VCC290 Final Flashcards
Girolamo Savonarola
(Dominican Friar)
- born in Ferrara
- became a physician
- became a Dominican Friar in Bologna
- first sent to Florence in 1482
- Preached about the end of the world (got mass following)
- executed in 1498 in Florence
Mendicant Orders
- Carmelites
- Franciscans
- Augustinians
- Dominicans
Asceticism PWP Slide
- Abstinence from worldly pleasures to pursue
spiritual goals (THINK BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES) - Key component of the Mendicant orders
- Vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience
- asociated with fasting and voluntary
suffering - All fryers are known for asceticism
Asceticism CONNECTIONS… THINK OF
- choosing to not use wordly pressure for spiritual connection
- BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES
- burning “devils instruments” to get closer to God
- remove temptations, live simply
- Voluntary suffering and shame as a path to salvation
Bonfire of the Vanities
(when did it happen)
February 7, 1497
Bonfire of the Vanities
(where did it happen)
Piazza della Signoria, Florence
What was the Bonfire of the Vanities
- placed in the middle of the square
- pyramid bonfire, 30 florentine yards high, covered 120 yards
- 15 levels high, each level burnt different section of “devils instruments” - or vanities / disgraceful items
- pictures, sculptures, books, musical instruments, gambling items, masks, chessboard, wigs, makeup, money, etc
- purpose = offer God a sacrifice for the disgraceful, lascivious items used by the townspeople and to shame them for using these distractions, not entirely devoting themselves to God
Fra
means they are a brother or in the “order”
Mobilizing the Children – Donald Weinstein Reading
- Savonarola sought to transform Florence into a godly society by reforming its youth
- turned boys from street gangs into disciplined moral enforcer
- religious groups that policed vice and participated in civic ceremonies
- Savonarola’s manipulated children
- was a direct challenge to Church and political authority
- this provoked backlash, especially from the Pope
- highlighting tensions between religious reform and political power
Mobilizing the Children – Donald Weinstein Reading
Key Concepts
- week 2: Objects of Shame - reading
- Moral Decay Among Florentine Youth
- bad boys that were violent, did sexual assault, and public mischief, Savonarola believed boys could be redeemed and used for good
- Youth Reform Program
- took boys 6-16yrs made them into disciplinary groups
- here they: wore plane clothes, enorced modesty, maintained silence in church
- Religious Ceremonies & Public Role
- boys led processions on Carnival and Palm Sunday, chanting lauds and carrying crosses
- Policing Vice
- harassed gamblers, drinkers, immodestly dressed women
- Became known as “Friar’s Boys”, instilling public fear and moral discipline
- Controversy & Opposition
- Florentines didn’t like the boys’ growing authority and arrogance
- Pope and cardinals were scandalized and feared civic disorder
- Tensions with Church & Political Elite
- Pope labeled Savonarola a heretic and political agitator
- Ongoing power struggles in Florence revolved around his influence
Selected Writings of Savonarola Reading
(basically described bonfire of the vanities)
- week 2: Objects of Shame - reading
Savonarola replaced Carnival celebrations with a religious spectacle that culminated in burning objects of vanity to purify Florence from sin
Built a massive wooden pyramid in Piazza della Signoria
Burned:
Art, paintings, sculptures (even by famous artists)
Cosmetics, mirrors, perfumes, wigs
Musical instruments & books (including Dante and Boccaccio)
Gambling items & Carnival masks
All labeled “devil’s instruments
- Children carried a statue of baby Jesus through the city
- Sang hymns, collected alms, and prayed
- Thousands watched as the bonfire burned
- seen as a sacrifice to God and a triumph over Satan
Rejection of beauty, luxury, and pleasure
Replaced indulgence with discipline, devotion, and purity
Literally burned worldly temptations to follow a more spiritual life
The Blacks - (Compagnia di Santa Maria della Croce al Tempio)
- Confraternity in Florence
- Recognizable by their black hoods, which concealed their
identity - Comforted prisoners who were condemned to death from the
night before through to their execution - Took shifts the night before to give the prisoner material
(food, wine, bedding) and spiritual comfort (prayers,
songs, getting the prisoner to repent) - Processed with the prisoner to the public reading of his or
her sentence and to the public execution, singing, praying,
and using tavolette to wrap “him in a sensory cocoon” - Wrote the prisoner’s name in the Book of the Dead and
buried the body
What did Comforters try to do?
