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Theme (narrative)

About: Theme (narrative) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 13050 publications have been published within this topic receiving 159511 citations. The topic is also known as: narrative theme.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The concept of resistance to social change has been defined as "behavior on the part of some or all of the members of society, either passive or active, which is directed toward the rejection or circumvention of a social change".
Abstract: SOCIOLOGISTS and anthropologists have long been interested in the tenacity of culture and its slowness to change. Representative of this concern are Tylor's "survivals," Bagehot's "cake of custom," Tonnies' "sitte," Sumner's "mores and folkways," Boas' "cultural inertia," and Ogburn's "cultural lag." Common to these concepts is the notion that once a pattern of social relationships has been established, it tends to carry on unchanged, except as the dynamics of other social forces operate to undermine it. Closely associated with the study of cultural persistence is the study of resistance to social change. The one, however, should not be confused with the other. Resistance is not simply a function of cultural persistence. Resistance implies behavior on the part of some or all of the members of society, either passive or active, which is directed toward the rejection or circumvention of a social change. Except perhaps for Bernhard J. Stern in his studies of resistance to medical and technological change,' writers have concerned themselves with resistance primarily as a by-product of other work and interests. Thus Veblen and Marx in their respective analyses of "vested interests" and the "bourgeoisie" treated resistance to social change as it originated from particular groups within society. There have also appeared various descriptive accounts of social movements with a predominantly resistance orientation.2 And some aspects of nativistic phenomena studied by anthropologists have possessed characteristics of resistance movements.3 However, in most nativistic movements the revivalistic rather than the perpetualistic component appears to be the dominant theme, e.g., the Ghost Dance among the Plains Indians.4 Unfortunately sociologists in the field of social movements have tended to neglect these materials and the phenomenon of resistance in their studies. "Social movement" traditionally has been defined in a manner which would automatically exclude movements resisting social change. This has been the product of either explicitly or implicitly treating social movements as agencies seeking to bring about social change, often of a fundamental sort.' Thus the work which has emerged in the field is a study of reformistic and revolutionary movements. Representative of the reformistic orientation are the following concepts of a social movement:

29 citations

Book
01 Oct 1990
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that Heidegger's thinking has an underlying unity, and has cogency for seemingly diverse domains of modern culture: philosophy and religion, aesthetics and literary criticism, intellectual history and social theory.
Abstract: Heidegger's thinking has an underlying unity, this book argues, and has cogency for seemingly diverse domains of modern culture: philosophy and religion, aesthetics and literary criticism, intellectual history and social theory. "The theme of mortality-finite human existence-pervades Heidegger's thought," in the author's words, "before, during, and after his magnum opus, Being and Times, published in 1927." This theme is manifested in Heidegger's work not "as funereal melodramatics or as despair and destructive nihilism" but rather "as a thinking within anxiety." Four major subthemes in Heidegger's thinking are explored in the book's four parts: the fundamental ontology developed in Being and Time; the "lighting and clearing" of Being, understood as "unconcealment"; the history of philosophy-with emphasis on Heraclitus, Hegel, and Nietzsche-interpreted as the "destiny" of Being; and the poetics of Being, explicated as the "fundamental experience" of mortality. Neither an introduction nor a survey, this book is a close reading of a wide range of Heidegger's books, lectures, and articles-including extensive material not yet translated into English-informed by the author's conversations with Heidegger in 1974-76. Each of the four subthemes is treated critically. The aim of the book is to push its interrogations of Heidegger's thought as far as possible, in order to help the reader toward an independent assessment of his work and to encourage novel, radically conceived approaches to traditional philosophical problems.

29 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the relations between Catholics and Muslims in the Mughal court in the early seventeenth century, during the reign of Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27), were examined.
Abstract: The essay sets out to re-examine the relations between Catholics and Muslims in the Mughal court in the early seventeenth century, during the reign of Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–27). It does so by confronting two sets of source–materials, namely the letters of the Jesuit Jeronimo Xavier and Persian–language texts from the Mughal court. In particular it focuses on the important and neglected figure of Maulana ‘Abdus Sattar ibn Qasim Lahauri, an intellectual who worked with and also studied the Europeans. The recent publication of a hitherto unknown text by him, under the title of Majālis-i Jahāngīrī, is in part the occasion for us to return to this classic theme in the historiography of cross-cultural encounters.

