bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Allegorical reading in occasional Elizabethan liturgies
Authors: Christian Margaret
Published: May 2017

Occasional liturgies are scripts for religious services which respond to specific occasions: emergencies like plague (in 1563), Muslim invasions in Europe (in 1565 and 1566), bad weather (in 1571), the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the London earthquake of 1580, the Spanish invasion (expected from 1586 through 1588), or plots against the queen like Dr. Parry’s in 1585 and Babington’s in 1586. Two occasional liturgies from 1576 and 1585 offer readings and prayers for November 17, signalling that, like Pentecost and Christmas, Accession Day was part of the church year. Identifying England with Israel, liturgists treated Elizabethan current events and public figures as interchangeable with events and characters described in the Bible. Elizabethan churchgoers thus had abundant training in decoding allegorical narratives—a facility they could bring to a reading of The Faerie Queene.
“a goodly amiable name for mildness”: Mercilla and other Elizabethan types
Authors: Christian Margaret
Published: May 2017

The 1570 “Homelie against Disobedience” and court sermons responding to the Northern Rebellion and the threat posed by Mary Stuart employ biblical figures to develop a spiritual interpretation of current events. Public sermons in 1587, the year of Mary Stuart’s execution, and in 1589 likewise use biblical typology which shades into nationalism. Recent critics see the Mercilla episode, in its idealization of Elizabeth’s attitude and inaccurate presentation of Mary Stuart’s trial, as evidence of Spenser’s bad faith or a sophisticated critique of power. Rather, his allegory recalls preachers’ use of typology to spiritualize recent events and present them as reflecting well upon Elizabeth and God’s care of England.
Skin colour
Authors: Fend Mechthild
Published: May 2017

This chapter shows that the notion of skin colour emerged only gradually since the sixteenth century and became a prominent marker of race in conjunction with the development of racial anthropology during the Enlightenment. The colour of a person used to be perceived as body colour and often referred to as complexion, a term linked to the ancient medical theory of the four humours and temperaments. The artistic making and mixing of flesh tones was closely linked to humoral theory. By the eighteenth century most anatomist interested in the microscopic structure of skin agreed that the body's colouring matter – later called pigment – resides in an outer layer of the skin. This was demonstrated in an early medical illustration by Jan Admiral made for a Bernard Albinus‘ anatomical treatise on the colour of the skin. Interestingly, the print also uses a new technique of colour printing, and the argument is that skin colour is simultaneously an artistic, technical and medical problem in this colour mezzotint. Finally, an analysis of Girodet's Portrait of Belley and Benoist's Portrait d'une negresse suggests that skin colour is both a political and representational problem in these portraits painted shortly after the French Revolution.
Thomas Middleton’s satires before and after the Bishops’ Ban
Authors: Hile Rachel E.
Published: May 2017

Chapter 5 considers two early works of Thomas Middleton with reference to the social and political context of the turn of the seventeenth century, with special attention to how the Bishops’ Ban of 1599, which banned several books and restricted the future publication of satirical works, affected the literary subfield of satire in England. Following the 1591 calling-in of Spenser’s Complaints volume, which included the satirical animal fable Mother Hubberds Tale, authors largely avoided publishing anything like an animal fable. This chapter argues, though, that the young Thomas Middleton wanted to signal his allegiance with the values and ideas espoused by Spenser, and that he does this indirectly in his 1599 Micro-Cynicon through allusions and analogies that render his formal verse satires circuitously Spenserian. Five years later, Middleton published a much more obviously Spenserian work that, with its nostalgia for Queen Elizabeth’s reign and use of talking insects and birds, suggests more fully the ongoing importance of Spenser as an inspiration to the young poet Middleton before he became the dramatist Middleton. The chapter closes by briefly contrasting the pervasive Spenserianism of the young Middleton with John Donne’s perhaps faddish use of animal fable in his Metempsychosis; Poêma Satyricon.
Conclusion
Authors: Hile Rachel E.
Published: May 2017

In Chapter 1, I offered a contemporary theory of how indirect satire works, focusing on the social process of meaning-making required by this type of satirical work with reference to other recent theoretical works that emphasize the social functions of satire. To conclude, I would like to reverse my chronology to consider the theories and values underlying indirect forms of satire in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In developing this argument, we cannot take satirical poets at their word regarding their intentions or methods because of the repeated assertions during this time period—many of which I have quoted in this book—advising the reader against reading allegorically and claiming that only general criticisms are intended....
‘Good-for-nothing’
Authors: Dezeuze Anna
Published: May 2017

