bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Short and Surprisingly Private Life of King Bolo: Eliot’s Bawdy Poems and Their Audiences
Authors: Stayer Jayme , Morgenstern John D.
Published: September 2017

Most of T. S. Eliot’s obscene poems have become known since the 1996 publication of Inventions of the March Hare. Consequently, the Columbo and Bolo poems became notorious for their scatological and pornographic content, and more troublingly, for their violence, racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Stayer considers three questions regarding the poems: (1) Did Eliot really try to publish his obscene verses? (2) Was the elderly Eliot still composing Bolo verses? (3) And if so, were they written in the same racist and misogynist vein as in his youth? While scholars have assumed that the answer to these questions is yes, Stayer examines archival evidence, responding with a qualified no on all three counts. It is much more likely that Eliot composed these poems while in school. The belief that Eliot composed these obscene poems throughout his life has led some to claim, erroneously, that these verses should be viewed as an abiding interest of his middle and late periods, reflecting an ongoing sexual dysfunction, a lifelong immaturity, and a committed misogyny. Stayer argues, by contrast, that the Bolo poems are more understandable, and less scandalous, as expressions of youthful sexual frustration and facilitators of juvenile masculine bonding.
Poetry (June 1915)
Authors: Ricks Christopher
Published: September 2017

The cover of Poetry (June 1915) named eight contributors. Their names took markedly different forms. In order of appearance: Ajan Syrian, Arthur Davison Ficke, Bliss Carman, Dorothy Dudley, Georgia Wood Pangborn, William Griffith, Skipwith Cannéll, and T. S. Eliot.

The last of these namings is more than distinctive, it is unique....
The Stale Dregs of Revolt
Authors: Dickey Frances
Published: September 2017

Shortly after receiving the June 1915 issue of Poetry magazine, Louis Untermeyer wrote to Harriet Monroe, in a letter she did not publish, to complain about Eliot’s poem:

I confess that his “Love Song” is the first piece of the English language that utterly stumped me. As a post-impression, the effect was that of the Muse in a psychopathic ward—drinking the stale dregs of revolt....
Astride the Dark Horse: T. S. Eliot and the Lloyds Bank Intelligence Department
Authors: Seybold Matt
Published: September 2017

In his official resignation from Lloyds Bank, Eliot expressed to his employer one regret: “I should have liked to see the Intelligence Section a reality—it has never been more than an aspiration of a few persons, including myself.” The foremost duty of the Intelligence Department was the production and distribution of Lloyds growing stable of internal publications. In this essay, Seybold introduces and analyzes a subset of these publications, including the geopolitical collage that Eliot compiled from 1922 to 1924 and a monthly staff magazine called The Dark Horse. These publications offer an explanation for why Eliot remained with Lloyds against the wishes of his peers and patrons, and are fossils from what was, at least temporarily, a symbiotic relationship between the ethos of literary modernism and interbellum finance capitalism.
Aristophanic Structures in Sweeney Agonistes, “The Hollow Men,” and Murder in the Cathedral
Authors: Richards Joshua
Published: September 2017

When T. S. Eliot began his foray into drama in the early 1920s, he wrote according to a schema derived from F. M. Cornford’s The Origin of Attic Comedy. Thus, Sweeney Agonistes is subtitled “Fragments of an Aristophanic Melodrama.” While scholars often mention Cornford’s book, it has rarely been consulted in-depth. Structural clues from “The Fragrment of an Agon” in conjunction with Cornford’s ideas suggest that Doris, and not Sweeney, is the protagonist of the play. An underexplored aspect of Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” is its interrelated genesis with Sweeney Agonistes and what this might suggest of an Aristophanic structure for “The Hollow Men.” Richards performs this thoroughgoing analysis and argues that Attic Old Comedy as delineated by Cornford remained with Eliot into the 1930s. Richards then applies Cornford to explain otherwise enigmatic structural elements of Murder in the Cathedral.
Eliot and Virgil in Love and War
Authors: Gish Nancy K.
Published: September 2017

The presence of Virgil in The Waste Land is at least as pervasive and important as that of Dante. Although the poem has no overarching structure or narrative, it has a world, a geography, a cast of characters, and a sense of human experience that is most like the world of Virgil: it begins and ends in the world of The Aeneid, overlaps with Eliot’s own experience during World War I, and incorporates—in its images—a background of Roman and Carthaginian history. While Eliot wrote little on Virgil until his late major essays, “What is a Classic” (1944) and “Virgil and the Christian World” (1951), The Aeneid is present much earlier, in The Waste Land, as a journey with sorrow, loss, betrayal, and war. The Waste Land is not only more Virgilian than is still usually acknowledged, it reveals very early Eliot’s lifelong developing conception of a Latin Europe.
General Editor’s Note
Authors: Morgenstern John D.
Published: September 2017

