School of Humanities and Performing Arts
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Metadata only Margaret Maughan(Oxford University Press, 2023-12) Polley, MartinBiography of Margaret Maughan (1928-2020), multiple medallist at the International Stoke Mandeville Games, the forerunners to the Paralympics. Biography of Paralympian archer and swimmer Margaret Maughan (1928-2020)Item Open Access Coubertin Oak Tree, Much Wenlock(Arete Verlag, 2023) Polley, MartinA brief history of the oak tree that Pierre de Coubertin planted in Much Wenlock. The chapter forms part of a book on a history of European sport in 100 objects.Item Metadata only Clipped(Reflex Press, 2022-07-28) Dixon, Joanne'Clipped' is a story published in an international flash fiction anthology of international writers. The anthology contains page-long stories of less than 360 words selected for publication by Reflex Press.Item Metadata only The Olympic Winter Games at 100(Routledge, 2024) Dichter, Heather L.; Teetzel, Sarah2024 marks the 100-year anniversary of the winter sports week festival celebrated in Chamonix in 1924, which is now recognized as the first Olympic Winter Games. As a globally watched quadrennial mega-event, the winter Olympics is unique from both summer sport festivals and other winter festivals, such as the Winter X Games. This book explores the impacts, issues, and legacies of the past century of the Olympic Winter Games. Grounded in sport history, the chapters in this volume draw on the disciplines of cultural history, diplomatic history, global history, environmental history, and media history to analyze the continued allure of the winter Olympics, a century after its origin, and in light of the sustained and significant problems facing the Olympic movement. Host cities’ efforts to create positive and lasting legacies are analyzed to highlight the challenges and complexities that have plagued the Olympic movement throughout the last century. The Olympic Winter Games at 100 is essential reading for any researcher, advanced student, or scholar with an interest in Olympic Studies, sports development, sport policy, and history.Item Metadata only “Fairness versus inclusion”: Representations of transgender athletes in British newspaper reports(De Gruyter, 2023-11-20) Bailey, Aimee; Jones, LucyFollowing the increasing visibility of successful trans athletes and the rise of anti-gender movements such as ‘gender critical feminism’, policies concerning trans women’s participation in elite women’s sport have sparked intense debate in online and traditional media. Although policies about trans inclusion have been in place at the highest levels of sports, such as the Olympics, for decades, the perceived disruption of long-standing categories which are rooted in the concept of sex as a binary and immutable fact has proven deeply controversial. The issue also relates to broader discourse around the inclusion of trans women in female spaces more generally; this has become highly divisive, as gender critical voices argue that trans inclusion threatens women’s ‘sex-based rights’. We investigate the discourse surrounding this debate via a specific case study: representations of the American swimmer and trans woman Lia Thomas, whose win at a women’s 500-yard freestyle event in March 2022 led to widespread news coverage. We conduct corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of British newspaper coverage of this story, taking a queer and feminist approach to the data. We find that news coverage of trans inclusion in elite sport typically reproduces cisnormative assumptions about binary sex, and that implicitly transphobic language is often used to frame trans identities as abnormal. In this way, the inclusion of trans women in sport is framed as being fundamentally unfair to cisgender women. We argue that this discourse suppresses any serious consideration of how trans women could be included in elite sport, and advocate for media coverage which is informed by - and which represents - a more balanced range of perspectives.Item Metadata only Glossary of Printing and Misprinting: Japanese(Oxford University Press, 2023) Kato, Takako; Watanabe, Akihiko; Della Racca de Candel, Geri; Grafton, Anthony; Sachet, PaoloTranslation of Glossary of Printing and Misprinting into JapaneseItem Metadata only “No importance and no value”? Geniza sources on personal shopping and the 'economy of regard'(Bloomsbury Publishing India, 2023-07-30) Lambourn, ElizabethThis chapter explores the relationships between domestic and commercial worlds, and the potential of documents from the Cairo Geniza to contribute to this exploration. In this contribution, I focus on the shopping activities of India traders and the ways that shopping for business partners worked to consolidate networks as well as to build both domestic and commercial spaces. In the first part of this contribution, I drill down into the mechanisms of exchange which underlay the shipments of household items intended for personal and family use in India. In the second I work with the idea of the ‘economy of regard’ first proposed by the economic historian Avner Offer in the article ‘Between the Gift and the Market’, written in the late 1990s, to unpick how shopping for goods destined for ‘the personal use of the Jewish merchant in India and his family’ constituted an opportunity for the accumulation and consolidation of regard within the merchant community, or, from another perspective, a potentially dangerous activity that imperilled regard.Item Metadata only Sports and U.S. foreign relations(Oxford University Press, 2023) Dichter, Heather L.Against the long-standing claim that sport and politics should remain separate, the United States has long included sport within its broader foreign relations efforts. SinceDuring the second half of the nineteenth century American businessmen, members of the military, and missionaries all taught local populations how to play sports like baseball and basketball because they viewed their actions as part of the “civilizing mission” of Americans abroad. With the onset of the Cold War, the government began incorporating sport into its formal programs to promote the United States overseas, using athletes as a large part of its public diplomacy efforts. Federal programs related to physical education were implemented to improve American health in the interests of fighting the Soviet Union. Sport thus served a role in the global competition of the Cold War as well as contributing to building bridges with other states. In the twenty-first century the government formalized the use of sport within public diplomacy efforts with the establishment of a bureaucracy focused solely on sport. Sport also provided an avenue to spread American culture overseas as a model for organizing events