Social Research articles from June 2008

Social Research archives from June 2008

Charles Tilly, 1929-2008.(In memoriam)
June 22, 2008... CHARLES TILLY, OUR ESTEEMED COLLEAGUE AND LONGTIME MEMBER of the editorial board of Social Research, died on Tuesday, April 29, 2008. Chuck joined the Graduate Faculty of the New School in 1984 as Distinguished Professor of Sociology and...

Endangered scholars worldwide.(cases on academic freedom)
June 22, 2008... The last four months have been exceptionally bad ones for academic freedom. As well as the four new cases listed below, many instances of generalized repression have victimized countless teachers and students around the world. In February a...

Editor's Introduction.(Editorial)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... THE PAPERS IN THIS ISSUE CONCERN THE RELATED SUBJECTS OF martyrdom, self-sacrifice, and self-denial. They have long and complex theological histories but would not have been chosen as our theme if they did not have an equally rich, and...

Morality and self-sacrifice, martyrdom and self-denial.(Essay)
June 22, 2008... MY CHIEF INTEREST IS TO EXPLORE THE QUESTION, IS SELF-SACRIFICE A necessary part of morality?. Think of a person who gives away millions of dollars to those in need while keeping millions for himself. He does not appear to sacrifice anything,...

Suicide, violence, and cultural conceptions of martyrdom in Palestine.(Essay)
June 22, 2008... MUCH OF THE SCHOLARLY DISCOURSE ON "SUICIDE TERRORISM" FOCUSES on the political strategies of these acts of violence and fails to consider their cultural dimensions, which are key to understanding how these acts gain popular support and become...

Martyrdom and sacrifice in a time of terror.(Report)
June 22, 2008... IN AN INTERVIEW, DR. ABDUL AZIZ RANTISI, THE POLITICAL HEAD OF the Hamas movement in Palestine, objected to my use of the term "suicide bombers" to describe his young colleagues in Hamas who chose to blow themselves up in acts of violence...

Can martyrdom survive secularization?(Essay)
June 22, 2008... THE ADVENT OF THE SUICIDE BOMBER AS A GLOBAL PHENOMENON during the past decade and a half has vastly increased our interest in but only marginally improved our understanding of martyrdom. The word remains as mysterious, hard to define, and...

Emily Wilding Davison: secular martyr?(Report)
June 22, 2008... ON JUNE 4, 1913, A TALL, SLENDER, 40-YEAR-OLD WOMAN WITH RED hair and green eyes stood quietly at the rail of the Epsom Downs race track, waiting for the running of the English Derby. Her name was Emily Wilding Davison and she was a member of...

Trading pain for knowledge, or, how the West was won.(Essay)
June 22, 2008... The only way into truth is through one's own annihilation; through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation. --Simone Weil, "Human Personality" A GENERATION AGO, THE SUBJECT WAS KNOWLEDGE AND POWER; TODAY, the...

Martyrdom, sacrifice, and political memory in El Salvador.(Report)
June 22, 2008... A MONTH BEFORE HIS DEATH, OSCAR ROMERO, ARCHBISHOP OF SAN Salvador, El Salvador told an interviewer, "If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.... May my blood be the seed of freedom and the signal that hope will soon be a...

Micromobilization and suicide protest in South Korea, 1970-2004.(Report)
June 22, 2008... Do not let my death be in vain --Chun Tae-il ON NOVEMBER 13, 1970, IN SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA, CHUN TAE-IL, A 23-YEAR-OLD garment worker, set himself on fire at Chongghye-Chun, the country's largest textile and garment wholesale district,...

Missing their mark: the IRA's proxy bomb campaign.(Irish Republican Army)(Report)
June 22, 2008... SUICIDE CAR BOMBS HAVE BECOME A COMMONPLACE AND VIRTUALLY daily event in conflicts such as those taking place in Iraq or Afghanistan. * When an attack occurs, we make assumptions about the intent and motivation of the driver and the...

The history and evolution of martyrdom in the service of defensive jihad: an analysis of suicide bombers in current conflicts.(Report)
June 22, 2008... MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR, EMPHASIZING NOT only the failure of US policies but also the internecine fighting among the varied groups, including Al Qaeda and Shia and Sunni militias, all of which have contributed to the carnage...