In 1975, a contributor to the short-lived T. S. Eliot Review characterized the state of Eliot scholarship as an incomplete mosaic, with “the primary materials for research … either in jumbled disarray or missing entirely.” While a glut of memoirs “written by men Eliot assiduously avoided” flooded the literary marketplace, serious scholars lacked the “fundamental research tools” to fill in the gaps in the fragmentary tableau: “No ...
Tillid og velfærdsstaten
Authors: Bjørnskov Christian
Published: September 2017

Det har længe været kendt, at der er en stærk, empirisk sammenhæng mellem landes sociale tillidsniveau og omfanget af deres velfærdsstat. Flere studier har argumenteret for, at sammenhængen skyldes, at velfærdsstatsinstitutioner og omfordeling aktivt skaber tillid. I denne artikel argumenterer jeg for den modsatte kausalitet, dvs. at centrale karakteristika af de moderne velfærdsstater skyldes deres høje grad af tillid. Teoretisk er der grund til at tro, at finansiering af og vælgeropbakning til velfærdsstaten påvirkes af borgernes sociale tillid, og at ulighedsforskelle også kan skyldes bl.a. ekskluderende politik. Empirisk dokumenterer flere nye studier også, at de nordiske samfunds høje tillidsniveau kan føres tilbage til tiden før velfærdspolitikkens indførsel, der således ikke kan skyldes velfærdsstatens karakteristika.
Civilisering og distinktioner. Med Norbert Elias i skole og børnehave
Authors: Gilliam Laura , Gulløv Eva
Published: September 2017

Med afsæt i Norbert Elias’ begreb om civilisering vil vi i denne artikel diskutere opdragelsesidealer og -praksis i skoler og daginstitutioner. Elias’ civiliseringsbegreb sætter fokus på sammenhængen mellem idealer og distinktioner ved at vise, hvordan normer for det civiliserede også rummer en konstruktion af og afstandtagen til det, der ikke vurderes civiliseret. Denne opmærksomhed er relevant ift. at udforske børneinstitutioners opdragelsesprojekter, og samtidig forstå hvorfor de ikke altid udvikler sig som tilsigtet. Der lægges mange kræfter i at lære børn at kontrollere sig selv og omgås andre mennesker på, hvad der aktuelt opfattes som ordentlige måder, men dette projekt fortæller samtidig børn om sociale og moralske distinktioner og hierarkier i de konkrete sociale sammenhænge såvel som i samfundet mere generelt.
La Economía del Bien Común en el ámbito local
Authors: Gómez-Alvarez Díaz Rosario , Morales Sánchez Rafael , Rodríguez Morilla Carmen
Published: September 2017

Este trabajo presenta la Economía del Bien Común en el ámbito municipal. Para ello se describe qué es un Municipio del Bien Común y las cinco estrategias propuestas para alcanzarlo: creación de asambleas democráticas, aplicación del Balance del Bien Común Municipal, promoción de la Economía del Bien Común en las organizaciones, creación del Índice del Bien Común Municipal y participación en la creación de una Región del Bien Común. El modelo tiene una vocación de transformación real de todo el sistema económico, fundamentando su construcción en la democracia y a partir de una red desde el ámbito local. La Economía del Bien Común trata de crear los incentivos para que la actividad económica esté orientada hacia el Bien Común, entendido como la promoción de los valores humanos de la dignidad humana, solidaridad, sostenibilidad, justicia social y la democracia y transparencia. Para lograrlo plantea su medición mediante el balance del bien común y las modificaciones legales para que las empresas, y otras organizaciones cooperen para la generación de biencomún, en lugar de competir por la maximización del beneficio. Por ello, este trabajo sostiene que la Economía del Bien Común concebida a escala municipal, proporciona un marco completo y coherente de análisis desdedonde abordar el desarrollo local. La presentación del marco teórico de la Economía del Bien Común en el ámbito municipal pretende crear un aporte de síntesis útil a profesionales de la investigación y los profesionales delámbito municipal.
The Political Aesthetics of the Armenian Avant-Garde
Authors: Harutyunyan Angela
Published: September 2017

The book addresses late-Soviet and post-Soviet art in Armenia in the context of turbulent social, political and cultural transformations in the late 1980s, throughout the 1990s and in early 2000s through the aesthetic figure of the ‘painterly real’ and its conceptual transformations. It explores the emergence of ‘contemporary art’ in Armenia from within and in opposition to the practices, aesthetics and institutions of Socialist Realism and National Modernism. The book presents the argument that avant-garde art best captures the historical and social contradictions of the period of the so-called ‘transition,’ especially if one considers ‘transition’ from the perspective of the former Soviet republics that have been consistently marginalized in Russian- and East European-dominated post-Socialist studies. Throughout the two decades that encompass the chronological scope of this work, contemporary art has encapsulated the difficult dilemmas of autonomy and social participation, innovation and tradition, progressive political ethos and national identification, the problematic of communication with the world outside of Armenia’s borders, dreams of subjective freedom and the imperative to find an identity in the new circumstances after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This historical study outlines the politics (liberal democracy), aesthetics (autonomous art secured by the gesture of the individual artist), and ethics (ideals of absolute freedom and radical individualism) of contemporary art in Armenia. Through the historical investigation, a theory of post-Soviet art historiography is developed, one that is based on a dialectic of rupture and continuity in relation to the Soviet past. As the first English-language study on contemporary art in Armenia, the book is of prime interest for artists, scholars, curators and critics interested in post-Soviet art and culture and in global art historiography.
Between the ideal and a hard place: the conceptual horizons of the avant-garde in Armenia
Authors: Harutyunyan Angela
Published: September 2017