- tried to save the persons soul, the body was condemned
- helped prisoners focus on future after death, keep them calm
- after death prisoners body was buried in special ground and brothers say masses for their soul
Tavolette (little paddle sticks with pictures)
- Used by comforter
- Depicted religious scenes of Christ or saints
- Often had two sides that the comforter flipped back
and forth: death and salvation - helped the condemned to identify with the depicted
martyr (saint… i think) - Also helped to keep the prisoner focused on salvation,
not on the public shame ritual surrounding him or her
processions that took an icon or image around town
treated the iconic object as a living subject. By
contrast, confraternal execution processions treated
a living subject as an iconic object. While wooden
icons were believed to have their eyes and ears
open, the living prisoner had his artificially closed off
sensory cocoon - public shame
- helped prisoners stay focused on repent and the future after death
- helped public shame not be that unbearable
The prisoner’s body as artistic and literary object
- 9 images
- made to show condemned how to die well
- so they kind of understood the process
9 image guide to die
basically guy threw poop on wall, and was found doing it, and was arrested, and condemned
The prisoner’s body as political object
- public officials [took] possession of the prisoner’s body and [turned] it into an object
lesson - would sometimes leave dead body hanging on public buildings - power thing
- Places of punishment were chosen for their symbolic value
- Civic authorities used rituals to cement
power
Piazza della Signoria - cite of savonarolas (and 2 other followers) execution
they burned them here
was also the cite of the Florentine government
Palazzo del Bargello. Site of execution - many executions here
Chapel of S. Mary Magdalen, Bargello
Site of last night of prisoners to be executed
authorities privately tortured Savonarola before his execution
- Sav.s downfall was very fast
-
Public sham can be seen as human sacrifice
Using that person for the purposes of society
Pittura infamante
- Place for executions and art
- Frescos of condemned men we’re painted on the exterior
“Body Politics” by Nicholas Terpstra (2015)
- week 3: The Shamed Body, Executions reading
- How comforters shaped the experience of public executions (specifically in Florence and Bologna)
- rather than punishing the body the comforters tried to transform prisoners spiritually into redeemed souls
- with music, prayer, imagery, and ritual, executions became religious and political performances
- Execution as Ritual, Not Just Punishment
- prisoner’s body became a symbolic object, used to display messages about justice, salvation, and state power
- The Prisoner as a Sacramental Object
- Prisoners were spiritually “adopted” by confraternity members, replacing their biological families
- Artistic & Sensory Tools
- Tavolette, sensory cocoon (shield from outside distractions)
- Processions and Performance
- Prisoners were paraded through the city, stopping at key religious sites
- The prisoner’s body became a public icon
La Piagnona - The Dominican bell from San Marco.
The bell was punished
- the bell was a divine voice and an emblem of community
- was a political instrument and was a “personified citizen”
Piazza della Signoria Events
- Seat of Florentine government in the Palazzo della Signoria
- Location of bonfire of the Vanities [February 7, 1497]
- Location of failed Trial by Fire [April 7, 1498]
- Location of Savonarola’s execution [May 23, 1498]
why was bell punished?
- bell was seized by Franciscans
- bell was dragged through the city on a cart pulled by a donkey
- bell was whipped by a hangman
- bell is sentenced to exile for 50 years outside of the city walls
-
political parties in florence
arrabbiati
Frateschi
“Gates of justice”
A gate to the outside of the city that people would go through when they are to be executed
two definitions of public shame
- Public shame occurs when a community collectively
ostracizes an individual for violating its moral values or other
societal norms. This often involves publicly humiliating the
person both within and beyond the boundaries of the
community. - Spectacle that establishes moral good and bad while
humiliating the wrongdoer and simultaneously highlighting
the moral superiority of those who enacted the shame
“Bell on Trial” – Zolli & Brown (2019)
the bell was also known as “lady wailer”
- Week 4: Shaming Objects, the bell - reading
- after Savonarolas death, the florence governemnt exiled the bell (bell of San Marco)
- bell was rung by Savonarola to summon his followers
- bell was deeply connected to Savonarola
- he rung it to call his followers and symbolized his moral authority.