Introduced by the ‘junk’ and beat aesthetics in the late 1950s, the figure of the dropout or slacker served as a counter-cultural model for artists concerned with precariousness, and took on various forms later in that decade. Celebrating leisure and laziness as a challenge to the capitalist work ethic, artists such as Tom Marioni, as well as groups such as Fluxus or ‘funk’ artists on the West Coast, appeared as concerned with their daily experiences as with creating any specific artwork, thus pursuing an ‘art of living’, as Fluxus artist Robert Filliou called it. Other artists in the 1960s questioned the value of work by developing what Allan Kaprow called ‘useless work’ — types of labour that involve effort, but yield no lasting product or outcome. While such ‘good-for-nothing’ figures pursued the Zen ideal of wu-shih or ‘nothing special’ that had inspired both junk practices and ‘borderline’ art in the early 1960s, other artists looked for inspiration to the ‘adversity’ of some of the poorest members of society (in the case of Hélio Oiticica).
Joins in the age of ‘liquid modernity’
Authors: Dezeuze Anna
Published: May 2017

This chapter provides a reading of precarious practices developed in the 1990s by artists Francis Alÿs, Gabriel Orozco, Thomas Hirschhorn and Martin Creed as both responses to forms of aggressive capitalism that had become widespread since the 1980s, and reactions to some of the more visible art practices that had emerged during that decade.
Zygmunt Bauman’s 2000 analysis of the ‘liquid’ characteristics of contemporary capitalism is shown to extend Arendt’s earlier discussion of the modern human condition in its emphasis on ever-faster cycles of consumer gratification at the expense of durable products and stable social relations. This chapter demonstrates some of the ways in which 1990s practices extended the dematerialisation of 1960s assemblage and ‘borderline’ practices, through explorations of a ‘join’ between art and the world, as Martin Creed called it, through discreet interventions (Francis Alÿs, Gabriel Orozco), or sprawling assemblages (Thomas Hirschhorn). Most importantly, this join may serve as a rub in the smooth global flows of capital.
Futility and precarity
Authors: Dezeuze Anna
Published: May 2017

Trapped in a context in which capitalism seemed to have colonised all remaining spheres of everyday experience, the ‘Generation X’ of the 1990s appeared to have given up the utopian aspirations of the 1960s. While some embraced the attitude of the ‘slacker’, however, others became involved in ‘alterglobalisation’ protests and debates surrounding a new ‘precariat’. These two figures of the slacker and the loser frame the discussion of precarious practices in this chapter. On the one hand, situating the works of Hirschhorn, Alÿs, Creed and Orozco within contemporary debates concerning failure, futility and apathy points to the ways in which weakness and stupidity were embraced through positive reversals. On the other hand, works by Hirschhorn, Alÿs and Orozco are related to debates surrounding the rising ‘precariat’ of capitalism, new alterglobalised perspectives inspired by Latin America, and a general interest, at the time, in informal labour and architecture, as well as the figures of the nomad and the refugee.
Postscript: on the humanism of precarious works
Authors: Dezeuze Anna
Published: May 2017

Arendt’s humanist perspective, which is central to this study, is interrogated in this postscript in two ways. Firsty, it is contrasted with the ‘Chinese’ model of thought proposed by François Jullien in his Treatise of Efficacy, in order to account for the importance of Zen Buddhism for many precarious practices, and to analyse the contradictory drives articulated by each perspective. Another critique of humanism, levied by feminists and post-colonial discourses, inflect my remarks concerning the predominance of white, middle-class male artists in this book. The specific politics of precarious practices are outlined through reference to further debates concerning precarity and precariousness.
Bernard Herrmann: Hitchcock’s secret sharer
Authors: Sullivan Jack
Published: May 2017

This opening chapter explores the partnership between Hitchcock and Herrmann both as a very special professional connection between a director and composer but also as an intense Conradian relationship that was as volatile as it was productive. The chapter discusses precisely how Bernard Herrmann fits into Alfred Hitchcock’s overall musical achievement. Their personalities were dramatically opposite —Hitchcock imperious and controlling, Herrmann notoriously explosive and prone to tantrums. Yet the two were deeply sympatico: both had an uncompromising professionalism, a hatred of mediocrity, a mordant sense of humour, and a contempt for the Hollywood establishment matched by a longing for its approval. Herrmann was Hitchcock’s ‘secret sharer’, a harbinger of energies darker and more dangerous than Hitchcock’s cool sensibility easily permitted. He pushed Hitchcock’s cinema deeper than ever into a world of anxiety and obsession.
The anatomy of aural suspense in Rope and Vertigo
Authors: Clifton Kevin
Published: May 2017

This chapter explores the dramatic employment of music in two classic Hitchcock films, Rope (1948) and Vertigo (1958), both of which effectively sustain suspense throughout the filmic narrative. In Rope, Phillip Morgan, one of the killers, gives an on-screen performance of the first movement of Francis Poulenc's Mouvements Perpétuels (1918) during a macabre dinner party, where one of the guests lies dead in a trunk. The chapter argues that we can hear echoes of Rope’s score, based largely on Francis Poulenc’s Mouvement Perpétuel (1918) in Herrmann’s score for Vertigo. The ‘musical ambivalences’ of both scores provide counterpoints for the two film’s narrative complexities.
On the road with Hitchcock and Herrmann: sound, music and the car journey in Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960)
Authors: Iannone Pasquale
Published: May 2017