This chapter interrogates the historical relationship between ‘contemporary art’, ‘avant-garde’ and ‘postmodern’ from the perspective of late Soviet and post-Soviet cultural discourses. Further, the chapter defines one of the key conceptual figures of the book, the concept of the ideal in a historical materialist understanding in order to set the theoretical and aesthetic context for the main conceptual figure of the book – ‘the painterly real.’
The revenge of the ‘painterly real’: national post-conceptualism, 1995–98
Authors: Harutyunyan Angela
Published: September 2017

This chapter presents the argument that the collapse of ACT marked the return of the ‘painterly real’, which, for a moment, coincided with the state’s cultural politics. It investigated how the binaries such as ‘national’ and ‘contemporary’, ‘word’ and ‘image’ came into conflict and were reconciled at the aesthetic level in the period following the collapse of ACT (1996-98), a period that is marked with what I call the revenge of the painterly in the works of former ACT artists David Kareyan and Diana Hakobyan. This chapter situates the return to the ‘painterly real’ within the then-dominant, post-conceptual mode of historicization that characterizes contemporary art as an evolutionary convergence of tradition and contemporaneity. I argue that contemporary art played a vanguard role in sustaining and advancing this logic.
Pauper Policies
Authors: Shave Samantha A.
Published: September 2017

Pauper Policies examines how policies under both old and New Poor Laws were conceived, adopted, implemented, developed or abandoned. The author engages with recent literature on the experience and agency of poor relief recipients, and offers a fresh perspective on poor law administration. Through a ‘policy process’ approach, the author exposes several significant topics in poor law history which are currently unknown or poorly understood, each of which are explored in a series of thematic chapters. It contains important new research on the adoption and implementation of enabling acts at the end of the old poor laws, Gilbert’s Act of 1782 and Sturges Bourne’s Acts of 1818 and 1819; the exchange of knowledge about how best to provide poor relief in the final decades of the old poor law and formative decades of the New; and the impact of national scandals on policy-making in the new Victorian system. The volume points towards a new direction in the study of poor law administration, one which examines how people, both those in positions of power and the poor, could shape pauper policies. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in welfare, poverty and society in eighteenth and nineteenth-century England, as well as those who want to understand the early workings of the welfare system.
Introduction: pauper policies
Authors: Shave Samantha A.
Published: September 2017

The opening chapter explains the book’s purpose, to understand the practice of the poor laws in England. It provides a history of the main poor laws, paying particular attention to the period 1780 to 1850. The introduction will explain why this research does not follow the direction of recent research about individuals’ experiences of welfare receipt, instead making the case for the rethinking and repositioning of the importance of relief administration. The book unpicks the dynamism of pauper policies: how they emerged, were taken up, implemented and developed in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. This is achieved using a ‘policy process’ approach developed by social scientists, which allows for an understanding of the dynamism of policy, as well as for the identification and examination distinct parts of the policy process. The chapter then introduces the context of the research, southern England, an area of varied employment opportunities but immense poverty in the late eighteenth century. The introduction finishes with descriptions of the remaining chapters, guiding the reader through the book.
Restricting relief: the impact of Sturges Bourne’s reforms
Authors: Shave Samantha A.
Published: September 2017

The second chapter about ‘enabling acts’ examines the impact of Sturges Bourne’s Acts of 1818 and 1819. Sturges Bourne’s Acts permitted parishes to employ an assistant overseer whose main task was to inspect the poor and distribute relief, and allowed for the appointment of a Select Vestry to take charge of policy decisions and relief claimants. The chapter first examines why and when the policies were adopted in southern England. These permissory acts allowed parishes to tighten up the distribution of poor relief. As such whilst the retrenchment of relief provision was an inevitable consequence of the Act, the sheer variety of ways in which it was implemented is examined in the chapter. It is argued that the reforms re-drew the distinction between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor, ultimately changing individuals' and families' entitlement to relief under the old poor laws.
Administrative practices and the ‘middling sort’: place, practice and identity in eighteenth-century rural England
Authors: Mutch Alistair
Published: September 2017

