Criminology or Zemiology? Yes, please! on the refusal of choice between false alternatives

Buried deep within the zemiological movement and its supportive literature is the implicit assumption that the word zemia, the organising concept around which zemiology is built, simply represents ‘the Greek word for harm’. This interpretation has supported numerous drives to ‘move beyond criminology’ and erect strict borders between the study of crime and harm. However, a deeper, albeit still rather brief, exploration of zemia reveals that it possesses a broader range of meaning than that commonly afforded to it. By beginning to unpick zemia’s semantic genealogy, it appears that the conventional use of the word to support the imposition of false alternatives between criminology and zemiology is untenable. Accordingly, this chapter attempts to foreground a more integrated approach to the study of crime and harm

What is Courage?

We describe people as brave all the time, but what do we really mean? Does the bravery of a firefighter have anything in common with the courage of reading books that challenge our deepest beliefs? Is there a specific kind of courage that comes from living in a democracy? What do we learn from looking at the Greek roots of the word and how is their experience relevant to ours? On this episode of Why? we’re going to look at the classical roots of courage and examine its meaning in modern democracies.Ryan Balot Ryan Balot is Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. He is the author of many books and articles, including Courage in the Democratic Polis: Ideology and Critique in Classical Athens and A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought.https://commons.und.edu/why-radio-archive/1051/thumbnail.jp

Introduction

The emergence of the zemiological movement during the late 1990s (Harmful Societies: Understanding Social Harm, Policy Press, Bristol, 2016) marked a crucial moment for scholars who sought to move beyond the boundaries of the mainstream criminological canon