Geography Commons^™

Clothing In Transition: Social, Symbolic, And Legal Aspects Of Garments From Prehistory To The Early Byzantine Period, Tina Boloti, Francesca Scotti, Cristina Cumbo, Petra Linscheid

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Since ancient times, garments served a wide range of purposes: Either functional, providing protection by covering the body, or symbolic, as an element of non-verbal communication and marker of identity. In particular, this stimulates the development of specific characteristics in shape, decoration, or material composition, which generate distinctions among garments, as acknowledged by Roman jurists too.

These distinctions are determined by various factors. One important factor is the social meaning of clothing: There are garments for public life, garments expressing rank, garments suited for special professions, or garments intended for sacred/priestly rites reflecting particular religious symbols. And, of course, clothes …

Beyond “The Forgotten War”: A Multidimensional Exploration Of The Korean War And Its Enduring Impact, Matthew Weishaupt

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I. Synthesis Essay...................3

II. Primary Sources................20

III. Textbook Critique..............30

IV. New Textbook Entry..........34

V. Bibliography.......................40

Understanding Gold Textiles: Case Studies Of Gold Threads From The Bronze Age And Antiquity In Europe, Karina Grömer, Francesca Coletti, Francisco B. Gomes, Kayleigh Saunderson

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

The production of textiles, in terms of weaving techniques, has a long history in Europe, and dates back to the Stone Age, the time during which the first farming communities arrived in the Mediterranean and Central Europe, in the 7th/6th millennium BC. The first evidence of textile tools, like spindle whorls and loom weights, demonstrate that people made an important step forward in mechanizing this craft, not only twisting fibers and interlacing strands purely by hand, but also inventing tools to increase efficiency. Through the development of textile techniques, we see the unleashing of enormous creative power that stimulated even …

“What’S In A Name?” Toponyms And Loanwords In European Textile Cultures, Dimitra Andrianou, Klara Dankova, Nade Genevska Brachikj, Angela Huang, Meghan Korten, Elena Miramontes, Jasemin Nazim, Marie-Alice Rebours, Joana Sequeira

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Textiles as man-made products have been exchanged over distances for millennia. They can and have been produced almost anywhere; they are also, as a product, highly differentiated and quickly adjustable to changing demands. This brings with it naming practices to communicate about the goods in question. Textiles are labeled so that people can form expectations about them and rely on the reputation tied to the product’s identity. The terminology of textiles and textile items arises and develops in unison with technical innovations, discoveries, fashions, and trade patterns. Although the occurrence of toponyms e.g., in preindustrial trade (10th to 18th century …

The Terminology Of Soft Furnishings In Ancient Babylonia, Greece, And Rome: A Comparative Approach, Dimitra Andrianou, Elena Miramontes, Louise Quillien

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Various kinds of textiles were used to furnish domestic spaces in Antiquity, such as curtains, covers, hangings, pillows, cushions, mattresses, rugs, tapestries, tablecloths, and towels. These objects have practical and everyday functions, they embellish and add to daily comfort in the house and speak to the owner’s prosperity. Being made of perishable materials, furnishings have, on the whole, not survived in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. Apart from a few excavated pieces of textiles found in tombs, our information comes primarily from written testimonia and iconography.

It is thus essential to consider soft furnishings in their own right, in order …

Textiles, Dress And Politics: A Diachronic Perspective Through The Case Studies Of Ancient Rome And Medieval Iceland, Meghan Korten, Zofia Kaczmarek

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

People dress for more than just aesthetic reasons. Over the centuries, dress became a sign of human civilization, allowing us to identify the origin, gender, and status of the wearer. Textiles and clothing influence our body, posture, movements, and the way we are perceived by society. Textiles are also a tool used by people to further their agenda, that is why they found their place in the political life of many ancient and modern societies.

According to Michel Foucault, power can be understood as a set of activities influencing the life of the other: It provokes, forbids, or permits, but …

Historical Reappearance: Tracing The Impacts Of Argentina's Los Desaparecidos To The Rise Of President Javier Milei, Analise Sofia Chain

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In 1976 the Argentine government was taken over by a right wing military junta, attempting to “save” their country from communism. Military officials kidnapped, tortured and killed between 10,000 and 30,000 Argentine citizens, who were thought of as “guerrillas” supporting the leftist government and the late president Juan Perón. These victims are regarded as the disappeared, or Los Desaparecidos; due to the fact their families had no knowledge of where their loved ones were taken, or what was happening to them. Many of these young, liberal advocates were never seen or heard from again, their remains lost to history, and …

Presenting Past People: Storytelling Through Prehistoric Garment Reconstructions, Floor Huisman, Anna Zimmermann, Ronja Lau, Karina Grömer

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

This paper argues that we need to focus on past people (rather than just objects) in our narratives and museum displays to engage museum visitors more effectively. It will demonstrate that we can use a combination of well-researched physical and digital prehistoric garment reconstructions to implement more people-centered approaches also used in living history, which bring the past to life and allow visitors to literally come face-to-face with long-dead people. In this way, visitors can relate to past people on an emotional level, which helps them to learn much more about past life than many traditional displays. After outlining how …

Frontmatter For Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, And Culture Across Millennia, Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Louise Quillien, Kalliope Sarri

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Title and copyright pages, Acknowledgments, Contents, Prefaces.