Alistair Mutch examines administrative practices in eighteenth century rural parishes, using the evidence of churchwardens’ records from the Deanery of Bingham, Nottinghamshire, complemented by details of parish life from contemporary diaries. Churchwardens were part of the ‘middling sort’, elite parish office holders whose freedom in devising their own administrative practices meant patterns of accountability often varied considerably between parishes. These practices depended much on the personal character of the office holder, whose degree of local autonomy reproduced a very ‘Anglican form of authority’. Churchwardens’ stewardship of money and conduct of accounts meetings had a personal, sociable dimension which contrasted with the rigorous, disciplined ‘forms of accountability’ associated with kirk sessions in Scotland during the same period, and these distinctive patterns of administrative order deserve greater attention, because of their potential to offer new perspectives on emerging notions of national identity and difference.
Memorial mania: remembering and forgetting Sir Robert Peel
Authors: Wyke Terry
Published: September 2017

The transformations which took place in the urban environment during the Victorian period gave the public space of towns and cities new meanings, and Terry Wyke’s essay on Sir Robert Peel, examines how political lives and reputations were shaped by the commemorative culture of public portrait statues and busts. Peel's death in 1850 and his subsequent memorializatiom marked the start of a significant trend in public life, expressed in the commissioning of outdoor portrait statues to celebrate prominent local and national figures. Peel's image, 'forged' by the contemporary press, was absorbed by a broader Liberal bourgeois narrative in cities like Manchester, as a public statement of the reputation and achievements of the Anti-Corn Law League, with which Peel was so strongly associated. Such portraiture, replete with political symbolism, played an important part in defining a new civic landscape in the Victorian period, a material narrative of political life that had been largely forgotten by the second half of the twentieth century, although it remains a rich source of evidence deserving of greater attention.
Fifty years ahead of its time? The provident dispensaries movement in Manchester, 1871–85
Authors: Hewitt Martin
Published: September 2017

Martin Hewitt’s chapter on the history of the provident dispensary movement, initiated in the 1870s by the social reformer, Dr John Watts asks why provident dispensaries, unlike the Hospital Funds movement, have been largely neglected in the scholarship of medical philanthropy although, as Hewitt argues, those in Manchester were central to national debates over hospital reform and served as a model for similar initiatives in other parts of the country. The establishment of provident dispensaries in the city encapsulated many of the challenges which impeded the development of medical provision for the working-classes, as in the tensions which Hewitt illustrates in relation to the professional status and expectations of medical men, concerned about the movement’s threats to their fees and status. Watt’s scheme of provident dispensaries, which aimed to promote ‘a general scheme of medical insurance’, was ahead of its time, symptomatic, Hewitt argues, of the pitfalls which faced those committed to the establishment of a comprehensive system of healthcare in the late-Victorian period.
Daddy, what did you find to laugh about in the Great War? The cotton cartoons of Sam Fitton
Authors: Fowler Alan
Published: September 2017

A source of historical evidence whose value has attracted greater attention in recent years is the newspaper cartoon, which Alan Fowler draws on in his essay on the Lancashire writer and comic performer, Sam Fitton, a popular cartoonist on the Cotton Factory Times, the weekly newspaper of Lancashire cotton operatives, published between 1907 and 1917. Fitton’s work has been largely overlooked by historians and Fowler makes a valuable contribution to the biographical scholarship on British cartoonists, using Fitton’s cartoons on the home front to explore a neglected aspect of World War One history, the conditions and preoccupations of Lancashire cotton workers. Fowler places these within the broader context of the Lancashire cotton industry with which Fitton, himself a cotton worker, was very familiar, and draws attention to the richness of these cartoons as a regional source whose evocation of a sense of belonging and place among its Lancashire readers was very different from the civic pride exemplified by the local history societies and public statuary of the Victorian period, on which Kidd and Wyke focus.
‘Hoping you’ll give me some guidance about this thing called money’: the Daily Mirror and personal finance, c. 1960–81
Authors: Porter Dilwyn
Published: September 2017

In the 1960s the Daily Mirror ran a weekly feature offering financial and investment advice about stocks and shares and it dealt with thousands of letters a year about financial matters from readers who found its advice more accessible and less intimidating than speaking to financial professionals. The social optimism of the sixties dissipated in the 1970s, however, as the economic situation deteriorated and the Daily Mirror’s financial advice had to adapt to a climate in which its own circulation was declining and as its core readership started to age the column became more conservative, dealing with queries from older readers and worries about unemployment, and focusing more on ‘mitigating’ the effects of inflation and redundancy payments. Porter argues that the Daily Mirror had, in fact, misinterpreted its readers’ interest in ‘popular capitalism’ during full employment and rising living standards in the 1960s, when its advocacy of financial investment reflected contemporary beliefs that the values and aspirations of the working-class were changing, with greater opportunities to borrow, save and spend. As he points out, its financial journalists were forced over time to adapt to more pragmatic queries about family budgeting and personal savings rather than focusing on larger investments.
1946–56: darkness and light
Authors: McCann Ben
Published: September 2017

