LIS514DESCRIPTION OF..
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Marissa Rhodes LIS514 April 5, 2011 THE NEW SOCIAL HISTORY Description of the Collection My thesaurus is constructed using examples of social history scholarship. The discipline of history has become increasingly interdisciplinary in nature as a new generation of historians seeks to interpret historical events in new and interesting ways. This new way of doing history, which is generally called the new social history borrows methods and terms from sociology, anthropology, and archeology. Historical sociology is an accurate phrase to describe the discipline. There are perhaps a greater number of books in this vein, the likes of which are making their way into popular readership but scholarly, peer-reviewed articles abound as well. I will focus solely on these articles, taken from academic journals. I made sure to include in my sampling scholarship that varies geographically, chronologically and topically within my scope since societies, and the terms used to describe them, vary throughout time and space. My Thesaurus of the New Social History will be limited geographically to Europe, including the Nordic countries, the British Isles and the adjacent Mediterranean. The thesaurus will be most applicable to medieval, early modern and modern time periods. The inclusion of ancient and prehistoric time periods is not necessary because our understanding of their societies is too limited to warrant the interdisciplinary techniques that signify the new social history. I was also sure to include a broad range of topics in this extraordinarily diverse discipline. For the selection process only, I divided the new social history into five main categories: (1) Material Culture, which encompasses the arts, fashion, leisure, consumerism and technology, (2) Family/Personal Relations, which encompasses sex, children, marriage and gender, (3) Social Structure, covering education, economy, demographics, and rural/urban studies, (4) Non-material Culture, which encompasses politics, religion, ideology and philosophy, and (5) Marginalized Groups, which refers to social groups such as prostitutes, cults, beggars, masochists, homosexuals, gypsies, and any other marginalized group that is best studied as an independent unit. I designed my sampling so that it contained as much geographical, chronological and topical variation as possible within my parameters. Objects Bersten, I. (1994). Complications of the commonplace: Tea, sugar, and imperialism. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 24, 4, 783-784. Boes, M. R. (2000). Jews in the criminal-justice system of early modern Germany. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 30, 3, 407-435. Britt, K. C. (2007). Roger II of Sicily: Rex, basileus, khalif? Identity, politics, and propaganda in the Cappella Palatina. Mediterranean Studies 16, 1, 21-45. CabreĢ, M. (2008). Women or healers? Household practices and the categories of health care in late medieval Iberia. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 82, 1, 18-51. Cattaneo, G. (2010). The oath of fidelity in Iceland: A tie of feudal allegiance. Scandinavian Studies, 82, 1, 21-36. Darnton, R. (2004). Mademoiselle Bonafon and the private life of Louis XV: Communication circuits in eighteenth-century France. Representations, 87, 102124. Davis, N. Z. (1977). Ghosts, kin, and progeny: Some features of family life in early modern France. Daedalus, 106, 2, 87-114. Dumolyn, J. (2008). "Criers and shouters". The discourse on radical urban rebels in late medieval Flanders. Journal of Social History, 42, 1, 111-135. Knight, J. T. (2009). "Furnished" for action: Renaissance books as furniture. Book History, 12, 1, 37-73. Lemire, B., & Riello, G. (2008). East & West: Textiles and fashion in early modern Europe. Journal of Social History, 41, 4, 887. McCormick, M. (2003). Rats, communications, and plague: Toward an ecological history. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 34, 1, 1-25. Quinlan, S. M. (2006). Inheriting vice, acquiring virtue: Hereditary disease and moral hygiene in eighteenth-century France. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 80, 4, 649-76. Randall, C. (1997). Shouting down Abraham: How sixteenth century Huguenot women found their voice. Renaissance Quarterly, 50, 2, 411-442. Sarti, R. (2005). The true servant: Self-definition of male domestics in an Italian city (Bologna, 17th-19th centuries). History of the Family, 10, 4, 407-433. Schumacher, R., Ryczkowska, G., & Perroux, O. (2007). Unwed mothers in the city. Illegitimate fertility in 19th-century Geneva. The History of the Family : an International Quarterly, 12, 3, 189. Users My primary users are undergraduate history students. My secondary user groups are amateur historians and graduate students of history, thought the thesaurus will be slightly less useful to them. Meeting the information needs of experts in this particular field is more complicated than this project warrants so I decided to avoid that user group altogether, gearing my thesaurus firstly toward the general user, secondly toward the novice user, and lastly toward inexperienced scholars. Information Needs The research level