Why Salem Made Sense: Culture, Gender, and the Puritan Persecution of Witchcraft

Reed, Isaac Ariail

doi:10.1177/1749975507078188

Cited by 14 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…For in their understanding, God's mastery over the fate of the colony was mirrored by a man's mastery of his family, as husband and father. Witches who manipulated the invisible world were women out of place, in two senses of the term: both cosmically dangerous, and in breach of familial norms (Reed 2007).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture in the transitions to modernity: seven pillars of a new research agenda

Reed

Adams

2011

Theor Soc

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How did cultural dynamics help bring about the societies we now recognize as modern? This article constructs seven distinct models for how structures of signification and social meaning participated in the transitions to modernity in the West and, in some of the models, across the globe. Our models address: (1) the spread, via imitation, of modern institutions around the world (memetic replication); (2) the construal, by socio-cultural forces and by state organizations, of the modern citizensubject (social subjectification); (3) the continual search for new meanings to replace traditional religious meaning-systems (compensatory reenchantment); (4) repeated attempts, in modern revolutions, to remake society completely, according to a utopian vision (ideological totalization); (5) the cultural origins and social consequences of scientific and humanistic worldviews (epistemic rift); (6) the gendered politics of state formation (patriarchal supercession); (7) the invention and production of race in the colonial encounter (racial recognition). We explicate the models in reverse chronological order, because in our synthesis, we argue that the original modern break results from a dynamic combination of racial recognition, patriarchal supercession, and epistemic rift; these changes set the stage for the four other processes we theorize. In addition to our synthesis, we also consider, from a more neutral perspective, the kinds of causal arguments upon which these models tend to rely, and thus explicate the analytical undergirding for the application of any of these models to empirical research on transitions to modernity. Throughout the article, we consider how these models might, and might not, mesh with other families of explanation, such as the politico-economic.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture in the transitions to modernity: seven pillars of a new research agenda

Reed

Adams

2011

Theor Soc

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“…Along similar lines, in seventeenth century Salem (Massachusetts), in the face of the belief in an all-powerful deity, attempting to take worldly or material action was viewed a form of devilry (at the heart of the Salem witch trials was a kind of movement against women's folk-medical nous, for example the brewing of herbal tisanes to cure a pox or fever, which was seen as a kind of meddling against the will of god [Reed 2007]). Within this purview hope is antithetical to, disconnected from action.…”

Section: Assessing Hopementioning

confidence: 99%

Hope: A Critical Introduction

DeNora

2021

Hope

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In the face of hardship people hope-for better times and for signs that suggest that hope is justified. As the opposite of despair, hopefulness is also the bedrock of creative and non-violent change. While hope involves an emotional stance or style (emotion being understood as affective orientation and readiness to act), it is also different from other emotions and affective stances in important ways. Unlike, for example, joy or sorrow, where an actual object-a person, an event, a perception or thought-gives rise to emotion, hope is an emotional orientation to something that is desired but that has not (yet) happened. Indeed, we may hope for things that may never happen. In this sense hope and longing are often intertwined.Thus, hope is future-oriented, although in a unique way. There are other emotion-laden orientations that take shape in relation to desired future events-anticipation and expectancy, for example. Anticipating or expecting something 'good' is a 'happy' orientation. I can take pleasure in, and enjoy, for example, looking forward to being reunited with a loved one after a lengthy journey. I can enjoy looking forward to attending a long-awaited event-a live concert after a long period during which concert attendance was impossible (as it is now during

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“…The same symptoms that are normal in one context can be abnormal in another. So, fears of devils, witches, and ghosts can be normal in cultures, such as in sixteenth-century England or the American colonies or in many current African societies, that define them as real but can be signs of a mental disorder when the relevant cultures regard such beliefs as unreasonable (e.g., Reed 2007).…”

Section: Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Context, Biology, and the Definition of Disorder

Horwitz

2017

J Health Soc Behav

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In recent years, medical sociologists have increasingly paid attention to a variety of interactions between social and biological factors. These include how social stressors impact the functioning of physiological systems, how sociocultural contexts trigger genetic propensities or mitigate genetic defects, and how brains are attuned to social, cultural, and interactional factors. This paper focuses on how both sociocultural and biological forces influence what conditions are contextually appropriate responses or disorders. It also suggests that some of the most obdurate health problems result from mismatches between natural genes and current social circumstances rather than from genetic defects. Finally, it examines how social environments have profound impacts on how much harm disorders create. It shows how sociological insights can help establish valid criteria for illnesses and indicates the complexities involved in defining what genuine disorders are.

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Why Salem Made Sense: Culture, Gender, and the Puritan Persecution of Witchcraft

Cited by 14 publications

References 32 publications

Culture in the transitions to modernity: seven pillars of a new research agenda

Culture in the transitions to modernity: seven pillars of a new research agenda

Hope: A Critical Introduction

Social Context, Biology, and the Definition of Disorder

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