Of all the Herrmann-Hitchcock collaborations, Vertigo and Psycho remain not only the most famous but also the most aesthetically different. The intensely romantic, full-bodied Wagnerian score of the first would seem diametrically opposed to the chilling, strings-only score of the second. While Vertigo deals with romantic obsession, the sound of Psycho is one of ‘primordial dread’. What unites the two films, however, is the dominant role played by Herrmann’s music. This chapter will discuss sound, music and the representation of two separate car journeys. Through detailed scene analysis as well as close engagement with the writings of Jack Sullivan, Michel Chion and Elisabeth Weis amongst others, the chapter examines the importance of sound (and Herrmann’s music) in both driving the narrative but also reflecting characters’ unstable subjectivity.
The murder of Gromek: theme and variations
Authors: Williams Tomas
Published: May 2017

This chapter assesses the partnership’s working relationship by addressing their ninth film project together, Torn Curtain, for which Hitchcock rejected Herrmann’s score, dramatically bringing forth the end of their successful period of collaboration, giving background to the artistic conflict over Torn Curtain that resulted in the feud between Hitchcock and Herrmann, and ultimately saw the film rescored by John Addison. It discusses the effect this change had upon the film by drawing particular attention to what is perhaps the most famous scene, the murder of Gromek. Discussion addresses three different versions of the same scene; the final film version, in which there is no musical score, and Herrmann and Addison’s musical interpretations of this scene which were both rejected by Hitchcock. Drawing direct comparison between these three ways of viewing Gromek’s death, enables an analysis between the appropriateness of Herrmann and Addison’s music for Hitchcock’s filmmaking, and the ultimate effect created by the final scoreless version of the scene. By examining the discarded musical artefacts of Hitchcock’s relationship with Herrmann, we are able to reach a more thorough understanding of their working partnership, and the ways in which Herrmann could truly affect the reception of a Hitchcock film.
Mending the Torn Curtain: a rejected score’s place in a discography
Authors: Hubai Gergely
Published: May 2017

This chapter explores the rejection of Herrmann’s score for Torn Curtain and offers an historical overview of the last Hitchcock-Herrmann collaboration on the film that ended the legendary relationship. Due to the rejected score, the film is now considered by many to be an artistic and commercial failure, which may not be entirely true if we examine contemporary reviews and box-office returns. In particular, however, this chapter examines the musical legacy of Herrmann’s Torn Curtain score. Despite being rejected by Hitchcock, the unused music has become increasingly influential, having been re-recorded several times and its material has been re-used in scores such as Battle of Neretva (Herrmann), Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (Elmer Bernstein adapting material from Herrmann) or Torment (an early score of Christopher Young). Overall, this chapter aims to provide new perspectives in discussing rejected scores with more objectivity than previous research.
How could you possibly be a Hitchcocko-Herrmannian?: Digitally re-narrativising collaborative authorship
Authors: Rawle Steven
Published: May 2017

This final chapter explores the enduring legacy and fascination surrounding the Hitchcock branding. Since his death in 1980, Hitchcock has continued to fascinate audiences, scholars, critics and culture in general. By exploring the repeated rereleases of Hitchcock’s work on DVD (despite the relative youthfulness of the format, Psycho has already been released in seven different DVD editions in the UK alone), and Varese Sarabande's series of reissues of Herrmann soundtracks on CD, this chapter looks at how the co-authorship of Herrmann and Hitchcock has been contextualised, narrativised and conceptualised in different ways by the artefacts included in the reissued, remastered and recontextualised versions of Hitchcock’s work with Herrmann (and Herrmann’s work without Hitchcock). Drawing on recent scholarship on the DVD as ‘auteur machine’ by Catherine Grant, and new work on authorship by C. Paul Sellors, the chapter argues that the digital reconceptualization of authorship struggles to account for a notion of collaboration.
Introduction
Authors: Stevens Daniel , Vaughan-Williams Nick
Published: May 2017

This chapter highlights the importance of the subject matter of the book and situates the approach and contribution in the fields of International Relations and Political Psychology. While spending on national security in the UK since 2001 has more than tripled to £3.5 billion (Cabinet Office, 2008), it remains unclear how the objectives of the National Security Strategy are received by the British public, whether they are aware of and/or understand those objectives, and if they feel more or less ‘secure’ as a result of their existence. One aspect of this lacuna is a broader lack of social scientific research, including a tendency within security studies to focus on elite perceptions and constructions of security threat. Another is a lack of understanding of the political psychology of different threat perceptions, of the kinds of information and communications that heighten or reduce sense of threat when there are multiple existing threats, as opposed to singular threats from international terrorism or immigration, and of the consequences of different threat perceptions for other political attitudes and behaviours. Having discussed these problems this Introduction maps out how the chapters that follow seek to redress them.
Perspectives on security threat politics
Authors: Stevens Daniel , Vaughan-Williams Nick
Published: May 2017

