Showing papers on "Emancipation published in 1987"

Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860-1899

Abstract: The Description for this book, Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860-1899, will be forthcoming.

The transformation of German Jewry, 1780-1840

Abstract: In the period from 1780 to 1840 German Jewry underwent a twofold revolution that set the basic patterns of its experience for the century to follow: the end of the Jews's feudal status as an autonomous community forced them to face a protracted process of political and civic emancipation and a far-reaching social metamorphosis, while their encounter with the surrounding culture resulted in an intense productivity. In this groundbreaking study, David Sorkin argues that emancipation and the encounter with German culture and society led not to assimilation but to the creation of a new Jewish identity and community - a vibrant subculture - that produced many of Judaism's modern movements and a pantheon of outstanding writers, artists, composers, scientists, and academics.

Women in nationalist struggle: tanu activists in dar es salaam*

Abstract: The Union has not forgotten women behind in its task of arousing national consciousness in the people. It now has 5,000 women members, the majority of whom enrolled during the past four months. Under the inspiration of Bibi Titi Mohamed, the women have organised a Women's Section of the Union with their own leaders. This Bibi Titi Mohamed is a very dynamic woman and is inspiring a revolution [in] the role of women in African society. Though only semi-literate, she is a dynamic and convincing speaker . . . she has already made extensive tours of the Eastern Province and is likely to lead all the women of Tanganyika in a revolution that is without precedent. The present and future [mothers] of Tanganyika have refused to be left behind and are flowing with the current alongside of their men-folk. The problem of the emancipation of women at a later date has, in this way, been disposed of .... We therefore look forward with confidence to a fully fledged women's organisation in the near future.1 Thus did the young Oscar Kambona capture the euphoria of an early moment in the popular mobilizing efforts of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). His heady enthusiasm for women's responsiveness, and his optimistic prediction that the process of nationalist mobilization would solve the "problem" of women's emancipation were not surprising. Nor was it surprising that he should be writing in such detail along these lines to the Fabian Society,

Power Changes and Self-Respect: A Comparison of Two Cases of Established-Outsider Relations

Abstract: This article is based on two studies of outsiders in an emancipation process. 1) The first one deals with homosexuals (van Stolk and de Regt, 1979), and the second with women (van Stolk and Wouters, 1983); both studies were carried out in a social service organization. Most of the homosexuals sought counselling because of difficulties in accepting themselves; they suffered from a lack of self-respect. The women, predominantly working-class, had been taken into a crisis centre after having run away from their partners. In doing so most of them had given way to pressure due to an increase in self-respect; in effect they could no longer tolerate the way they had been treated. The problems of both the homosexuals and the runaway women are examined in the context of a decreasing inequality of power in the relations between homosexuals and heterosexuals, and between men and women respectively. With the help of Norbert Elias’s established-outsider theory, the relation between women and men is compared to that between homosexuals and heterosexuals. The main focus is on the connection between changes in their mutual balance of power, in the respect shown them socially and in their self-respect. The comparison is preceded by a short survey of the main conclusions of the two empirical studies.

Rights and the Constitution in Black Life during the Civil War and Reconstruction

Abstract: Early in 1873 a northern correspondent in Mississippi commented on the remarkable changes the previous decade had wrought in the behavior and self-image of southern blacks. "One hardly realizes the fact," he wrote, "that the many negroes one sees here . . . have been slaves a few short years ago, at least as far as their demeanor goes as individuals newly invested with all the rights and privileges of an American citizen. They appreciate their new condition thoroughly, and flaunt their independence." As the writer intimated, the conception of themselves as equal citizens of the American republic galvanized blacks' political and social activity during Reconstruction. Recent studies have made clear how the persistent agitation of Radical Republicans and abolitionists, and the political crisis created by the impasse between AndrewJohnson and Congress over Reconstruction policy, produced the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendmentsmeasures that embodied a new national commitment to the principle of equality before the law.' But the conception of citizens' rights enshrined in national law and the federal Constitution during Reconstruction also came, as it were, from below. In seeking to invest emancipation with a broad definition of equal rights, blacks challenged the nation to live up to the full implications of its democratic creed and helped set in motion events that fundamentally altered the definition of citizenship for all Americans. The transformation of blacks' role within American society began during the Civil War. For the nearly four million slaves, for the tiny, despised black population of the free states, and for the free blacks of the South, the war held out the hope of a radical change in American race relations. Each of those groups took actions

