Carolyn Marvin is a professor and author that specializes in communication, culture and media, political communication, and technology and society. Marvin is currently the Frances Yates Emeritus Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. [1] Marvin is the author of two major publications, When Old Technologies Were New [2] and Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag. [3]
Marvin published When Old Technologies Were New in 1988. [2] The book discusses topics such as communications, media, and the history of telecommunications as Marvin explores how early technologies impacted society, culture, and modern day communications. [2]
The book did receive some critiques from academic sources. Richard Rudolph from the University of Massachusetts Boston praises Marvin's work overall but notes her use of stories rather than analysis at times as well as his thoughts on what other information could have been included about societal changes. [4] Brain Winston of Pennsylvania State University writes that Marvin makes many interesting points about denying technological determinist vision and how the spread of electricity created a divide between those who had and could control electricity and those who could not. [5] He also critiques the first chapter of the book saying that it does not make claims as important as the rest of the work and points out that he feels more evidence might be seen as being needed. [5] A review by Kenneth Lipartito in the Journal of Social History discusses Marvin's book and poses strengths such as her textual analysis but also her weaknesses in sources and how many of them are potentially biased as trade journals and unclear as to their notability or reach. [6] Susan Smulyan praises Marvin's historical analysis and the potential interest to historians and communication and media scholars alike in her review in the University of Chicago Press's peer reviewed journal Isis. [7] David Nye, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, commends Marvin's work overall in his review in the journal Technology and Culture and compliments the thoroughness of her research and the connections she poses between communication, technology, and society. [8]
Marvin's other book, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag, also received reviews and criticism. William Swatos, a scholar of religious studies, critiques Marvin and her co-author David Ingle for their belief in totemism and writes that their work is less analysis than just writing. [9] Though the book did receive criticism, it also received praise. Heidi Hamilton of Augustana College (now Augustana University) praises Marvin and Ingle's work in the journal, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, for using the lens of totemism to view the militarism and violence in America. [10]
Psychohistory is an amalgam of psychology, history, and related social sciences and the humanities. It examines the "why" of history, especially the difference between stated intention and actual behavior. Psychobiography, childhood, group dynamics, mechanisms of psychic defense, dreams, and creativity are primary areas of research. It works to combine the insights of psychology, especially psychoanalysis, with the research methodology of the social sciences and humanities to understand the emotional origin of the behavior of individuals, groups and nations, past and present. Work in the field has been done in the areas of childhood, creativity, dreams, family dynamics, overcoming adversity, personality, political and presidential psychobiography. There are major psychohistorical studies of studies of anthropology, art, ethnology, history, politics and political science, and much else.
Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrew and Greeks, and possibly existed before that. Evidence of ritual human sacrifice can also be found back to at least pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica as well as in European civilizations. Varieties of ritual non-human sacrifices are practiced by numerous religions today.
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors, and/or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein a monarch's servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in the next life. Closely related practices found in some tribal societies are cannibalism and headhunting.
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, but not defined, by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance.
Civil religion, also referred to as a civic religion, is the implicit religious values of a nation, as expressed through public rituals, symbols, and ceremonies on sacred days and at sacred places. It is distinct from churches, although church officials and ceremonies are sometimes incorporated into the practice of civil religion. Countries described as having a civil religion include France, South Korea, the former Soviet Union, and the United States. As a concept, it originated in French political thought and became a major topic for U.S. sociologists since its use by Robert Bellah in 1960.
The Bororo are indigenous people of Brazil, living in the state of Mato Grosso. They also extended into Bolivia and the Brazilian state of Goiás. The Western Bororo live around the Jauru and Cabaçal rivers. The Eastern Bororo (Orarimogodoge) live in the region of the São Lourenço, Garças, and Vermelho Rivers. The Bororo live in eight villages. The Bororo are an ethnic group in Brazil that has an estimated population of just under two thousand. They speak the Borôro language and are mainly of animistic belief. They live in eight villages in the central areas of Mato Grosso. A famous exponent of this group is Cândido Rondon, Brazilian army official and founder of Fundação Nacional do Índio . Bororo's culture was closely studied by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss during his expedition to Amazonia and Mato Grosso (1935–1936), described in his famous book Tristes Tropiques (1955).
