Modernist Pills against Brazilian Alienism (1920–1945)

Abstract

Psychoanalysis arrived in Brazil at the turn of the twentieth century and was frequently used as a new tool in the process of conservative modernization. As such, it was used by psychiatrists, eugenicists and hygienists in their projects. But avant-garde Brazilian writers appropriated it in a different manner. They saw psychoanalysis as a new form of cultural therapy that represented the new Brazilian ‘modernity’. The paper deals precisely with this project. With this aim in mind, it analyses several works of the leading authors of the Modernist Movement and their Manifestos, seeking to draw attention to the particular way in which psychoanalysis was appropriated as a psychotherapeutic tool capable of assisting in the creation of an identity for the country. For this analysis, the concept of circulation and of appropriation were chosen as theoretical reference.     

Good and Bad Years: An Index of American Social,Economic, and Political Threat (1920–1986)

Information provided by 196 U.S. history professors, indicating the degree to which they considered each of the years from 1920 to 1986 threatening to the established order and way of life in America, was pooled to form a social, economic, and political threat (SEPT) index. Interrater reliability was high, and substantial test-retest reliability was evident for a selected subsample over a 6-month period. The index significantly correlated with 11 objective indices of threat, including the suicide rate, unemployment rate, rise and fall of common stocks, and number of military men on active duty. Several studies involving threat and authoritarianism were replicated and in some instances extended with the SEPT index (McCann & Stewin, 1984; Sales, 1972, 1973). The pseudo-archival SEPT index has utility when relatively global estimates of prevailing threat are required for historiometric research testing a diversity of hypotheses gleaned from psychological, sociological, historical, and political science theories.     

Naturalized Citizens: Political Participation, Voting Behavior, and Impact on Elections in Lebanon (1996–2007)

In 1994, 4?years after the end of the Civil War, Lebanon passed Presidential Decree 5427 naturalizing over 154,931 foreign residents. During the four parliamentary elections that followed, these naturalized citizens demonstrated a higher rate of voter participation than the native-born population. The current debate on the nativity gap assumes that recent naturalization should indicate lower rates of voter turnout, except when machine politics orchestrates the opposite. In Lebanon, the patron?Cclient system seems to be responsible for this inverse nativity gap.     

Of Horses, Planks, and Window Sleepers: Stage Hypnotism Meets Reform, 1836–1920

This paper is a historical study of stage hypnotism from the early nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries. The hypnotists' stage performances over this period reveal cultural tensions related to modernization. Public responses to these shows also indicate the shifting dynamics of reform. When mesmerists first toured the U.S. in the early nineteenth century, the hypnotic trance confirmed popular belief in the ultimate perfectibility of the individual and society. By the late nineteenth century, however, hypnotic shows seemed more a model for human enslavement than liberation. Medical experts also began to express concern at the possible health damage hypnotism might inflict. Despite stage hypnotists' efforts to defend their art, hypnotism became increasingly marginalized as the growth of the middle class and of mass culture dictated an increasingly sanitized popular culture.     

Errata to Bressan, 3 (1974) 171–194

Journal of Philosophical Logic -