- Over time, it became almost sacred, especially to his supporters
- After Savonarola’s death, the bell felt like a lingering presence of him — a symbol he still lived on
- To fully shame and erase his influence, the Florentine government put the bell on trial, beat it publicly, and exiled it for 50 years
- wasn’t just about punishing an object — it was about humiliating his followers and cutting off what was left of his spiritual power
Oscar Wilde (Victorian Britian)
- born Dublin, Ierland
- Writer, poet, dramatist
- Arrested and charged with sodomy and gross indecency
- jailed for 2 years
- Died in Paris France
- would celebrate excess, which ultimately destroyed his life
Case Studies
- Renaissance Italy
Savonarola
- bonfire of the vanities
- bell on trial - Victorian Britian
Oscar Wilde
- was gay, considered sodomy, was jailed - ## 21st Century North America
Wilde had some affair w a Lord Alfred
- alfreds dad was like this is wack and gross, stop now
- also that Wilde’s wife is divorcing him or this sodomy
Regina v. Wilde
- Criminal case
- 25 counts of gross indecency and 3 counts of conspiracy to commit gross indecency
- Defendant: Wilde
- Began April 26, 1895
- Hung jury
- Re-trial started May 20, 1895
- Wilde found guilty
- Wilde sentenced to 2 years in prison with hard labour
Victorian Britian Gay stuff
- basically Gay sex was not allowed
- considered bestiality
- 3-10 years imprisonment or any term not exceeding 2 years w or wo hard labour
- Wild had big gay sex and was convicted for it (I believe with minor men… idk tho)
Central issue of Wilde’s Public Shame
- his gayness (queerness)
- he would pose queer
Michel Foucault Thoughts on Discipline and Punishment
- Legal punishment (especially public torture and public execution) becomes less
visible in the 19th century - He traces the development of punishment, beginning with a contrast from French history: a public torture and execution in 1757 and a time-table for prisoners c.1840
- He argues that this period marks a shift in what is public about public shame form the perspective of the law:
- Executions/torture becomes hidden
- Publicity shifts to the trial
- The justice system becomes ashamed of public shame as punishment
Photograph Humiliation - Lashmar
- pose subject as a criminal, the lesser
- take an image in an embarrassing way
- often rich criminals mugstots looked like fancy paintings - there was no discrimination for them
- rich mugshots were taken at 45° angles much like their fancy portraits
Panopticon refernce
if ppl are always watching you, you will act correctly
Foucault v. Lashmar
F - Trial and conviction
became the public-facing
mark of shame
L - Photography becomes
the public-facing mark
of shame
Lashmar, “How to Humiliate and Shame” (pp. 63–75)
- Week 7: Architectures of Repression: Prisons - reading
- evolution of the mugshot
- mugshots were never neutral, deeply tied to ideologies like positivism, racism, colonialism, and later fascism
- mugshots helped construct notions of “the other”, separating criminals, the poor, the colonized, and later entire ethnic groups from “normal” society
- Mugshots evolved from painterly portraits to standardized, dehumanizing formats: emotionless, neutral background, frontal and side profiles
- mugshots became tools of “scientific” criminal profiling - “born criminals” based on these features
- public became specitcals
- European colonizers used it to justify their control
Indigenous and colonized people were photographed naked or posed in degrading ways to mark them as “savage” or “lesser.” - ome mugshots of upper-class or white-collar criminals were in fact taken in a 45-degree angle, mimicking traditional elite portraiture — especially when the mugshot genre was still developing
In Victorian Britian disfigured embarassing images were drawn off people to shame them - eg. Wilde, made him fat and ugly or super gay
“As Wilde’s fame grew, so too did the appetite for caricatures that depicted him as physically grotesque”
Narcissism
excessive self-regard
Victorians associated with:
- homosexuality
- drug users/addicts
- excessive food consumption
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
- Studied law in England from 1888-1891
- Joined the London Vegetarian Society
- Became civil rights activist in South Africa and India
- Opposed British colonial rule
vegetarian resturants in england
- veggeterianism wasnt excess so looked down upon
- Small group of activists
Gandhi, consuming no meat is linked to anti- colonialism.
Skelly, over-consumption is linked to decadence
Social media = Panopticon
Social Media as Capitalist Guilt Cult
Social Media functions as a virtual capitalist economy
- Reconceives the self as a private business or brand
- Fosters and rewards entrepreneurial behaviour
- System built on competition
Social Media’s capitalist structure induces guilt and debt
- Clout/status is a volatile commodity
- Not devoting endless time devalues status
- Recognition from others becomes a form of debt owed by the (micro)celebrity
to the social network
Ronson, “Introduction” from So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
- Week 9: Social Justice and Social Media - reading
- Jon Ronson finds a fake Twitter account impersonating him.
- It uses his name and face but tweets weird, nonsense stuff (like food tweets and dreams).
- It’s created by three academics who call it an “infomorph”, saying it’s an art experiment.
- Ronson is frustrated and freaked out — he feels like his identity is being stolen and distorted.
- He films an interview with the creators and posts it to YouTube.
- The internet rallies behind him — people leave angry, even violent comments about the academics.