29 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
16 Jan 2018-JAMA
TL;DR: Outcomes for gastric sleeve resection are nearly as good as they are for Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, and that these outcomes are durable, suggesting that the major health effects from bariatric surgery are related to inducing weight loss and controlling diabetes.
Abstract: Six years ago, when JAMA last published a theme issue on obesity, there was optimism that progress was being made in preventing and treating obesity.1 As time has passed, so too has the optimism, as reports continued to show that the prevalence of obesity was increasing2 and, most important, rapidly increasing in children.3 A year and a half ago, there was a call to reconsider obesity and view it in new ways with the hope of better managing this very consequential clinical problem.4 In response, JAMA has revisited obesity in the form of a theme issue. This issue of JAMA includes 5 Original Investigations about bariatric surgery. Despite many bariatric surgery publications, most studies are not definitive due to lack of complete or long-term follow-up.5 Relatively few randomized trials have been conducted and, of those, not many involve multiple surgeons or institutions. The 5 studies published in this week’s JAMA overcome some of these limitations.6-10 Three randomized clinical trials were performed in multiple centers, with surgery performed by several different physicians. Each trial presents 5-year outcome data with very little loss to follow-up. Two observational studies compared bariatric surgery outcomes with either specialized obesity management or usual care and also have 4to 5-year outcomes, with nearly complete follow-up. Three of the Original Investigations in this issue of JAMA provide important information about the laparoscopic gastric sleeve operation.6-8 This procedure is relatively easy to perform and has rapidly become one of the most commonly performed bariatric procedures, despite the lack of high-quality evidence to support its use. The articles in this issue demonstrate that outcomes for gastric sleeve resection (including survival, excess BMI or weight loss, and improvement of comorbidities) are nearly as good as they are for Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, and that these outcomes are durable. Despite Roux-en-Y gastric bypass being a more complicated and technically difficult operation to perform, long-term complication rates are about the same for the 2 procedures. Although laparoscopic sleeve resection has good outcomes, a substantial number of patients develop gastroesophageal reflux disease after the procedure.6,7 Considering all the evidence, it is clear that laparoscopic gastric sleeve resection is a reasonable approach for treating significant obesity. However, as discussed in an accompanying Editorial by Arterburn and Gupta,11 there is no clear way to decide whether to perform gastric sleeve resection or Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. Bariatric surgery results in substantial and sustained weight loss, and it is associated with other important health outcomes. Although bariatric surgery may improve mortality, the effect is small,8 whereas the effect on remission of type 2 diabetes is substantial. The benefits of weight loss surgery on other obesity-related comorbidities are less clear. In one of the observational studies in this issue of JAMA, patients who had undergone bariatric surgery, compared with patients in the control group who had been enrolled in a specialized medical treatment program, had reduced use of medications for hypertension and hyperlipidemia.10 In another observational study in this issue, patients who had undergone bariatric surgery did not have a reduction in medication used for hypertension and dyslipidemia.8 Intuitively, this difference in results makes sense because hypertension is common in nonobese patients, and statins have other benefits in addition to treating dyslipidemia. It is unlikely that patients who have lost weight following bariatric surgery would be able to discontinue these medications. This finding suggests that the major health effects from bariatric surgery are related to inducing weight loss and controlling diabetes. The benefit of surgically induced weight loss on other outcomes, such as sleep apnea and osteoarthritis, were not addressed in these studies and more information is needed about how these complications of obesity might respond to bariatric surgery. In an effort to reverse the inexorable rise in the rates of obesity, some communities have imposed a tax on sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) in an effort to reduce consumption of these products. Taxes are imposed on the distributors of SSBs, although it is not known if the distributors would absorb the cost or pass it on to consumers. As described by Cawley et al in a Research Letter in this issue of JAMA,12 SSB taxes imposed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, provided a unique opportunity to test this hypothesis. The Philadelphia airport is so large, it straddles 2 cities: 21 stores in the airport are in the city of Philadelphia and 10 stores are in the city of Tinicum. Only stores on the Philadelphia side were subject to the SSB tax. After the tax was imposed, SSB prices increased in all the stores but the increase was significantly higher in the stores subjected to the SSB tax, suggesting that taxes were being passed on to the consumer and that competitors not subject to the tax also, to a lesser degree, increased prices.12 These results are discouraging. In a related Viewpoint, Powell and Maciejewski13 discuss the economic implications of SSB taxes and how these taxes Viewpoints pages 221, 223, 225, 227, 229, and 231

29 citations

Book
15 Mar 1997
TL;DR: The story of the descent of all European for peoples from emigrant Trojans is discussed in this paper, where the author examines the way the legend influenced western perception and behavior and became embodied in our literature, religion, law, philosophy, history, science, social theory, and film.
Abstract: "This book attempts to tell the history of a story, and to show how it is of central importance to western culture because it defines both what 'culture' is and who possesses it, " Richard Waswo begins in this impassioned, humane, and compelling reinterpretation of western civilization. The story Waswo refers to is a legend commonly regarded as fact for two millenia: the descent of all European for peoples from emigrant Trojans. But this study, astonishing in its range and fascinating in its vision, does not merely trace the theme through history. Instead, Waswo examines the way the legend influenced western perception and behavior and became embodied in our literature, religion, law, philosophy, history, science, social theory, and film. Implicit in this legend of perpetual colonization, Waswo says, is a distinction between "culture, " with its settled agricultural and urbanized communities, and the "savage, " with its hunting, gathering, and nomadic pastoralism. Waswo examines the powerful influence of th legend from its first expression in the Aeneid itself to The Faerie Queene to the fiction of Conrad and Forster, and also considers such widely disparate manifestations as the films of John Ford, the defoliation of Vietnam, and the policies of the World Bank. Both polemical and thought-provoking, the book shows how "legendary images defining our civilization determine our conduct toward other cultures: the fictions are both enacted in history and at the same time used to justify such action morally."

29 citations


Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20221
2021347
2020497
2019509
2018449
2017404