. The French Revolution introduced the so-called medical approach. Madness is a ubiquitous phenomenon that has common roots not only in medicine but in poetry and tragedy. Shakespeare brilliantly describes psychological phenomena with even greater clarity than Tuke or Wills. The author weaves a fascinating history showing the changing pattern of

Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason.

Ever since the publication in 1905 of Max Weber's study Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, there has been lively controversy concerning the connection between religious belief and economic activity. Three main .categories of opinion have emerged from this debate: (1) the theory advocated by Weber, which has found numerous supporters aware in varying degrees of their debt to Weber's mode of thought: viz., that Protestantism, especially in its Calvinistic form, created a climate in which the ‘spirit of capitalism’ could flourish; (2) what may be called the inverted Weberian theory, argued with particular rigour by H. M. Robertson, that the spirit of capitalism is not the creator but the creation of businessmen; and finally (3) an intermediate theory, presented by Professor R. H. Tawney and others, the gist of which may be said to be that economic change tan affect religious teaching, but that also religious teaching can in tum intensify and enhance the spirit of capitalism. O...

Religion and the rise of capitalism

At a time when the schools are a matter of political debate, Gerald Grace, Professorial Research Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London, has written a valuable book on Roman Catholic schools in England and Wales. He begins with theory, moves to historical, cultural and research contexts and then gives details of  eldwork in three English cities. All this is tied together by a practical engagement with contemporary education. The opening chapters introduce two theoretical frameworks. The  rst is drawn from the work of the French intellectual Pierre Bourdieu from whom are taken the notions of ‘legitimation’ and ‘habitus’. Legitimation concerns the validity of Catholic schooling, its right to exist, and its consequent relationship with society and culture. It also concerns, in this case, the impact of parental choice upon the functioning of Catholic schools since, when the market was opened up as a force in educational practice, Roman Catholic parents, in some numbers, disagreed with the position taken by their bishops. Thus the legitimation of Catholic schools occurs in two ways: by the historic mission and theology of the Roman Catholic Church and by the consumer-driven choice of assertive parents. The habitus of Catholic education is its ‘cultural unconscious’ that represents the consolidated tradition of Catholic schooling worldwide over many years. The habitus is the rigid pattern of prayers and masses, of symbols and retreats, of typical attitudes and procedures for character formation. Indeed, Grace has an interesting historical account of the habitus of Catholic schools taken from literary descriptions in novels and autobiographies. The most famous of these is found in James Joyce whose Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man paints a sharp and ultimately hateful picture of the disciplines of Irish education and the theological terrors they held for his generation. Since Vatican 2 this habitus has been largely revised so as to be more receptive of secular culture and more pluralistic in its intentions. The new diocesan comprehen-

Catholic Schools: Mission, markets and morality

The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1785-1865

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Crusoe's chains : being a man in Britain and Australia, c.1788-1840

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The Church Act: The expansion of Christianity or the imposition of moral enlightenment?

Edward Smith Hall, who founded the colony's third newspaper, the Sydney Monitor, in 1826, had much to say about convict escape, and his perception of escape depended on who the escapee was, and what it was they were trying to escape from. And he applied a blatant double standard in the process. There was a clear difference in his attitude if he was talking about male or female convicts, or if he was talking about people he considered to be morally upright or not. He was not alone in holding such attitudes (which persisted beyond the period under discussion here). As an influential member of colonial New South Wales (NSW) society, he helped perpetuate and shape certain notions of Englishness, liberty, morality and industry.

'Bold, Manly-minded Men' and 'Sly, Cunning Base Convicts': The Double Standard of Escape

The English rock band, Hawkwind, was amongst the founders of the genre known as “space rock”. From the early 1970s to the early 1990s, their work also included references to Cold War issues. An examination of their concert appearances, musical output and printed matter reveals that relevant material often reflected the “imagination of disaster” made famous in an essay by Susan Sontag. As well, there are correlations between the waxing and waning of Cold War tensions, and the presence and absence of such themes in their work. Thus, their work provides an example of how popular music could serve as a barometer of the impact of the Cold War on popular culture.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23311983.2015.1024564

Erin Ihde

Papers

The Church Act: The expansion of Christianity or the imposition of moral enlightenment?

'Bold, Manly-minded Men' and 'Sly, Cunning Base Convicts': The Double Standard of Escape

Do not panic: Hawkwind, the Cold War and “the imagination of disaster”

A Manifesto for New South Wales: Edward Smith Hall and the Sydney Monitor, 1826-1840

'A smart volley of dough-boy shot': a military food riot in colonial Sydney