of my primary users does not require a particularly high level of precision, in fact, highly precise retrieval could be a hindrance to users with more general theses. However, the average college student will encounter a linguistic dilemma that has the potential to decimate recall. Historians have created modern labels for past events and cultures, resulting in a disparity between historical and modern names for the same concept. Another layer of difficulty is added by the fact that some modern concepts (and their names) did not exist during the historical periods discussed in their research. Historians use both old terms (i.e. apothecary) and new terms (i.e. pharmacist) to describe concepts that have been renamed. Other concepts, (e.g. nationalism) were non-existent in medieval Europe, because the concept of a “nation” was not yet formed but they are used by historians who retroactively apply it to historical situations. My thesaurus aims to solve the user’s dilemma by improving recall in this linguistically complex environment. Depth of Indexing Required The nature of the discipline of social history makes exhaustive indexing impractical if not impossible to accomplish on a large scale but because of the linguistic dilemma mentioned above, a fairly high level of exhaustivity should be attempted. A high level of specificity, which would certainly benefit expert users, will exacerbate the linguistic dilemma mentioned above, especially for my primary user group. Appropriate Controlled Vocabularies Perhaps due to the relative newness of this discipline, I was unable to find any thesauri comparable to my own. Decisions and Rationale I constructed my term relationships by physically drawing hierarchies based on elemental sociology. Even though I borrowed the content structure from sociology, I did not limit my terminology to that used by sociologists since my users are history students and it is likely that they would not be familiar with terms used strictly by sociology experts. For concepts that are new (e.g. nationalism) and therefore did not exist at the time of study, I used the terms used most often by current scholars. I made this choice because it seemed like the only option. It would be impossible for me to assign a historical term to a concept that did not come into existence until after the time period in question. However, to represent concepts that existed in the past but were known by another name, I used the historical naming conventions (e.g. I used “apothecary” instead of “pharmacist”.) This decision was based on the observation that historians attempt etymological consistency. I could not find one who called medieval or early modern practitioners “pharmacists.” It is, after all, inaccurate to impose a concept on historical peoples that did not exist for them. When choosing preferred terms (and all things were equal), I chose based on the simplicity of the word. For example, I used “proletariat” instead of “working class” in order to avoid the compound word. I did, however, include “working class” in the thesaurus but I rerouted the user to “proletariat” using the USE function. At first I was reluctant to do this because I wanted to be a stickler for accuracy and for many people, “proletariat” has particularly Marxist connotations to it. But after considering my intended user group, this seemed like the best choice. “Proletariat” is a legitimate term for the working class used by social historians. I reasoned that my users would be able to come up with “working class” on their own but “proletariat” I was not so sure about. I used these more sophisticated terms as preferred terms for all of the social classes, using “elite” for upper class, and “bourgeoisie” for middle class. Aberration USE deviance Adultery RT marriage Acculturation USE assimilation Ageism BT discrimination anti-Semitism BT racism NT Nazism RT Judaism Apothecary BT healthcare RT chemistry Apprenticeship BT education Aristocracy USE elite Assimilation BT education RT meme Authority USE government autonomy RT liberty Beheading USE decapitation Bourgeoisie BT socioeconomic class Breeding USE gentility Burning BT execution Business USE commerce capital punishment USE execution Censorship BT suppression RT banning Ceremony NT nuptials NT purgation RT ritual class USE socioeconomic class coexistence RT heterogeneity RT tolerance Colonization BT imperialism commerce BT economy NT industry NT usury Commoner USE proletariat Commonwealth USE democracy Communication BT transmission NT expression RT transportation consanguinity USE kinship Consumption BT economy RT material culture Convention USE norm corporal punishment BT policing NT execution NT torture Crucifixion BT execution Culture NT knowledge NT art NT custom NT material culture Custom BT culture NT ritual RT ceremony RT heritage daughter USE offspring death penalty USE execution Decapitation BT execution RT violence Democracy BT ideology Deviance BT marginalization RT stigma Discrimination NT racism NT sexism NT ageism NT misogyny RT stigma Disease BT health NT infection RT medicine RT heredity Diversity USE heterogeneity Domestic BT servant NT housekeeper NT maid druggist Use apothecary Economy NT commerce NT consumption Education