Search

The article presents several notices of relevance to sociology scholars. The 2009 winners are announced of the prize of the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufsätze (Fritz Thyssen Foundation for Social Scientific Articles). The 40th GESIS Spring Seminar in Cologne, Germany is announced for March 2011. A call for papers is issued for the 10th Conference of the European Sociological Association convening in September 2011 in Geneva, Switzerland.

This article consists of news briefs on political science topics, including a prize titled "Worst EU Lobbying Award" which is awarded by the organizations Corporate Europe Observatory, Friends of the Earth Europe, and Lobby-Control, a position paper which was released in December of 2008 by the organization Transparency International concerning transparency in lobbying, and a conference taking place June 23-26, 2009 at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, concerning social movements.

The article discusses a review of early modern era criminal court records from Zurich, Switzerland, that raise questions about the problems of comparing the meanings of the concepts of "rape" and "abuse" in that pre-modern period to modern times. The author notes that crimes of "sexualized violence" in the earlier era may involve different understandings of the terms applied to those crimes. She also wonders how a modern person can understand a concept of "fairness" in the former time period, given sentences that seem unjust to those living in a later time.