Posts tagged society
Misunderstood: A Cultural History of Eating Disorders in the West 

By Meera Shanbhag, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

Over 30 million people in the United States are plagued by eating disorders, with at least one death related to eating disorders occurring every 62 minutes.[1] These serious illnesses, which have the greatest mortality rate of any psychological disorder, are characterized by abnormal eating patterns.

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The Strangers, The Crowd, and The Lynching: Using Mimetic Theory to Explore Episodes of Human Violence

By Jenna Geick

In October of 2015, Mexican and United States news sources reported on circumstances that resulted in the lynching of José and David Copado in Ajalpan, Mexico. Hours after the brothers arrived in town, word spread of the arrival of the strangers, and a crowd approached the brothers, violently accusing them of playing a role in the disappearance of local children. The police found no reason to suspect the two brothers to be child abductors, but very few residents accepted the police verdict. The brothers were seized by the crowd and brought to the center of it, as a man doused the brothers with gasoline before setting them on fire. How are we to understand why such a horrific act of violence occurred, so that it does not occur again?

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