Such As Us: Southern Voices of the Thirties

Abstract: When "These Are Our Lives" was first published by The University of North Carolina Press in 1939, the late Charles A Beard hailed it as "literature more powerful than anything I have read in fiction, not excluding Zola's most vehement passages" A very early experiment in the publication of oral history, it consisted of thirty-five life histories of sharecroppers, farmers, mill workers, townspeople, and the unemployed of the Southeast, selected from over a thousand such histories collected by the Federal Writers' Project in the 1930s It was the Press' intention to publish several more volumes from the material that had been amassed, but World War II forced the cancellation of those plans The editors of "Such As Us" have taken up the abandoned task and have produced a volume every bit as rich as its predecessor From the perspective of forty years we can now read these stories as vivid chapters in the social history of the South, reaching as far back as slavery times and as far forward as the eve of World War II To the modern reader the people speaking in this book may at first seem quaint, like curious from a past time and a different world They worked on farms, in mills, oil fields, coal mines, and other people's homes Their life histories provide a view of the world they saw, experienced, and helped to create They tell about family life, religion, sex roles, being poor, and getting old, and they describe how major events -- the Civil War, Emancipation, World War I, the Great Depression, and the New Deal -- affected them These accounts offer the reader the chance to experience vicariously the world these people lived in -- to know, for example, the wife of the tenant farmer who commented, "We seem to move around in circles like the mule that pulls the syrup mill We are never still, but we never get anywhere" "Such as Us" is a contribution to the history of anonymous Americans Like the former-slave narratives, which have become an important primary source for the historian, these life histories will enable the reader to reexamine traditional views and address new questions about the South By providing an introduction and historical interchapters that place the histories in perspective, the editors set these histories within the cultural context of the 1930s and illustrate the relationship between private lives and public events These life histories allow individuals to reach across time and share their lives with us Although the people who speak in "Such As Us" are representatives of social types and classes, they are also unique individuals -- a paradoxical truth their life histories affirm

Women with Disabilities: Abortion and Liberation

Abstract: In this, the United Nations Decade of the Disabled, much is being done to improve the lives of those with disabilities, and to enable them to participate as equals in the everyday life of their communities. At the same time, however, more and more technological ‘advances’ are being deployed to detect handicap in the unborn, with the aim of killing as many of them as possible before birth. Feminists, though accustomed to fighting for the emancipation of women, are failing to address this incongruous situation, and the double discrimination faced by women with disabilities. This is partly due to the fact that they tend to regard abortion as an unequivocal ‘right’. I will argue that far from being a right, abortion underlines women's oppression and is counter-productive to women in general, and to disabled women in particular.

Socialist Emancipation: the Women's Movement in the German Democratic Republic

Abstract: Synopsis —The paper attempts to evaluate the role of the DFD (Women's Democratic League of Germany—the official and only women's organization in the G.D.R.) within the general context of the situation of women in the G.D.R. It therefore discusses the DFD's historical contribution to legislation and social measures in favour of women, the theoretical framework in which this occurred, and the somewhat paradoxical nature of the DFD's current role. Expanding these issues, the paper deals with the historical legacy of Marxist theory on the emancipation of women, and the isolation from Western feminist theory in which the G.D.R. in general, and the DFD in particular operate. Contradictions in the present situation of women in the G.D.R. are discussed as well as the tremendous gains in status and consciousness already made by women on the basis of the economic, social and legal provisions in their favour. Some causes for these contradictions are postulated. Examples of their expression through the media and in recent literature are given to exemplify both the extent of and the limits to the current discussion of feminist issues in the G.D.R.

