Resource Tag: HISTORY

This article attempts to shed new light on almoners by exploring what they actually did, principally in the enforcement of the law on suicide, their conception of charity in handling the affairs of suicide victims, & the benevolent uses to which they put forfeited assets. While apparently focusing on an “odd man out”, suicide, the […]

Horace, Plutarch, & Dio Cassius are the 3 main sources for Cleopatra. All used fairly harsh language against her before her suicide but softened their tone & portrayed her more appreciately once she decided to take her own life. This paper explores the possible explanations for this & the apparent contradiction it creates. Through close […]

This article widens the traditional scope of evidence to consider slave self-destruction from multiple perspectives & chronological moments & more effectively places suicide within the long history of North American slavery. The author focuses on what she terms slave suicide ecology: the emotional, psychological, & material conditions that fostered it. (46 notes) JA

Combining legal, social, & political history, this article contributes to a more thorough understanding of the changing relationship between Nazi concentration camps as places of extra-legal terror & the judiciary, between Nazi terror & the law. It is argued the conflict between the judiciary & the SS was not a conflict between good & evil […]

A search was undertaken to document cases of suicide during the partition of India into India & Pakistan in 1947. Cases were found for India & for women. The experience of those in Pakistan & of men was hard to locate. There is a need for further investigaton to provide a fuller picture of suicide […]

Focussing on the nineteenth century, this article will show how the crime of instigating suicide emerged as part of an (inadequate) effort to correct the abuses of serfdom in Russia, but would, by the 1860s, become a (likewise inadquate) tool to regulate familial relations – specifically, the abuse of wives & children. In both periods, […]

This article seeks to illuminate the cultural frame of reference for the suicide of Miasnikov (a Russian art student) & its subsequent reception. The author first outlines the tradition of noble suicide in Russia, which arose as a direct consequence of Westernization in the eighteenth centurey & reached a highpoint with the Decembrist movement. Discussion […]

This edited book includes 22 chapters on suicide & the creative arts. Part 1 examines suicide in painting & the traditional visual arts. Part 2 is on the depiction of suicide in the movies. Suicide in literature is discussed in Part 3. Part 4 looks at understanding suicide through the arts & Part 5 is […]

This chapter focuses on the iconography of suicide in Western art. A discussion is first presented on how the subject of suicide in Western history, literature, mythology, & religion has been reflected in the mirror of the arts. Major themes in the Western iconography of suicide over the last three millennia are then reviewed. The […]

While rape is a known risk factor for suicidality in both men & women, it has received relatively little attention in suicidology. There is also a relative lack of attention to the extent to which & how rape-suicide has been covered in various art forms. It is clear that one portrayal of rape-suicide, that of […]

This chapter opens with an exploration of general areas of interaction between psychology & literature. Subjects of discussion include understanding human behaviour in historical times, psychological analyses of literature, psychological studies of the author & the reader, & other points of contact – psychologizing as a literary genre & the effect of psychological thought upon […]

This chapter presents an analysis of self-destructive behaviour as depicted by the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles in two of his dramas, “Oedipus Rex” and “Antigone”. It is concluded the self-destructive behaviour depicted illustrates some of the psychodynamic processes often present in the minds of suicidal individuals but that the plays do not present new ideas […]

The phenomenon in which a creative work provokes a number of people to die by suicide is commonly known as the Werther Effect, in recognition of imitative suicides said to have been induced by the novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” (1774). This chapter examines a Japanese suicide epidemic in the early 1700s that was […]

A theoretical case study & analysis of contemporary suicide among Maori youth is presented. In a traditional Maori conceptulization, individual well-being is sourced & tied to the well-being of the collective cultural identity. Individual pain is inseparable from collective pain & the role of the collective becomes that of carrying individuals who are suffering. The […]

The authors used historical life expectancy & mortality data to examine associations of economic growth with population health for the period 1920-1940. Descriptive analyses were conducted of trends & associations between annual changes in health indicators & annual changes in economic activity were examined using correlations & regression models. Population health did not decline but […]

This paper was developed to shed light on the phenomenology of suicide; that is, to focus on suicide as a phenomenon affecting a unique individual with unique motives for the suicidal act. To explore this topic, the author looks back at the past centuries to understand why suicide was thought to be confined to psychiatric […]

The author examines the historial & cultural forces that have influenced contemporary thought, practices & policy in relation to this serious public health problem. Drawing on the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, the book tells the story of how suicide has come to be seen as first & foremost a matter of psychiatric […]

Analysis of Thorndike’s state-level personal quality scores & standardized birth rates of eminent persons, taken as proxy variables for regional intelligence, along with historical state suicide rates (1913-1924 & 1928-1932) showed that intelligence & suicide mortality across the United States were already clearly positively related during the early 20th century, suggesting time stability of the […]

This article examines medico-legal & popular interpretations of suicide in early twentieth-century Lima. In this period, physicians & lawyers interpreted suicide though the lens of modern scientific & legal thought & came to challenge the traditional interpretations of the Church, which insisted that suicide was a voluntary act. For ordinary people, medico-legal discourse on suicide […]

This article contains an extensive review of “From Autothanasia to Suicide” and much briefer reviews of “Suicide Over the Life Cycle” and “Youth Suicide”. The first book is said to be “exceedingly well researched”, while the second “has much to commend it”, The third book is described as being “a minor contribution”.

This paper examines the practice of institutional & community psychiatry in early twentieth-century Queensland. Several conclusions are reached. First, asylums responded to the diversity of illnesses by making case-based judgments about the duration of treatment & the possibility of paroles. Many suicidal patients were not locked up for long periods if their ailments showed promise […]

The death of Judas in the gospel of Matthew has been widely interpreted in a negative light, perhaps as a result of viewing his suicide through post-Augustinian eyes. The aim of this paper is to propose a new understanding of the death of Judas by examining the valuation of suicide within the context of the […]

This book includes the following chapters: Suicide as a gauge for the times: the nineteenth century; Epistemic communities and the suicide problem: the twentieth century; Bearings on a temporal compass: rates, seasons, cohorts, and motives; Work and troubles: men and motives; Sorrows and burdens: women and motives; What becomes of the broken-hearted? Intentions, decisions, and […]