The blood eagle was a method of ritually executing a chosen member as detailed in late skaldic poetry. According to the two instances mentioned in the Sagas, the victims were placed in a prone position, their ribs severed from the spine with a sharp tool, and their lungs pulled through the opening to create a pair of "wings". Until the 1980s, there was continuing debate about whether the rite was a literary invention, a mistranslation of the original texts, or an authentic historical practice.
Sacrifice was a religious activity in Maya culture, involving the killing of humans or animals, or bloodletting by members of the community, in rituals superintended by priests. Sacrifice has been a feature of almost all pre-modern societies at some stage of their development and for broadly the same reason: to propitiate or fulfill a perceived obligation towards the gods.
Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, or Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, is a 1913 book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in which the author applies his work to the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and the study of religion. It is a collection of four essays inspired by the work of Wilhelm Wundt and Carl Jung and first published in the journal Imago (1912–13): "The Horror of Incest", "Taboo and Emotional Ambivalence", "Animism, Magic and the Omnipotence of Thoughts", and "The Return of Totemism in Childhood".
In social science, disenchantment is the cultural rationalization and devaluation of religion apparent in modern society. The term was borrowed from Friedrich Schiller by Max Weber to describe the character of a modernized, bureaucratic, secularized Western society. In Western society, according to Weber, scientific understanding is more highly valued than belief, and processes are oriented toward rational goals, as opposed to traditional society, in which "the world remains a great enchanted garden".
American civil religion is a sociological theory that a nonsectarian quasi-religious faith exists within the United States with sacred symbols drawn from national history. Since the 19th century, scholars have portrayed it as a cohesive force, a common set of values that foster social and cultural integration. Its current form was developed by sociologist Robert Bellah in 1967 in the article, "Civil Religion in America". According to Bellah, Americans embrace a common civil religion with certain fundamental beliefs, values, holidays, and rituals in parallel to, or independent of, their chosen religion.
James William Carey was an American communication theorist, media critic, and a journalism instructor at the University of Illinois, and later at Columbia University. He was a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors from 1995 to 2002. He died in 2006 at age 71. Carey is credited with developing the ritual view of communication.
Amit Schejter is Professor of Communication Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and Visiting Professor of Communications and co-director of the Institute for Information Policy at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications of the Pennsylvania State University. He is currently serving as President of Oranim College.
In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of two kid goats. As a pair, one goat was sacrificed and the living “scapegoat” was released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities. The concept first appears in Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert to carry away the sins of the community.
Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.
Knowledge and Human Interests is a 1968 book by the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, in which the author discusses the development of the modern natural and human sciences. He criticizes Sigmund Freud, arguing that psychoanalysis is a branch of the humanities rather than a science, and provides a critique of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
International communication is the communication practice that occurs across international borders. The need for international communication was due to the increasing effects and influences of globalization. As a field of study, international communication is a branch of communication studies, concerned with the scope of "government-to-government", "business-to-business", and "people-to-people" interactions at a global level. Currently, international communication is being taught at colleges worldwide. Due to the increasingly globalized market, employees who possess the ability to effectively communicate across cultures are in high demand. International communication "encompasses political, economic, social, cultural and military concerns".
How Institutions Think is a book that contains the published version of the Frank W. Abrams Lectures delivered by the influential cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas at Syracuse University in March 1985.
Susan Smulyan is professor of American Studies and former director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage at Brown University. A graduate of Yale University, Smulyan's research focuses on U.S. popular culture in the 20th century.
Bagele Chilisa is a Botswanan post-colonial scholar who has written and spoken extensively about indigenous research and evaluation methodologies. She is a full professor at the University of Botswana, where she teaches courses on social science research methods and evaluation research to undergraduate and graduate students. Chilisa has served as an evaluater on multiple global projects, and is considered to be an important "African thought leader." Chilisa identifies as a member of the Bantu people of Africa.
Kelly Goto is an American entrepreneur specializing in user experience design and contextual research. She was one of the first design researchers using design ethnography. She is the founder and principal at gotomedia and gotoresearch.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Scientific databases | |
| Other | |
 | This article needs additional or more specific categories .(November 2021) |