- The fake account is deleted — Ronson feels vindicated and powerful
- he publicly shamed the public shamers, they shut down there account bc ppl backed him and they got justice
online public shame
📱 Online shame is like modern-day punishment — fast, brutal, and public.
🤳 Digital identity can be stolen or distorted — and you may have no control.
💥 Social media mobs can enforce justice — but sometimes go too far.
🔄 Ronson’s story shows both how helpless and how powerful people can feel online
Schadenfreude
enjoyment obtained
from the troubles of
others
- if u like watching the biggest looser, or shows that humiliate ppl for entertainment
Is it true that reality TV encourages viewers to enjoy others’ humiliation and to adopt the surveillance techniques seen on shows in order to regulate their own behaviour/appearance/etc.?
- Yes and no
- according to audience interviews, though some reality TV shows encouraged adoption of
self-surveillance techniques and shadenfreude, viewers’ opinions were more nuanced. - Many viewers displayed “complex moral hierarchies of shame” (104), and tended to distinguish ‘functional shame’
from abject humiliation for profit, while also understanding the role of the producers in subjecting
reality TV participants to shame. - However, many viewers did not critique the “normative elements of shaming
Functional Shaming
- shame could promote “normative gender, class, and
race performances by candidates in the show - Reality TV presents viewers with a fiction of changing the
person by inducing feelings of shame - biggest looser
- the story transformational reality TV tells its viewers is that shaming someone is a functional way to make them change
Panopticon in 21st century
- State power (tracking, spying,
etc.) - CCTV surveillance in shops,
public spaces etc. - Workplace surveillance (must
account for every minute of
every day/every movement and
action) - Social media/Web 2.0
mirrors Florentine Italy
- was for shame
- burned by Savonarola in Bonfire of the Vanities
Sender, “Shame on You: The Makeover”
- Week 10: Celebrity Culture and Reality TV - reading
Makeover shows like What Not to Wear and The Biggest Loser use shame and surveillance to push people to transform
- 360° mirrors and confessional booths make ppl on shows “see themselves the way others do”
- in turn this means time to change
- Makeover shows work through shame — not just pointing out bad habits, but making people feel inadequate in their appearance, class, or lifestyle
- Shame is used as a tool to motivate self-improvement and uphold social norms
- Candidates are expected to change how they look, dress, eat, clean, and behave — usually to match middle-class, white, gender-conforming ideals
What is Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial
- partly enclosed memorial for 3 black men that were lynched
- memorial was between buildings so you had to enter into it
- starred layout kind of building up to the main focus, the three men
- the men were place sticking out of the plaq and were above so ppl have to look up to them
Affect Theory (Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial)
- Non-linguistic
- Broadly, emotion
- In particular embodied emotion
- Emotion that extends beyond the individual person
- Can be interpersonal, but also cultural, political, historical
- Notoriously tricky
why were Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac
McGhie lynched
- allegedly sexually assulted a white girl
- No evidence of assault or rape found by physician
- That evening, a mob (1,000-10,000 people) stormed the police station and captured them
- Mob held a mock trial and lynched them
True shame is not in the discovery of a terrible event such as this, but in the refusal to acknowledge and learn from that event - quote about the lynching memorial
Miss Chief Eagle Testickle
Trickster
- Spiritual position in many Indigenous cultures
- Frequently cross and challenge boundaries
- Tell stories to entertain
- Transmit traditional knowledge
Two-spirit
- term created in 1990 at an Indigenous gay and lesbian
international meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba - deliberately sets apart Indigenous gender and sexuality non-conforming folks from non-Indigenous LGBTQ folks
- is not a substitute for words reflecting diverse genders and
sexualities that are specific to Indigenous languages
The Ryerson Statue
- More than 1,000 people took part in the afternoon march and
rally that began at Queen’s Park and ended on at the statue stood - Dancers perform during the rally in front of the defaced statue
- ‘About an hour after the last of the people left, a truck arrived on
Gould Street and proceeded to pull down the statue of Egerton
Ryerson’ - Residential school survivor Joey Twins is presented the head from
the statue - The head was dunked into the harbour
* - The head appears at 1492 Land Back Lane
Apologia (apology)
- a formal defence
- usually in response to real or perceived criticism: “defence of a person, or vindication of an institution, etc., from accusation or aspersion” -OED
- “esp. a written defence or justification of the opinions or conduct of a
writer, speaker, etc.” –OED - part of classical rhetoric and communication studies
- can include, but does not have to include, an apology
- Is usually written, but can be visual