This chapter traces Duvivier’s return to France in 1945, and his difficulties in readjusting to a new film-making climate that now feted new directors and emphasised authentic, location-filmed reality. The chapter pays close attention to one of Duvivier’s key post-war films, Panique (1946). Although the film was a failure – critics likened it to pre-war poetic realism, a style and sensibility not in vogue in the changed artistic and political post-war landscape – Panique cleverly incorporates the pessimism of Duvivier’s 1930s films, while grafting on a new set of political and social contexts. Like David Golder and the figure of the Jew, Panique sheds light on another problematic representation in Duvivier’s oeuvre; it stands as an exemplar of viciously misogynistic ‘réalisme noir’ which seemed to scapegoat women for wartime collaboration.
The chapter also looks at the different films Duvivier shot at this time. As well as darker works like Panique and Voici le temps des assassins (1956), Duvivier also made broad comedies, an adaptation of Anna Karenina, and intimate chamber pieces. One of his least known films – La Fête à Henriette (1952) – will be analysed to showcase Duvivier’s deft visual and narrative touch.
Crossing every barrier
Authors: Mai Joseph
Published: September 2017

This chapter considers the change in direction of Guédiguian’s career in the 1990s, where pessimism and apocalyptic thematics give way to local politics and utopianism, making Guédiguian a leading filmmaker in France during the period. The first two films emphasise the creative imagination as a mode for thinking ways of overcoming difficult political and economic situations. It provides in particular a long analysis of Marius et Jeannette, Guédiguian’s best-known film, emphasising mise en scène and style and themes of globalisation and local renewal. In these films Guédiguian develops a highly original style, based in the fairy tale and the Blochian ‘happy ending.’ With some tempering of the period’s optimism, partly through self-critique and partly in response to other critics, the end of the nineties includes an acknowledgment of the need for more diverse thinking about politics.
Themes and variation
Authors: Mai Joseph
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the thematic variety of Guédiguian’s work since the 2000, starting with the dystopian La ville est tranquille. It deepens the analysis of friendship, the non-consanguine family, national identity, and evolutions in economic oppression (mainly the new precariat class). It investigates new directions, such as Guédiguian’s interest in his Armenian identity in Voyage en Arménie. The chapter also investigates some of the longer-term effects of Guédiguian’s basic project.
‘A present from the Crystal Palace’: Souvenirs of Sydenham, miniature views and material memory
Authors: Hunt Verity
Published: September 2017

Focusing on two souvenirs: a ‘peep egg’ (after 1851), a stone egg decorated with a floral pattern, inscribed ‘A present from the Crystal Palace’ (Bill Douglas Collection, Exeter University) and a needle case in carved bone (c. 1860-7) in the shape of a folded umbrella or parasol (V&A), this chapter discusses the spy-glass keepsake’s role as both a visual record of the Sydenham Crystal Palace and as an emblem of popular visual memories of the site. Such keepsakes stand testimony to a prevalent affection or fondness for the Palace in the latter part of the nineteenth century, or at the very least, its currency in popular culture and the growing leisure industry.
The cosmopolitan world of Victorian portraiture: the Crystal Palace portrait gallery, c.1854
Authors: Edwards Jason
Published: September 2017

‘The World of Victorian Portraiture’ focuses on the 500 plaster cast busts that make up the largely ignored portrait sequence at the Crystal Palace, that ran throughout and alongside the Fine Arts Courts, treating the portrait collection as a microcosm of Sydenham as a whole. Focussing on a close reading of Samuel Phillips’s official 1854 guide to the portrait sequence, in relation to the few surviving images of portrait busts at Sydenham, the chapter seeks to counter a myopic, insular, working-class historical emphasis on Sydenham as a provincial, proletarian pleasure park. In its place, the chapter returns to centre stage the complex, cosmopolitan, high cultural experiences and ambitions of a specific subset of visitors - the ideal audience imagined by the official guides.
The armless artist and the lightning cartoonist: performing popular culture at the Crystal Palace c.1900
Authors: Roberts Ann
Published: September 2017

Discussions of art at the Crystal Palace have largely focussed on sculpture and architecture from the past contained in its Fine Arts Courts. This chapter explores the role of art via a different trajectory using the paper trail of popular culture contained in the Daily Programme of events and the Crystal Palace’s own magazine, to reveal its connections to two artists who worked at the Palace around 1900. Drawing on contemporary popular journalism of the period, this chapter engages with representations of the artists Bertram Hiles and Herbert Beecroft as part of commercialised forms of leisure available at the Crystal Palace. The case studies of these two artists temporarily working in residence at Sydenham brings into focus the role of the Crystal Palace in modern consumer practices that in turn embraced the visual pleasures of gazing and looking. Far from the high moral tone of the original Hyde Park enterprise, the work of Hiles and Beecroft fused the visual pleasures offered by art with popular entertainment.
From Ajanta to Sydenham: ‘Indian’ art at the Sydenham Palace
Authors: Turner Sarah Victoria
Published: September 2017