We believe this volume has the potential to contribute to the advancement of European scientific excellence and competitiveness, fostering a deeper understanding of the cultural, technological, and societal significance of textiles and clothing in shaping European identity and heritage through the millenia. We hope that the anthology will find a wide and interested readership, and that it will inspire many new research projects in the field of textile history.

Technical And Technological Analyses Of Excavated Textiles, Christina Margariti, Judith Goris, Petra Linscheid, Agata Ulanowska

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Textiles are particularly complex and labor-intensive structures, thus their constructive elements, such as fibers and yarns, as well as the final textile products (e.g., threads, cords, fabrics, and applied decoration) reveal a range of important technical, technological, and sociocultural information. In this paper, we discuss the analysis of excavated textiles at two levels:

1) Technical analysis that offers basic information about the qualities of examined textile samples.

2) Technological analysis that provides insights into technology, social relations of production, and the level of craft specialization or production modes.

Both analyses offer new evidence for environmental resources, sustainability, trade, and exchange, …

Investigating Organic Colorants Across Time: Interdisciplinary Insights Into The Use Of Madder, Indigo/Woad, And Weld In Historical Written Sources, Archaeological Textiles, And Ancient Polychromy, Paula Nabais, Cecilie Brøns, Magdalena M. Wozniak

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Organic dyes have been used from the earliest times to provide color primarily to textiles, but also as a colorant in painting. Such organic dyes could create a wealth of colors, depending on the availability and know-how of resources. These dyes are usually organic in nature, and primarily obtained from different plant sources. Unfortunately, the characterization of natural organic colorants in textiles and artworks is still a challenge. The difficulty of analyzing these materials is sometimes allied to the frequent impossibility of micro-sampling, and the frailty of the objects. Many techniques, such as HPLC (High-Performance Liquid Chromatography) and SERS (Surface-Enhanced …

Towards Textile Narratives: A Cross-Over Perspective On Textile Imagery In Statuary, Iconography, And Literature, Leyre Morgado-Roncal, Juliane Müller, Marisa Kerbizi

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Textiles and clothing constitute a fundamental element of our cultural past, present, and future. Therefore, they were also represented in many mediums, such as iconographic depictions and literature. Images are a source of visual and mental illustration and are often dependent on the viewer’s perspective. As a result, the representations of textiles convey social constructions and their cultural perception. Their study is the focal point of this article: The ways in which textiles and clothing are described by the imagery shown in Greek and Roman statuary and iconography, as well as in contemporary Albanian literature and mythology.

Representations illustrate the …

Young Romans: Status, Dress, And Gender, Mary Harlow, Lena Larsson Lovén

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

The demographics of the Roman world suggest that it was a world full of children. Demographers argue that in order simply to maintain population levels in a period where life expectancy was very short by modern standards, and infant mortality high, a woman should, on average, have six children, on the assumption that not all would live to adulthood. Despite much research in the last fifty years, children still remain partly invisible in the Roman world. This is primarily because they leave little evidence produced by themselves and are seen through the prism of adult eyes. Inevitably, given the nature …

Narrative And Material Tools Of Resistance: Mobilizing Textile Crafts, Heritage, And Fashion In The Context Of The Invasion Of Ukraine (2022–2023), Magali-An Berthon, Sophia Hayda, Tetiana Krupa, Yuliia Lazorenko, Marie-Louise Nosch

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

In 2022–2024, textile and fashion scholars came together to write an anthology sharing a new vision of European history as seen through textiles, in the COST Action EuroWeb. During this period, the continent was still dealing with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and was then faced with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Contemporary European history will be markedly defined by the ongoing war in Ukraine. One remarkable aspect of this conflict is the way textiles and dress appear daily in a variety of media outlets, mobilized as visual and semiotic means to communicate issues of war …

A Sensory Perspective On High-Ranked Women’S Dress In The 8th To 4th Century Bc In The Mediterranean And Central Europe, Karina Grömer, Susanna Harris, Audrey Gouy, Cecilie Brøns

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

In the late 20th century, the study of western science was dominated by a philosophical approach to evidence as text and meaning. In archaeology, material culture was treated like text, to be read through systems of signs, symbols, and indices put together in syntax. For studies of dress, this was influential in understanding dress as a cognitive system compiled to create identities and meaning. In this approach, textiles, fastenings, hairstyles, and gestures are presented as signs and symbols used to form a statement about identity, to be read by others. There was a focus on the visuality of dress and …

Climate Change And Critical Agrarian Studies, Ian Scoones, Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Amita Baviskar, Marc Edelman, Nancy Peluso, Wendy Wolford

Publications and Research

Climate change is perhaps the greatest threat to humanity today and plays out as a cruel engine of myriad forms of injustice, violence and destruction. The effects of climate change from human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are devastating and accelerating; yet are uncertain and uneven both in terms of geography and socio-economic impacts. Emerging from the dynamics of capitalism since the industrial revolution — as well as industrialisation under state-led socialism — the consequences of climate change are especially profound for the countryside and its inhabitants. The book interrogates the narratives and strategies that frame climate change and examines the …