Trouble in Mind: The Bicentennial and the Afro-American Experience

Abstract: When Americans commemorated the one hundredth birthday of the Constitution, in 1887, they staged appropriate celebrations, the most spectacular of them in Philadelphia. Amid a sea of flags and patriotic banners, a Civic and Industrial Procession highlighted American progress over the past century. The planners did not overlook black America. Three floats formed "The Colored People's Display." The first float, labeled 1787, showed a plantation during slavery, featuring a small Negro cabin surrounded by growing cotton. The second float, labeled 1887, displayed a school scene, with sixty-five black pupils at their studies under the direction of four teachers. Symbolic of the progress of the race, banners proclaimed Emancipation, Enfranchisement, Full Political Rights and Privileges, and God Bless 1887. The third float, labeled Industry, depicted blacks at a variety of trades. This was less than the parade's planners had envisioned. The display had been hastily organized, largely because of the black community's indifference. "Early in my work I appealed to its most distinguished representatives," reported the chief marshal. This was an opportunity, he told them, to assemble "one of the most striking contrastive exhibits of the demonstration," illustrating "the marvelous advance of the race from bondage to freedom, from ignorance to intelligence, from poverty to comfort, with all the blessings coming from political freedom, education, and equality under the law." The response was less than overwhelming. For the float depicting the slave cabin, in fact, the organizers could find no blacks, "even with the offer of a liberal pecuniary reward," willing to appear in the role of slaves.1

Kunstschilders, gilde en academie Over het probleem van de emancipatie van de kunstschilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden van de 16de en 17de eeuw

Abstract: This article is a report on research undertaken in 1984-5 by a working group of art history students of the University of Amsterdam into the problem of the emancipation of artists f rom the craft guilds (Note 1). The research was based on Hoogewerff's excellently documented book on the Guilds of St. Luke and on published source material. The idea that artists and especially painters regarded the guilds as oppressive is a deeply rooted one (Note 2) and people are all too readily inclined to write of 'the artists' gaining their emancipation' from the Guilds of St. Luke. However, it is now clear that professional painters covered such a wide social spectrum that it is impossible to lump them all together under a single heading (Note 5), while a provisional investigation mainly, focussed on the first half of the 17th century even suggested that there could have been no question at all of emancipation. It became clear that the guilds continued to function all over the Northern Netherlands in the 17th century as Protectors of the profession, that there was no evidence of their hampering artistry and that if there was any emancipation, it took place within the guild itself. A factor that makes such research difficult is that the literary sources are by no means unambiguous or even reliable. In contrast to the meaning current in their day qf someone who does something with paint and a brush, Vasari and Van Mander used the term 'painter' only for those who painted scenes and portraits, not, for example, for those who did banners or ornamental work (Notes 7,8). Thus Van Mander's freguently cited tirade against the guild (Note 9) loses much of its force in respect of the emancipation theory. Moreover, it is the only text of that type in the Netherlands. Houbraken twisted the facts to fit his vision of the artist, projecting his idea of the artist's superiority on to the historical situation (Note II). Thus this study moved between two poles : on the one hand it again confirmed (Note 12) that the guilds continued to function until late in the 18th century, while on the other there was a growing need among their more successful members for an enhanced status and regard, which manifested itself in their assuming control of the guild and restructuring it more clearly and also in their uniting in additional groupings, in which the emphasis was laid on more intellectual and theoretical, aspects and links were sought with amateurs. Although both these moves could be regarded as a certain form of emancipation, neither can be ascribed to an urge for artistic freedom which was hampered by the guilds.

Plantation Slavery and the Capitalist Mode of Production: An Analysis of the Development of the Jamaican Labour Force

Abstract: The role of slavery in the history of capitalist and pre-capitalist societies has become a central problem in Marxist and "neo-Marxist" discourse over recent years.' In the development of the Jamaican labour force, the transition from slavery to complete legal freedom (finally won in 1838 as a result of the passage of the emancipation Act in the British Parliament) stands as perhaps the most significant formative event.

Dutch gay emancipation history (1911-1986).

Abstract: The Dutch homosexual movement is one of the oldest and most influential in the world. The aim of this article is to describe how this success can be explained both by some specific characteristics of Dutch society and ideologies, strategies, and tactics as developed by the gay movement. Although it is always risk to make a comparison with other countries and the homosexual movements there, I try to point out brief some distinct differences and similarities.

The Frankfurt School: Critical theory as the negation of culture

Abstract: The Frankfurt School's analysis of culture in the 1930's and 1940's presents a radical, penetrating critique of the role of mass communication in advanced industrial Western societies In tracing the commercialization of culture and the repression of individual consciousness, the School is above all concerned with radical social change in the direction of human emancipation But in spite of its commitment to revolution, the School is less than successful in translating its theoretical findings into practical activity This paper examines the School's critical theory of society in an effort to discover the theoretical basis for the School's inability to merge theory with praxis The analysis reveals an attempt to develop a theory for the Marxist revolutionary project - the radical reconstruction of society in the interests of human emancipation - based on a philosophy which denies Marx's theories of man and history In this effort, the Frankfurt School failed Among the reasons for this failure are an undi