Discussions about the display of Indian art and material culture in the Victorian imperial metropolis have largely focused on the Great Exhibition of 1851 and its progeny, the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum). However, the Crystal Palace at Sydenham Hill was an important, but much overlooked, location of imperial and colonial display well into the twentieth century. This essay begins by examining the Sydenham Palace at a site of imperial spectacle from its opening in 1854 and well into the twentieth century. Relevant events included the African Exhibition of 1895, the opening of the Victoria Cross Gallery in the same year and the Colonial Exhibition of 1905, and the display of Major Robert Gill’s copies of the frescoes from the Buddhist rock-cut temples at Ajanta in India (until they were destroyed by fire in 1866). The crowning occasion in the Sydenham series of imperial events was the Festival of Empire in 1911 which celebrated the ascension of George V as ‘King-Emperor’. Taking the 1911 Festival as a case study, this essay explores the complex and often conflicting narratives of empire that were communicated through the courts and grounds at Sydenham.
Peculiar pleasure in the ruined Crystal Palace
Authors: Boaden James
Published: September 2017

In 1951 the filmmaker and poet James Broughton moved to London from San Francisco. At that time he was beginning to garner a reputation for his short, whimsical, films, which often made use of outmoded costumes and decaying public spaces. One important reason he gave for moving was the idea that Britain had a more open-minded society for queer artists like himself to work within, in contrast to the McCarthy-era USA. With the help of a number of figures from the British film establishment he managed to make a half-hour-long film The Pleasure Garden in London. The film is for the most part set among the ruins of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham and the surrounding park. Broughton’s film is an allegory of Britain as he found it in the summer of 1951, asserting its own vision of a post-war national identity in the Festival of Britain. This chapter examines the way in which the Festival of Britain revived certain ideas of national identity from the past, yet neglected others – and the way in which these ideas were doubled and questioned in Broughton’s film.
‘A copy – or rather a translation … with numerous sparkling emendations.’ Re-rebuilding the Pompeian Court of the Crystal Palace
Authors: Hales Shelley , Earle Nic
Published: September 2017

The cry ‘what to do with the Crystal Palace’ continues to reverberate long after the Palace’s fiery demise. Whilst local heritage groups continue to cherish it, its memory has been jeopardised by authorities, both bureaucratic (who have failed to implement a coherent conservation plan for the site) and academic (who have largely refused to engage with building or exhibition). The result, the mental dismantling of the Sydenham Palace from nineteenth-century histories, has been explained by scholarly aversion to reconstruction/inauthenticity and play/populist entertainment, the very aspects which defined it. This chapter explore a small part of the Palace, the Pompeian Court, through our own digital visualisation, housed in Second Life, a popular multi-user online virtual world. By choosing such a venue, we have favoured the pursuit not of absolute authenticity but of virtual presence, offering a space in which visitors to the model, through their avatars, might circulate the space, interact with each other and the exhibits.
Analytical framework: relations between the European Union and Mercosur
Authors: Gomez Arana Arantza
Published: September 2017

This chapter establishes the analytical framework that will be used to examine EU- Mercosur relations. The chapter begins by offering a critical review of the existing literature. Until now, the existing literature on EU-Mercosur has been very descriptive but not very analytical. It has tended to cover very specific moments of the relations and as a consequence it has forgotten to look at the bigger picture. Most authors have chosen to explain EU-Mercosur relations by using more than one argument at the same time without choosing one as the most representative. Furthermore, some authors explicitly say that until the end of the negotiations of the Association Agreement there will not be a final answer. This is hardly a clear and strong debate on a policy.
European Union policy-making towards Mercosur
Authors: Gomez Arana Arantza
Published: September 2017

The European Union (EU) is not a state and is not a traditional International Organization. It is common to characterize it as a hybrid system with a federal component. Since nothing comparable to this exists at this point, understanding the internal system of the EU is crucial. In addition to outlining the internal policy-making of the EU, it is also important to understand the internal system of the Mercosur, particularly given that the Mercosur has tried to replicate the institutional design of the EU.
Since its creation in 1957 with the Treaty of Rome, the EU has changed dramatically in a variety of ways in a short period of time. The discussion will examine these changes in relation to the period between 1985 and 2007. In addition to analysing the changes in policy-making over this period of the time it is also important to note that the number of EU member states has quadruplicated since it was created in 1957. It could be argued that this has resulted in a decline in the amount of power held by each individual member state. In 1986 Spain and, to a lesser extent, Portugal brought a Mediterranean influence into EU politics. This was later balanced out by further enlargement in 1995 which saw Austria, Finland and Sweden joining the EU. However, the single largest enlargement in the history of the EU took place in 2004 when 10 Central and Eastern Europe countries became EU members. Prior to 2004, this issue was the main focus of the EU external relations since 1989 until it came into effect in 2004. The end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union into several independent republics absorbed EU external relations to the point that it had an effect on other external relations, including external relations with Latin America. The enlargement of the EU in 2007 is not discussed in any detail here because it did not have an impact on the EU policy towards Mercosur.
The most productive years of EU–Mercosur relations
Authors: Gomez Arana Arantza
Published: September 2017