This Chapter highlights the importance of the subject matter of the book and situates the approach and contribution in the fields of International Relations and Political Psychology. It explores existing insights into the question of what ‘security threats’ are and how we can study everyday perceptions and experiences of them. In the IR and Security Studies literature the impact of the social constructivist turn, alongside the broadening and deepening of the security agenda, has meant that threats are now widely seen as produced through dialogue and interaction between states and non-state actors alike. What has tended to be overlooked, however, is the role of public opinion and everyday views, stories, and experiences in shaping securitizing moves and conditioning their ultimate success and/or failure. In turn, two main problems are identified with psychological and behavioural analyses of threat: first, that research tends to focus on discrete security threats, such as from terrorism, immigration, or the environment, limiting understanding of threats in general, and, second, the predominant focus on threats at the national or personal level at the expense of other levels at which threats may be experienced by citizens.
Government, perceptions and experiences of security threats, and citizen involvement in the risk management cycle
Authors: Stevens Daniel , Vaughan-Williams Nick
Published: May 2017

Chapter Five takes as its starting point the various ways in which elite responses to security threats such as the National Security Strategy both summarise government perceptions of the most salient threats and are also intended to send messages to the public and shape their behaviour. It examines three dimensions of the relationship between elite and non-elite perceptions and experiences of security threat politics: 1) the extent to which the British public is aware of the NSS or of other government messages and efforts to mitigate security concerns; 2) whether such awareness is associated with heightened or reduced levels of threat perception; and 3) what citizens think of such messages. The various stories people tell – of economic insecurities, fear of crime, and Islamophobia – problematise the narrow and homogenising imperatives of the National Security Strategies, and open up alternative narratives about identity, border-production, and multiple overlapping (in)securities. Awareness of any government security programme and of the NSS is low, about 10 per cent of the survey sample for each, with surprisingly little overlap between the two. Awareness of government strategies for security is also associated with perceptions of more threats.
A new age
Authors: O'Brien Mark
Published: May 2017

This chapter surveys the media and journalistic landscape of early twentieth century Ireland. It examines the main national, provincial, and periodical titles, and what journalistic life was like as new technology and social developments prompted growth in the newspaper industry. It examines the impact that the new journalism had in Ireland, particularly how it prompted lobby groups to campaign against what were referred to as objectionable publications. It also examines the work environment and routines of journalists, the role of female journalists, early attempts to professionalise journalism through the establishment of the Association of Irish Journalists, and debates about the education of journalists.
High dignity and low salaries
Authors: O'Brien Mark
Published: May 2017

This chapter examines how, in the early 1900s, Irish journalists organised themselves into an association that examined contentious issues such as salaries, employment conditions, the social status of journalists, the place of women in journalism, and whether trade unionism was appropriate for journalists. Against the backdrop of the Great Lockout, the First World War, and the 1916 Rising this nascent organisation (the Irish Journalists’ Association) allowed journalists to discuss contentious issues amongst themselves. However, the development of the association was hampered by divisive debates about the role of journalists in society and the bid for national independence by physical force.
Spirit of the nation
Authors: O'Brien Mark
Published: May 2017

This chapter examines the relationship that existed between journalists and Charles Haughey. It outlines the telephone tapping controversy of the early 1980s – during which the telephones of several journalists were tapped by the government – and how numerous journalists sought to varying degrees of success to investigate the source of Haughey’s wealth and the corruption then endemic in Irish public life. It looks at how the concerted efforts by Haughey and his supporters to frustrate journalistic inquiry created an atmosphere of fear and risk avoidance on the part of media organisation during the 1980s.
Conclusion
Authors: O'Brien Mark
Published: May 2017

Abstract and Keywords to be supplied.
‘I got shot through the head with an Armalite round’1
Authors: Aubertin Ted
Published: May 2017

Personal testimony of a British soldier injured during the Troubles.
‘A real stirring in the nation’: military families, British public opinion and withdrawal from Northern Ireland
Authors: Dixon Paul
Published: May 2017

There has been a recent attempt to claim that the IRA was defeated in the early 1990s and the peace process represented their gradual surrender. The IRA’s campaign is presented as a futile and naive attempt to force the ‘Great British’ to withdraw from Northern Ireland. This chapter, by contrast, argues that the IRA’s campaign to force British withdrawal from Northern Ireland was not irrational. The British had just withdrawn from Empire and republicans tended to see Ireland as Britain’s first and last colony. Leading British politicians were ambivalent about the Union. The first public opinion poll suggesting a majority of the British public favoured withdrawal from Northern Ireland was published in September 1971. Since the mid-1970s polls have suggested consistent support for withdrawal. The demand for British withdrawal from Northern Ireland is often presented by those on the Left and Right as a pro-republican position. The ‘Bring Back the Boys from Ulster Campaign’ was launched in May 1973 among military families. It reflected ‘a real stirring’ in the nation for withdrawal, impacted on army recruitment and was motivated more by British chauvinist sentiment than Irish nationalism or republicanism This chapter will argue that this British nationalist movement for withdrawal while ultimately unsuccessful represented a powerful constraint on policy and helps to explain British scepticism about military intervention in Yugoslavia in the early nineties.
Policing the Irish community in Britain
Authors: Finch Nadine
Published: May 2017

The Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974 and its successors was only part, albeit an important part, of the methodology used to control the Irish community. Very few terrorists were arrested and prosecuted under these Acts but they provided the British government with a wide range of effective information gathering powers. Many members of the Irish community had suffered from a lack of civil and economic rights in the North of Ireland in the past and were deeply concerned at the use of strip-searching, plastic bullets and shoot to kill policies there. But the Prevention of Terrorism Acts tended to have a chilling effect on political debate and action in the Irish community in Britain; as did a number of now notorious miscarriages of justice; such as the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven. At the same time, Frank Kitson’s intelligence gathering methods, referred to in his seminal text, Low Intensity Operations, were used to increase surveillance of the Irish community in Britain and much of the British media fuelled anti-Irish racism. Later the spread of similar policing tactics to other minority communities in Britain had the unintended consequence of building understanding of and support for the previously beleaguered Irish community.
‘Not our cup of tea’: Irish and British feminist encounters in London during the Troubles
Authors: Rossiter Ann
Published: May 2017

Little writing exists on the experiences of women central to the numerous organizations that sprang up throughout the thirty years of the Irish Troubles. This chapter concentrates on three feminist groups, all London-based: the Women on Ireland Collective (1973-4), the Women and Ireland Group (1976-80) and the London Armagh Group (1980-mid-1990s) representing a small, but vibrant section of anti-imperialist women active on Irish issues in Britain. The focus of the three groups was the plight of working-class women living primarily in Republican areas of Northern Ireland in their daily struggles with the British Army and local police force. In time, the focus widened to include Republican women prisoners incarcerated in Armagh Jail and in various prisons in Britain. Most group members were activists in the British Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM), especially its socialist strand, and perceived that movement as their main constituency. However, they encountereda widespread dismissal in all strands of the British WLM of Irish issues as ‘too complex’, the nature of the Troubles being too much ‘a man’s war’, and as such, ‘not our cup of tea’. This chapter examines the groups’ activities in this context, and argues that their experience highlighted the limits of feminist solidarity.
‘Every man an emperor’: the British press, Bloody Sunday and the image of the British Army1
Authors: McLaughlin Greg , Baker Stephen
Published: May 2017

On 30 January 1972, men of the 1st Parachute Regiment of the British Army opened fire on civil rights marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing 13 unarmed and innocent civilians. The event was reported worldwide and was to seen in hindsight as a significant turning point in the conflict in Northern Ireland; the moment when a struggle for civil rights gave way to a war between the IRA and the British state. Yet, as the textual analysis in this chapter shows, the official story of Bloody Sunday was based almost entirely on army lies and propaganda and on the flawed Widgery Report of 19 April 1972, which exonerated the paratroopers and their officers and cast doubt on the innocence of the victims. Newspaper coverage at the time showed a determination to recover the image and reputation of the Army in the wake of the killings. Indeed, even after the Saville Report 38 years later, which vindicated the victims and cast blame solely on the British army, sections of the British press were reluctant to let go of the official version. The explanation for this, we argue, has more to do with a deep-seated, cultural and ideological predisposition than with propaganda or the normative routines of commercial journalism.
Suspect stories: William Trevor’s portrayals of the Irish in London during the Troubles
Authors: Murray Tony
Published: May 2017

This chapter explores how three short stories by William Trevor portray the way in which Irish people in London were affected by the Troubles. For a writer who had established a reputation for his empathetic portrayal of the anomalous position of the Anglo-Irish in Ireland, the political situation of the Irish in London in the 1970s and 1980s provided Trevor with similar subject matter, but in a wholly new context. His stories provide an important corrective to some of the more pervasive stereotypes found in the popular genre of Troubles fiction. They reveal how, during the Troubles, the neighbourhood and the home became heightened political ‘contact zones’ between migrant and host communities. With attention to AvtarBrah’s notion of ‘diaspora space’, I demonstrate how fiction, and the personal and collective narratives contained therein, has a valuable role to play in mediating memories of the Troubles in Britain. This, in turn, can inform the wider discussion of British-Irish relations and contribute to post-conflict understanding.
The ‘oxygen of publicity’ and the suffocation of censorship: national newspaper representations of the British broadcasting ban (1988–94)
Authors: Pettigrew Max
Published: May 2017

