This volume addresses the question of how the perception of threat influences social change. Its contributions cover topics ranging from systems of belief in ancient Europe to droughts in twentieth century Australia and from medieval urban riots to contemporary organized crime and peaceful protest.
Why do things change at certain times and not at others? The contributions collected in this volume approach this question from the perspective of threat. Defined as the self-alerting which goes on within societies and social groups, threats open up windows of opportunity for change - though not always the ones hoped for by those who raised the alarm in the first place. But once threatened, social orders previously taken for granted become visible, debateable and therefore changeable. Looking at the relationship between threat and social change with thematic, spatial and temporal foci, the contributions of this five-section volume treat topics ranging from systems of belief in Ancient Europe to droughts in twentieth century Australia, from medieval urban riots to organized crime and peaceful protest nowadays.
Table of contents:
Ewald Frie/Mischa Meier: Dynamics of Social Change and Perceptions of Threat. An Introduction
I. Framing Situations of Social Change and Threat in Contemporary SocietyAndreas Hasenclever: Introduction: Taking the Cultural Contexts of Group Mobilization Seriously -
Holger Stritzel: The Travelling Concept of Organized Crime as a Threat to Political and Social Orders -
Jan Sändig: Framing Non-Violence: MASSOB and the Puzzling Non-Escalation of the Struggle for Biafra in Nigeria
II. Urban Unrest, Power and the Internal Dynamics of Social Change, c. 1050-1550Klaus Ridder: Introduction -
Thomas Kohl: Violence, Power and Social Change: European Cities c. 1050-1120 -
Hannah Skoda: Threatened Orders in Paris, Oxford and Heidelberg -
Beatrice von Lüpke: The Nuremberg Shrovetide Plays and their Perception of Social (Dis-)Order
III. Making Sense of Threat - Systems of Belief under Threat, c. 200-800Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner: Introduction - Communication of Threat and the Construction of Meaning -
Matthias Becker: Framing the Christians as Sophists in Porphyry's Contra Christianos -
Phil Booth: Liturgification" and Dissent in the Crisis of the East Roman Empire (6th-8th Centuries)
IV. Disasters and Social Change, 19th-20th c.Klaus Gestwa: Introduction -
Anna Ananieva/Rolf Haaser: Coping with Floods: The Imaginary Community of the "Elegant World" and the Hungarian Flood Disaster of 1838 -
Rebecca Jones: Understanding the Conundrum of Drought in Australia
V. The End of Threat: Diverging perspectives on Social Change during the 'Sattelzeit' (c. 1750-1850)Renate Dürr: Introduction -
Dennis Schmidt: 'Daß alles beym Alten bleibet' Josephinism and Religious Orders in Inner Austria -
Fernando Esposito: The Two Ends of History and Historical Temporality as a Threatened Order