This chapter covers a new stage in EU policy towards Mercosur and Latin America. This stage started with a new framework of policies within which agreements between the European Union and Latin American countries, including the Mercosur countries, were made. By explaining EU-Mercosur agreements within the general context of EU-LA relations it is possible to bring some clarity to the EU level of engagement with Mercosur in relative terms so it is neither over nor underestimated. In doing so it will show how EU-Mercosur relations were the most important ones within the EU-LA framework. As has been established before, the level of engagement will be explained by discussing two aspects of it, “ambition” and “commitment”. This chapter shows that there is a medium level of “ambition” and a high level of “commitment” which helps to explain the outcome of a medium level of engagement.
In relation to this stage, in the literature it has been accepted that, in 1990, the EU’s means of dealing with Latin America changed (Aldecoa Luzarraga 1995; Bizzozero 1995; Laporte Galli 1996; Birochi 1999). Detailed explanations for this have not yet been offered. Some indicate that these changes were due to wider changes in the international arena. With the end of Cold War, the EU was given a chance to develop a global vision and a space in which to do it (Aldecoa Luzarraga 1995; Birochi 1999). The internal changes in the European Union, especially its increased integration, have also been mentioned in this regard (Aldecoa Luzarraga 1995).
The first attempt to negotiate the association agreement
Authors: Gomez Arana Arantza
Published: September 2017

This chapter aims to explain the phase in EU-Mercosur relations which negotiated the association agreement without reaching a successful ending. Both parties developed those negotiations under the European Mercosur Interregional Cooperation Agreement (EMIFCA). It was agreed that this agreement would be carried out in two phases. The first phase related to the preparation of the ground for future negotiations by comparing standards, statistical systems, trade procedures, whilst the second phase focussed on trade liberalization. The second phase of this agreement was also focussed on the actual negotiations. In the end, both parties were unable to reach an agreement and the negotiations were stopped in October 2004. This chapter will focus on the period up until the period where the EU became set on developing a political partnership with Brazil. In doing so, this decision marked the beginning of a new stage in history of EU policy towards Mercosur.
By looking at how these two parts of the policy were developed, and how far both sides went in both their statements and actions it will be possible to discuss the level of engagement on the EU side towards Mercosur. It seems that there were actors within the EU willing to both increase and decrease the level of “ambition” and “commitment”. Also, Mercosur countries helped to overcome some of the obstacles and this should be considered in order not to attribute the whole outcome solely to EU behaviour. The EU developed the association agreement towards Mercosur at this stage because of the efforts of the Commissioner in charge of the policy until 1999.
FOI: hard to resist and hard to escape
Authors: Worthy Ben
Published: September 2017

This chapter takes on overview of FOI. Freedom of Information (FOI) laws are difficult to resist in opposition but hard to escape from once in power. A commitment to an FOI law sends out strong messages of radicalism, change and empowerment that new governments find difficult to resist. However, when politicians regret their promises, as they often quickly do, the same symbolism makes the reforms difficult to escape from. It examines the history of the radical idea of openness, how it developed into the mainstream idea it is today and how it amounts to a battle between the symbol of the law and concrete opposition of institutions.
From radical to inevitable: the development of FOI in Britain
Authors: Worthy Ben
Published: September 2017

This chapters tells the story of the gradual movement, a tale of ‘modest incrementalism’ towards openness(Matthews 2015, 310). What began as too radical in the 1960s was becoming seemingly inevitable by the 1990s. Each ‘jump’ or reform moved FOI closer and entrenched its place on the agenda. Even the Thatcher governments, the most resolutely pro-secrecy, passed a series of access-to-information laws across local government and policy sectors. The chapter examines the frequent reform attempts through case studies of the Wilson governments (1964–70) and the Labour governments of Wilson and Callaghan (1974–79) and finally Major’s attempt to pass an ‘FOI light’ via his Code of Access. It ends by looking at the concurrent ‘locking in’ of transparency across local government in the UK.
New Labour, new openness?
Authors: Worthy Ben
Published: September 2017

New Labour’s support for FOI was partially through willing embrace and partially through having it forced upon them. By the 1990s party backing, policy shifts and pragmatic opportunism had pushed the law centre stage.
FOI was partly thrust upon the Labour Party leadership. In the legislature, FOI’s long support in the Labour Party had built into a powerful current of cross-party support. It was also powered by the spread of FOI around the world and, perhaps mostly importantly, by rapidly shifting technology and changing public expectations in the area of information provision.
FOI was embraced by the leadership as very much a product of Labour’s eighteen years of out of power. FOI was an opportunistic policy that served to embarrass the secretive and ‘sleaze’-ridden Conservative government. It also chimed, after the experience of Thatcherism, with a current of Labour Party thought on breaking up power, and locked into a wide-ranging programme of constitutional reforms aimed at redesigning politics. More than this, the idea itself had obtained a powerful magnetic force. It was bound up with Labour’s sense of self and appealed as a policy that symbolised Labour’s radicalism and its new approach towards government and the people.
The 1997 White Paper: a symbolic victory?
Authors: Worthy Ben
Published: September 2017