The British broadcasting ban was a form of direct censorship introduced by the British Government in 1988, following several decades of indirect censorship against the broadcast media before and during the Northern Ireland conflict. Indirect censorship had long operated through a combination of pressure against broadcasters from Stormont and Westminster politicians and the institutionalised self-censorship of the ‘reference upwards’ system practised by broadcasters. The broadcasting ban, however, directly controlled the British broadcast media by making it illegal for representatives of eleven republican and loyalist organisations to speak on television and the radio until the restrictions were lifted in 1994.
This chapter begins by briefly considering the significant events leading up to the introduction of the broadcasting ban with a particular focus on the relationship between the British Government and the British broadcast media in this period. It then outlines the justifications given by the British Government for the broadcasting ban, explains how broadcasters were impacted by it and how they tried to resist it. After contextualising these important factors, the findings of a study on British newspaper representations of the broadcasting ban are presented and analysed, revealing the extent to which national newspapers supported and resisted this censorship in Britain.
Commemorating bonds of Union: remembering the Ulster Special Constabulary at the National Memorial Arboretum
Authors: Armstrong L. J.
Published: May 2017

In 2006, two acts of commemoration took place to the memory of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). One was staged in a public site of national commemoration at the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA) in Lichfield, Staffordshire and the other was a very local service in the remote site of Mullaghfad Church, Co.Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. Both of these events were state-funded under the terms of the ‘Victims and Survivors Befriending Grant Scheme’, but engaged in very different modes of remembrance. This chapter focuses on the USC memorial at the NMA as a strategic site of memory for the Ulster unionist community. Drawing upon interviews with members of the Ulster Special Constabulary Association (USCA) present at the commemoration, it explores the active role Britain plays as a physical and symbolic site of ‘respite’ for Ulster unionists. In contrast to the private, divisive nature of memorials to the USC in Northern Ireland, the NMA site enables the USCA to locate its role in the Troubles in terms of British heroism and sacrifice, alongside memorials to other UK police units. The chapter suggests that historians should look more closely at the active role Britain plays in commemorating the Northern Irish Troubles.
Performance practices and conflict resolution: Jo Berry and Patrick Magee’s Facing the Enemy
Authors: Combe Verity
Published: May 2017

This chapter explores performance as a tool to demonstrate and negotiate contemporary conflict resolution through analysis of Facing The Enemy, the performance practice of Jo Berry and Patrick Magee. Berry is daughter of Sir Anthony Berry, Conservative MP killed in the attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton and Magee is the former IRA member responsible for the attack.
Performance theory offers a framework to assess the theatrical “performativity” of the work, raising awareness of the issues surrounding the Troubes in Britain. Performance allows them to face a personal dimension of conflict resolution while using it as a tool to explore this paradigm. I argue for the authority of a performance practice whereby the performers retain their core identity throughout, while negotiating enough to accommodate the other.
The collapse of power-sharing
Authors: Aveyard S.C.
Published: May 2017

This chapter considers the initial three months of the Labour government, incorporating both the political and security situation. During this time the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Merlyn Rees, and the Northern Ireland Office made changes to security policy. Many of these showed continuity with the previous administration but some reflected the differing attitude of the Labour frontbench while in opposition. Most prominent was the suggestion that the police should play a greater role in security efforts. In May the UWC strike led to the collapse of the power-sharing executive and this is considered in great detail. It is argued that previous accounts have placed insufficient emphasis on the political context and the parameters within which the security forces could operate. The practical difficulties involved in strike-breaking are large and the loyalist strike should be placed in the broader, British context of difficulties experienced in handling industrial disputes in Great Britain.
Negotiating the Provisional IRA ceasefire
Authors: Aveyard S.C.
Published: May 2017

This chapter looks at the changes made by the Labour government to security policy and the establishment of talks with senior Provisional IRA representatives, both designed in order to secure the ceasefire. It also considers the expectations of Labour ministers and senior NIO officials going into the ceasefire. The ceasefire had great implications for security policy and the political scene. It provided the backdrop to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention, which lasted from May 1975 through to March 1976, and deeply affected the Labour government’s relationships with political parties in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with the government of the Republic of Ireland and with senior British army officers.
After the ceasefire
Authors: Aveyard S.C.
Published: May 2017

In this chapter the Labour government’s focus turned to long-term plans for constitutional and security policy. The period up to March 1976 marked a phase in which the great uncertainties that had dominated since the collapse of Sunningdale were replaced with clearer plans for the future. Some Labour ministers sought to discuss radical changes to Northern Ireland’s relationship with Great Britain. Rees was dismissive and, after the Convention concluded, these debates ended with the affirmation of indefinite direct rule. Sectarian violence led Wilson to announce the deployment of the Special Air Service (SAS) to County Armagh but longer-term plans were also made more publicly clear. Rees’s commitment to what became known as criminalisation was announced with the ending of detention without trial, a declaration that special category status for prisoners would be phased out and an emphasis on operating through the court system.
Police primacy and the myth of Ulsterisation
Authors: Aveyard S.C.
Published: May 2017