NT apprenticeship NT literacy NT assimilation Electrocution BT execution Elite BT socioeconomic class Emigration BT migration Enculturation USE assimilation Epidemic BT infection NT pandemic RT pestilence Ethics USE morality execution BT corporal punishment NT hanging NT decapitation NT crucifixion NT burning NT electrocution Expression BT communication NT language Extramarital sex USE adultery Family BT kinship NT offspring NT parent NT sibling Fashion BT material culture RT consumerism Fecundity USE fertility Fellowship BT social unit Femininity BT gender NT woman Feminism RT gender Fertility NT pregnancy Feudalism BT social contract NT vassalage Foreign policy NT imperialism Fornication USE adultery Fraternity BT fellowship Freedom USE liberty Furniture BT material culture Gender BT social construct NT masculinity NT femininity RT sexuality Gentility BT meme RT elite geographical mobility RT transportation RT technology RT communication Government BT politics NT police Guild BT fellowship hanging BT execution Health NT healthcare NT disease NT hygiene NT sanitation Healthcare BT health NT apothecary NT midwife NT physician hegemony RT political structure RT social structure RT imperialism Heredity RT inheritance Heterogeneity RT coexistence Housekeeper BT domestic Humanism BT philosophy Hygiene BT health Iconography RT politics RT religion Identity BT social construct RT politics RT religion Ideology BT politics NT democracy NT patriotism NT radicalism Immigration BT migration RT transportation Imperialism BT foreign policy NT colonization RT hegemony Incest RT kinship RT sexuality independence USE liberty Industry BT commerce NT textiles Infection BT disease NT epidemic infidelity USE adultery Inheritance NT primogeniture Instruction USE education Jacobinism BT radicalism Kinship BT social unit NT family RT incest Knowledge BT culture NT technology NT science Language BT expression NT media Law enforcement USE policing Leisure USE recreation liberty RT autonomy Literacy BT education Maid BT domestic Marginalization NT deviance NT vulnerability RT stigma Marriage BT social contract RT adultery RT family masculinity BT gender NT virility material culture BT culture NT fashion NT furniture NT technology RT recreation RT consumption Media BT language RT propaganda Meme BT social construct NT gentility RT communication RT culture mercantilism USE commerce Middle class USE bourgeoisie Midwife BT healthcare RT women RT pregnancy Migration BT transporation NT immigration NT emigration Morality NT vice NT virture RT religion Moré USE norm Misogyny BT discrimination Nationalism BT patriotism Nazism BT anti-Semitism nobility USE elite Norm BT social construct RT culture Nuptials BT ceremony Offspring BT family RT fertility Pandemic BT epidemic Parent BT family RT reproduction RT fertility Pathology RT disease RT medicine Patriotism BT ideology NT nationalism Peasant USE proletariat Persecution RT religion RT discrimination pharmacist USE apothecary Philosophy NT humanism Physician BT healthcare Polemics USE proselytizing policing BT government NT corporal punishment policy NT foreign policy NT suppression Political ideal BT politics NT liberty NT autonomy politics NT government NT policy NT ideology NT political ideal Plebian USE proletariat pluralism USE heterogeneity pregnancy BT fertility primogeniture BT inheritance Progeny USE offspring Proletariat BT socioeconomic class NT servant RT labor Propaganda BT communication RT media Proselytizing BT propaganda RT ideology RT religion Purgation BT ceremony Racism BT discrimination NT antisemitism Radicalism BT ideology NT Jacobinism recreation RT material culture Religion BT belief RT superstition reproduction USE fertility republic USE democracy Respectability USE gentility Ritual BT custom RT ceremony Sanitation BT health Science NT health NT technology self-expression BT communication settlement USE colonization Serfdom USE vassalage Servant BT proletariat NT domestic Sex USE gender Sexism BT discrimination Sexuality RT gender Sibling BT family society NT social unit NT socioeconomic class NT social contract NT social construct socioeconomic class BT society NT proletariat NT bourgeoisie NT elite Social construct BT society NT transmission NT gender NT norm NT marginality NT identity NT meme NT stigma Social contract BT society NT marriage NT feudalism social mobility BT socioeconomic class social status USE socioeconomic class social unit BT society NT kinship NT fellowship socialization Use assimilation son USEoffspring Stigma BT social construct RT discrimination RT marginalization stratum USE socioeconomic class Style USE fashion Superstition BT belief Suppression BT policy NT censorship NT hegemony Technology BT science RT medicine RT communication Textiles BT industry Torture BT corporal punishment trade USE commerce Tradition USE custom Transmission BT social construct NT communication RT language RT disease Transportation NT migration RT technology RT communication upper class USE elite Urbanity BT social contract RT culture Usury BT commerce RT antisemitism Vassalage BT feudalism Vice BT morality virtue BT morality Vulnerability BT marginalization Women BT femininity RT feminism working class USE proletariat