'Emancipation' and its Problems: War and Society in Württemberg 1939-45

Abstract: ’Emancipation’ has generally been used to mean the freeing of a disadvantaged group from artificially imposed civil disabilities, or the extending of rights enjoyed by the dominant group in society to another group previously denied them. The emphasis has usually been on the rights to be won, and less often on the responsibilities which accompany them. In ’normal’ times, resistance to the emancipation of one group by another whose rights, privileges and responsibilities have long been entrenched can be more easily maintained. But in time of crisis, especially in the total wars of the twentieth century, when virtually all members of society are involved, whether through participation in either the armed forces or war-related work on the home front, or through the sacrifices which war brings in terms of casualties and deprivation, ’emancipation’ can become a more

The Challenge of the Peace Movement: Civilian Security and Civilian Emancipation

Abstract: When on October 10, 1981, some 300 000 people rallied in Bonn to protest the installation of Pershing I1 cruise missiles in Germany and Western Europe, peace suddenly emerged as the most powerful mobilizing issue in Europe. This massive protest, the largest since World War 11, was merely “the beginning” of a transnational protest in the West and of a wider struggle on both sides of the Atlantic. In the course of a few weeks, hundreds of thousands of people-in Rome, London, Madrid, Copenhagen, Milan, and Amsterdam-marched against the deployment of new intermediate range missiles in Western Europe. The protest exploded on the European scene not when the decision to deploy the missiles was made, but rather when United States President Reagan declared that his administration would use such weapons to fight and win a “limited nuclear war” in Europe in the event of a Soviet threat.

Leisure education and emancipation in today's context.

Abstract: Whatever practical form education for leisure takes, it seems to me that it should be in the first place a school for freedom and independence to be experienced in leisure, so as to develop an awareness of emancipation that will help people to avoid drudgery and oppression and to prepare for a 'leisure society'. Circumstances today are so unfavourable that it is my impression that existing theory and practice in this domain is inadequate to cope with the new situation. The emphasis has to be put on a critical discussion of educational goals and priorities in the current political, social and economic situation of Western Europe. It is not possible today-but was it ever before?-to discuss any concept or project concerning education for leisure without taking into account the context. Yet this is not often explicitly done and the matter is mostly left to the 'specialists'. But at the same time there is no implicit consensus in the academic world about the assessment of the present crisis and/or the future perspectives. In at least two important areas the situation had changed since the idea of leisure education took shape in the post-war period. First, the social and economic context is drastically different, as is the dominant ideological reaction to it. Secondly, the relatively new academic community developing 'leisure sciences' is still seeking to define its terrain in relation to other social sciences. A new debate on leisure concepts is developing as a result of a shift to a non-functionalist social theory. Both aspects inevitably influence any discussion on theory or policy in the field of leisure education. A critical assessment of these changes is necessary to arrive at a clear view on what leisure education means. It is surely not a device for coping with the problems of social order created by massive unemployment.

Federica montseny and mujeres libres: two approaches to women's emancipation based in spanish anarchism

Abstract: From 1936 to 1939 Spain experienced what was probably the bloodiest war in its history the Spanish Civil War. The leftist political factions that had emerged during the previous decades joined together to combat the fascists. The anarchists were one such group. In theory their ideology demanded the equality of all individuals, but women in the movement found themselves in the same inferior position as always. Federica Montseny and the women of the group Mujeres Libres were important women in the anarchist movement, and they held strong beliefs about the the place of women. Although they collaborated on programs to educate women, their theories were quite different. Montseny's approach to women's problems is based on the responsibility of the individual for his or her state regardless of the social conditions that caused it, i.e. ignoring the legacy of history. Mujeres Libres, on the other hand, took a collective approach to solving women's problems, as they saw women in terms of the gender roles and violence to which history had subjected them. Thesis Supervisor: Professor Margery Resnick Title: Associate Professor of Spanish

Oroonoko, or, The royal slave : a critical edition

Abstract: This book is an edited text of Oroonoko, a seventeenth-century novel of love, passion, and the struggle for human dignity written by England's most eminent woman playwright, poet, and novelist of the day. The novel tells the story of a great African warrior who falls victim to treachery. As a result, he finds himself a slave in what is now Dutch Guinea. As an emancipation novel, the work gives insight into slave practices in both Africa and the New World Colonies.