This chapter shows how over the course of 1976 plans were prepared to adjust security policy in line with Rees’s desire for police primacy, leading to the professionalization of the RUC and a marked change in the responsibilities and actions of the security forces. By placing greater emphasis on police work and proceeding through the courts, as well as limiting the way in which the army operated, it was hoped that support for paramilitary groups would be undermined. In September 1976 Rees moved to the Home Office and Roy Mason took his place. Some authors have depicted this changing of the guard as heralding a more confident and aggressive security policy. While his rhetorical efforts were effective in securing confidence from unionists, his contribution to security policy was minimal.
‘Positive direct rule’: economic policy
Authors: Aveyard S.C.
Published: May 2017

This chapter looks at economic policy in Northern Ireland in the context of severe economic difficulties experienced by the UK as a whole. It shows how the Labour government sought to shield Northern Ireland from economic realities because of the conflict, increasing public expenditure and desperately seeking industrial investment. The level of desperation in this endeavour is illustrated through examples such as Harland & Wolff’s shipyards and the DeLorean Motor Company. The experience of the 1970s, and particularly under the Labour government, set the pattern for the following decades with a steadily increasing subvention from the rest of the United Kingdom and a growing dependence on the public sector, all at a time when the opposite trend took place in Great Britain.
The evolution of the long war
Authors: Aveyard S.C.
Published: May 2017

After the ceasefire the Provisional IRA was in disarray and it struggled because of increased attrition by British security forces. In response, just as the Labour government adapted to the long haul ahead by formulating the policies of police primacy and criminalisation, republicans fashioned a ‘long war’ strategy which formed the basis of their armed struggle for the rest of the conflict. Sections of the Northern Ireland Office began to appreciate that the conflict would persist over a number of years because of the PIRA’s ability to adapt to the new conditions. Pressures from the British army to revert to a more aggressive stance persisted and there was growing evidence that senior officers were only paying lip service to the Labour government’s strategy. There were also a number of controversies over SAS operations, the growing protest in the prisons and interrogation techniques used by the RUC. Each of these illustrates the limitations on attempts to drive a wedge between the Provisional IRA and the nationalist community.
The sounds of José Luis López Vázquez: vocal performance, gesture and technology in Spanish film
Authors: Whittaker Tom
Published: May 2017

This chapter explores the transition from post-synch to direct sound in Spanish cinema through a particular emphasis on José Luis López Vázquez’s voice. This chapter shows the ways in which sound design marked a shift in register from a gestural and presentational acting style to a more Stanislavskian mode of performance that stressed interiority and the unspoken. It further argues that direct sound shaped and transformed Spanish performance, reconfiguring the relationship between body and space in cinema. The analysis of López Vázquez’s vocal performance thus casts a light on the limits between the embodiment and disembodiment of performance and sound, as well as providing a means of tracing the emerging acting styles of the 1970s. The presence (and absence) of López Vázquez's voice in his performances, and how these were determined by the synchronisation of sound in post-production, provide a valuable opportunity to understand how technology and acting are linked in complex ways.
The future of nostalgia: revindicating Spanish actors and acting in and through Cine de barrio
Authors: Wheeler Duncan
Published: May 2017

This chapter considers the impact of the Spanish television programme Cine de barrio on popular discourses surrounding national film and performance styles. First airing in 1995, Cine de barrio pairs the viewing of a classic national film (generally made sometime between 1950 and the late 70s, after the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco) with a talk show segment between a host and an invited guest. By linking discourses on cultural and historical memory with the subsequent revival of classic national cinema brought about by Cine de barrio, the chapter explores the relationship between actors, their films and their audiences; the affective response produced in this encounter, it argues, generates a nostalgia for classic national cinema that also influences contemporary Spanish film. The chapter also addresses the links between the seemingly disparate Spanish films of the 70s and the comedic box office blowouts of the 2010s, as well as arguing for a sustained reflection on nostalgia, memory, and their connections to acting and performance.
Performing sex in Spanish erotic films of the 1980s
Authors: Melero Alejandro
Published: May 2017

The chapter considers the importance of acting and performance in the ‘S’-rated sex films that peppered the late 1970s and 1980s in Spain. It explores the question of what precisely constitutes ‘performance’ in films which showcase ‘real’ sex between its actors; that is, if a lead actor has an erection in a scene, how much of his physical response might be considered acting? Focusing on one film in particular, Con las bragas en la mano/Panties in the Hands (Julio Pérez Tabernero, 1981), the chapter argues that the lines between eroticism, pornography, and cinema were blurred by the explosion of sex films in Spain at this time. Finally, in turning to the career of the film’s lead actor, Emilio Línder, the chapter discusses the attempts to legitimise these films and the performances they contain, and whether or not they may have a space in Spanish cinematic history.
Disabling Bardem’s body: the performance of disability and illness
Authors: Allbritton Dean
Published: May 2017