In the UK FOI policy developed in a series of phases. This chapter covers the first stage of the development covered the first eight months, from Labour entering power in May 1997 to the publication of the White Paper Your Right to Know in December 1997. At this point, FOI appeared to avoid the ‘symbolic’ trap and overt conflict so frequently seen elsewhere. A small, well-connected group of crusaders inside government took advantage of their own power and used a favourable context to neutralise opposition, with a rapid process lending momentum to a far-Reaching policy. Their efforts resulted in a hugely symbolic White Paper, rapidly formulated, that offered one of the most radical FOI regimes yet seen in the world. The vision was of a political redistribution of power opening up even the very centre of government decision-making (Terrill 2000). However, doubts remained over the policy, its workability and the levels of support for it in government.
The 1999 draft Bill: the retreat becomes a rout
Authors: Worthy Ben
Published: September 2017

This chapter follows the process from January 1998 to the much delayed publication of the draft bill in 1999. The FOI bill ‘swapped’ policy team and, at this point, shifted the source of policy drive. With no internal champions the push came from a combination of the legislature, the media and the government’s own waning sense of duty to its manifesto.
The chapter focuses on the growing internal pressure from within the government to change the FOI commitment. Irvine’s combative approach led to short term success but a lack of consensus for moving forward. The proposed policy was threatening to key politicians and officials but also vulnerable due to the flaws within it. As Irvine’s radical plans stalled, senior figures, including the Prime Minister had growing doubts about the policy. Flaws in the White Paper were used to revise and weaken the policy while the fading power of the radical FOI group was reduced by Lord Irvine’s own personal loss of influence.
The key moment came in 1998 when FOI was transferred from supporter Irvine to sceptic Jack Straw and the Cabinet Office team broken up. This led to a much more detailed but much weaker draft FOI bill, which inserted a veto power for government and reduced the power of the independent reviewer. The original proposals were modified within the Cabinet committee. Yet the bill survived in part due to the insertion of a ‘five year’ implementation gap and the government’s lukewarm commitment to its reform agenda. However, the bill was not a wholesale watering down, as it added Parliament to the Act’s coverage.
FOI in the UK: survival and afterlife
Authors: Worthy Ben
Published: September 2017

The conclusion addresses the issue of why FOI survived, despite a lack of public interest. The UK FOI policy proceeded in distinct stages: an inside struggle followed by an external/internal conflict. The initial success of the White Paper was driven by insiders, rather than outside influence, aided by a particular context and the ignorance or disinterest of many key figures. In the later stages the drivers were very different as a complex interplay of factors kept FOI ‘alive’ as a policy. Government commitment to its manifesto generally and Blair’s public commitment to FOI helped ‘lock-in’ the government to some form of legislation when Parliament and the media applied pressure.
The chapter will briefly examine the UK legislation’s performance since 2000 across various parts of government. Drawing on academic studies (Worthy 2010: Worthy et al 2011) and official analysis (Justice 2012) it looks at the use and impact of FOI. It ends by looking at whether the fears of opponents and the hopes of supporters have come to pass.
Ireland and New Zealand: a legacy and an assault from within
Authors: Worthy Ben
Published: September 2017

This chapter looks at two countries that offer deviant cases-one where the legislation was passed through a consensual process and one where it was ‘imposed’ upon a new government by its predecessor.
• The Consensus Model in New Zealand: agreement between senior politicians and officials led to a consensual process around developing policy, driven by those who, elsewhere, frequently formed the core resistance to the process (White 2007; Snell 2001). This led to a step-by-step, conciliatory process and a dynamic and flexible law, frequently judged one of the strongest in the world (White 2007; Aitken 1998).
• The Imposed Model in Ireland: a series of controversial court cases and a scandal over infected beef in 1990s placed FOI on the agenda of two successive reformist governments. In 1997 legislation was passed as a ‘legacy’ policy in the dying days of a government which was then replaced with a successor deeply sceptical of FOI (Kearney and Stapleton 1998). The process meant FOI became a contentious and controversial issue from its inception (Felle and Adshead 2008). This represents another reason for FOI being passed, seen also in South America, whereby legislation is fostered upon a government as a legacy issue (Michener 2010).
Criminology through the looking-glass
Authors: Sumner Colin
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the ways in which it might be wiser to look at criminology in reverse. Not only do the rich get richer and the poor get prison, as Reiman's famous book title suggests, but the law would appear to operate in such a way that the crimes of the rich are the ones causing the greatest social harm yet receiving the weakest social censure, whilst the crimes of the poor and young cause the least social harm yet receive the greatest social censure. This is the stuff of a through-the-looking-glass Jabberwocky criminology whose reverse message can only be read by holding it up to the mirror. This chapter assesses whether this strange criminology can be explained by the analysis of mimesis and the mimetic double bind in the work of Renee Girard, or whether the phenomenon is better seen as an inevitable reflection of the roots of dominant social censures within dominant and contradictory social relations.