Housing Markets, Residential Preferences And Segregation: Unraveling Spatial Dynamics In Quito, Ecuador, Felipe Miguel Valdez Gomez De La Torre

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Housing issues in cities paradoxically manifest as growing inaccessibility and an oversupply with high prices. Urban public policies have been insufficient to reverse this pattern because they fail to address its root cause: the socio-spatial process resulting in uneven development. This dissertation starts with the premise that housing problems are not isolated but intricately linked to social dynamics and spatial configurations.Latin American cities represent a particular case study due to their high degree of urbanization combined with high inequality, leading to unique and highly segregated urban forms such as self-built settlements and gated communities in close proximity. We take the …

Local Visions For Patagonia: Drivers And Dynamics Of Collaborative Environmental Governance In Aysén, Chile, Zachary J. Hummel

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Collaborative governance (CG) has emerged as a tool for addressing increasingly complex societal problems by engaging a diverse of set of cross-sector actors in a deliberative process with the aim of realizing consensus-driven outcomes. Emerson et al.’s (2011) Integrated Framework for Collaborative Governance (IFCG) attempts to improve understanding of these arrangements by articulating causal connections between collaborative drivers and dynamics across different contexts. Answering researchers’ call for more empirical support for the IFCG in non-US/European contexts, I used the framework to guide 10 interviews with collaborative governance practitioners in the comanaged marine protected area, AMCP-MU Pitipalena Añihue, located in Aysén, …

Editors' Note, Nirupama Devaraj, Bharath Ganesh Babu

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Mission And Editorial Policy

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Statement From The Indiana Academy Of The Social Sciences And Board Of Directors

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Reviewers And Referees

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Author Biographical Notes

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Submission Guidelines

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Volume 26, Full Contents

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Stories Of Challenge In South Africa: Changes In The Enabling Environment For Nutrition Among Young Children (1994–2021), Scott Drimie, Mara Van Den Bold, Lisanne Du Plessis, Laura Casu

Student Publications [Scholarly]

Despite important nutrition-related policy and programmatic improvements in South Africa, rates of stunting among young children remain unacceptably high, while rates of overweight and obesity in this same population group are simultaneously on the rise. This study sought to examine the changes in the enabling environment for nutrition aimed at young children in South Africa by drawing on a literature review, policy mapping, and stakeholder interviews, for the time period from the end of apartheid in 1994 to 2021. The study focuses on changes and drivers of change at national level but also in three provinces: Western Cape, North West, …

Exposure To Climate Change Information Predicts Public Support For Solar Geoengineering In Singapore And The United States, Sonny Rosenthal, Peter J. Irvine, Christopher L. Cummings, Shirley S. Ho

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Solar geoengineering is a controversial climate policy measure that could lower global temperature by increasing the amount of light reflected by the Earth. As scientists and policymakers increasingly consider this idea, an understanding of the level and drivers of public support for its research and potential deployment will be key. This study focuses on the role of climate change information in public support for research and deployment of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) in Singapore (n = 503) and the United States (n = 505). Findings were consistent with the idea that exposure to information underlies support for research and deployment. …

Singapore's Hawker Culture At A Crossroads, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In a commentary, SMU President and Lee Kong Chian Chair Professor of Social Sciences Lily Kong discussed how Singapore’s hawker culture – which has been a key part of life in Singapore – has developed over the years. She also noted the anxieties over the long-term sustainability of hawker culture, but cited the 2021 National Environment Agency Hawker Perception Survey which offered cause for optimism as the overall experiences of and attitudes towards hawker centres were positive. Prof Kong noted the efforts made in encouraging young Singaporeans to enter the hawker trade and ensure recipes were inherited, but concluded only …

Into An Interference Zone: Childbirth And Care Among Mehinako People, Aline Regitano

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article addresses issues of care and corporeality during gestation, childbirth, the postpartum period, and childcare through a case study conducted with Mehinako people. Among this Amazonian people, care forms the person, having an elementary function in the daily construction of kinship relations through means of affection. A recent trend has caused expressive transformations in the way women experience corporeality and the making of a person: the displacement of birth from the home to hospitals, motivated by women’s fear, desire, and curiosity. In the city, Indigenous women transit through medical institutions, which I propose may be read as interference zones …

Jean E. Jackson: A Pioneering Ethnographer In The Colombian Amazon, Patience Epps, Danilo Paiva Ramos, Flora Dias Cabalzar

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This essay celebrates the work of Jean E. Jackson, a pioneering female ethnographer who devoted most of her fifty-year career to the Indigenous peoples of Colombia. Her research, represented in an extensive set of publications from the early 1970s to the present, engages with themes of identity, stigma, and social inequality, manifested across a range of contexts. Jackson’s ethnographic contributions include her ground-breaking early work on Indigenous Tukanoan society in the Colombian Vaupés, focusing on the practice of linguistic exogamy (obligatory marriage across language groups) among the Bará people. Later, she expanded her focus to address Indigenous experiences in the …