This chapter questions what it means to ‘perform’ sickness and disability, and in particular, how common perceptions of the two may be revealed in their cinematic reiteration. Analysing Javier Bardem as emblematic of a whole branch of Spanish acting expertise, the chapter discusses the appearance of disability and illness in Mar adentro/The Sea Inside (Alejandro Amenábar, 2004) and Biutiful (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2010). Rather than assume that illness and disability are already understood phenomena, the chapter instead argues that their threat is kept at bay, that the performance of the two serves to reify the importance of the healthy body. Bardem, for this reason, is emblematic, as his physicality has long been praised and admired in Spanish cinema. For that reason, the chapter concludes, acting choices, cinematic styles, and the artificiality imposed by the camera keep illness and disability at arm’s length, constantly eluding audiences and actors alike.
Wartime apprenticeship: Labour and intelligence during the Second World War
Authors: Lomas Daniel W. B.
Published: May 2017

Chapter One examines Labour involvement in the wartime Coalition government and Ministerial access to and use of intelligence. It argues that the Second World War provided an important opportunity for future Ministers in the post-war government to gain knowledge and experience of handling and using intelligence. Within months of the coalition’s formation, Labour Ministers had access to the fruits of British codebreaking. Further, the chapter also suggests that this experience ended any lingering animosity that resulted from the Zinoviev Letter Affair. The chapter places particular emphasis on Attlee’s wartime experiences and provides examples of his use of intelligence and early views on it. It also looks at Labour involvement with the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and Party attempts to add an ideological facet to British special operations in Europe under Hugh Dalton, Minister of Economic Warfare until 1942. Beyond intelligence and special operations, Labour involvement with intelligence and security extended to the domestic front with Herbert Morrison, appointed Home Secretary in November 1940. Already a fierce opponent of British Communists, he received the product of MI5’s surveillance of the Communist Party of Great Britain and provided the Cabinet with information warning of Communist espionage.
Introduction
Authors: Ditchfield Simon , Smith Helen
Published: May 2017

The introduction explores existing scholarship on conversion and on the interrelationships between gender and religious experience in early modern Europe. It argues for the need to consider masculine as well as feminine modes of selfhood as malleable in the light of changing religious affiliations, and considers questions of performativity, language, materiality and orientation. Briefly outlining the contents of the collection as a whole, the introduction also points forward to important possibilities for further research and scholarship.
To piety or conversion more prone? Gender and conversion in the early modern Mediterranean
Authors: Dursteler Eric
Published: May 2017

This chapter examines religious identity, and in particular conversion, in the early modern Mediterranean through the prism of gender. It surveys attitudes towards women’s religiosity and their susceptibility to conversion from Muslim, Jewish and Christian perspectives, and will compare and contrast the motivations for conversion of men and women. I argue that sweeping generalizations about women’s religiosity must be approached with caution. Women were probably no more or less inclined to conversion than men, they voluntarily chose or rejected conversion, or could be compelled to convert; their ‘apparent greater religiosity’ was itself a social and polemical construct, deployed to particular ends on varied occasions.
The local is everywhere: a post-colonial reassessment of cultural sensitivity in conflict governance
Authors: Lidén Kristoffer , Jacobsen Elida K. U.
Published: May 2017

Chapter six discuss the notion of ‘the local‘ through the history of governance in colonial and post-colonial India. The authors focus on ability of liberal governance to adapt to local culture. They discuss Ilan Kapoor's integration of postcolonial theory with debates on development and use this to identify what could make the liberal peacebuilders more open towards the idea of greater inclusion of local voices. The authors suggest that emphasis should be put on socio-cultural sensitivity. This entails that the international interveners should familiarize themselves with the context as much as possible. They invite critical analysis of the main issues at stake, which would be aimed against relevant theoretical debates. The authors also call for attention to the distribution of resources that are usually limited in conflict settings. They conclude that as long as subjective norms and interests of the peacebuilders are harmonised with local culture and practices - not creating tensions - they can be legitimately promoted.
Peacebuilding in India: Meghalaya’s experience
Authors: Upadhyaya Priyankar , Upadhyaya Anjoo Sharan
Published: May 2017

This chapter discusses the experience of peacebuilding in the north-eastern Indian state of Meghalaya. The authors analyze the potential of the Indian democratic governance in dealing with conflict in this part of the country. Their findings come as a result of the fieldwork undertaken in Khasi, Garo and Jaintia Hills which aimed at scrutinizing the claims on the ‘peacefulness’ of this state. The chapter finds the main fault line in peacebuilding in Meghalaya in the lack of consideration of various patterns of ethnicity issues, and in putting too strong emphasis on underdevelopment and political economy. The authors claim that a comprehensive, long-term approach is needed to successfully rehabilitate former insurgents which should be followed by adjusted development policies, replacing short-term monetary compensations which only foster insurgency.