and the approach to marketing and sponsorship. Both the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games and Nike’s contract with basketball player Michael Jordan established new forms of cultural capitalism. American professional teams have capitalized on their global interest by holding exhibition and regular-season games overseas, bringing an American sport experience to international audiences while simultaneously expanding marketing opportunities.Item Open Access Countering Anti-Muslim Racism by Fostering Spaces of Expression and Artist Creativity(European Coalition of Cities Against Racism, 2023-09-14) Easat-Daas, AminaItem Metadata only The Future of Local Councils(SLCC, 2023) Giovannini, Arianna; Griggs, Steven; Jones, Alistair; Parker, Stephen; Rose, JonathonItem Open Access Levelling Up in England: The strange omission of sub-municipal government(2023-09-07) Jones, AlistairThe UK government is very keen to promote the idea of 'levelling up'. This is about enabling the more deprived parts of the UK (and specifically England) to access various forms of funding to develop projects to assist the local economy and society. There is also encouragement to establish new bodies to assist in these developments, as well as empowering those already in existence. Yet there is one area that, while mentioned, is not really targeted: sub-municipal government. Sub-municipal government in England is much derided, and (for the most part) wrongly so. This is the one tier of government that has that close contact with the public; that is able to find out what is needed, and to deliver. Yet central government has chosen to ignore this tier. Instead, they look to the establishment of new, unaccountable bodies, in the mistaken belief that such bodies are better at service delivery. This paper is going to explore some of the thinking behind this omission, and to highlight the extent to which sub-municipal government in England has an essential role to play in the levelling up project.Item Embargo Crises of Authoritarian Financialization: Monetary Policy in Hungary and Türkiye in the Polycrisis(Routledge, 2023-08-25) Karas, David; Donmez, Pinar E.We identify in this chapter the contradictory objectives of monetary policy under an authoritarian mode of financialization (AF) in Emerging Market Economies (EMEs) where the executive branch intervenes directly in monetary policy, banking supervision and retail banking. We interpret AF as a statist-authoritarian attempt to manage the vulnerabilities of growth strategies under subordinate financialization: following Marxist theories of the state, we argue that instead of providing political-economic stabilization, statist authoritarianism merely internalizes class conflicts within the state apparatus spurring accumulation and legitimation dilemmas for the state. We illustrate two divergent crisis trajectories of AF in Hungary and Türkiye in the 2020–22 period by showing how executive centralization fails to solve the increasingly contradictory objectives of stabilizing sovereign and private debt markets. Instead, we observe enhanced incoherence in monetary policy and a diminishing capacity of AF regimes to shore up rentier social contracts. Although both cases face accumulation and legitimation dilemmas in 2022, we explain the consolidation of inflationary and disinflationary monetary policies with differences in debt profiles, social blocs, and external financing conditions.Item Metadata only Written evidence submitted by Dr. Josie Barnard SFHEA to the House of Lords Communication and Digital Committee on Digital Exclusion.(House of Lords, 2023-06-29) Barnard, JosieResearch led by Dr Barnard into how to enable ‘future-proofing’ (i.e. sustainable and resilient) digital upskilling demonstrates the need to a) support citizens’ development of digitally targeted creative flexibility and b) leverage ‘offline’ for online learning. ‘Online access is not the only factor in digital exclusion’, factors including ‘confidence in navigating the online sphere’ are ‘prerequisites to reaping the full benefits of the internet’.[1] Individuals’ levels of digital skills can go down as well as up. Accepting the possibility that all citizens could become digitally excluded and thus prioritising investment that empowers individuals for long-term digital upskilling will benefit individuals and society. To unlock value, we need an approach to digital exclusion by government and industry that responds robustly to the fact that access and basic training alone is not enough. We need that approach to embrace the fact that human responses such as lack of confidence and/or fear can be key. Overall, Barnard’s findings support the need for approaches to digital engagement by government and industry that embrace broadened understandings of digital exclusion and invest in space for and initiatives that enable citizens to a) develop digitally targeted creative flexibility and b) embed offline in online learning.Item Open Access Homelessness, Public Space and Civil Disobedience(Wiley, 2023-05-05) Stevens, SimonThis paper argues that anti-social behaviour, in the context of homelessness, ought to be seen as acts of civil disobedi-ence. Firstly, I identify public space as a hostile space for people experiencing homelessness. Secondly, I detail how this reveals a default interpretation of them as anti-social through their mere presence. Thirdly, I explore how this de-politicises. I go onto define and examine civil disobedience theory, as a counter narrative to anti-social behaviour. I then argue how acts of disruption by people experiencing homelessness in public space can qualify as civil disobedience. I acknowledge this as a wicked problem but claim that flipping the default framing of homelessness in this way has normative gain, undoing the de-politicising othering that anti-social behaviour narratives have caused.Item Embargo Leper Islands: Coronavirus and the homeless other(Routledge, 2021-12-31) Stevens, SimonThis chapter theorises the discourses around the homeless prior to, during and after the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK. It begins by examining how their vulnerability to the virus was communicated through Covid-19 Government Press Conferences, which emphasised the emergency provision of accommodation for rough sleepers. The chapter goes on to explore the prevalence, pre-Covid-19, of hostile strategies mobilised in response to the problem of homelessness, to show how homelessness in ‘normal’ circumstances was not considered an emergency. I use the idea of Foucault’s regulatory power to explain the predominance of punishing dispersal methods, and George Bataille’s work on taboo, to elucidate the homeless othering which encouraged such an approach. This provokes us to then ask what is it that makes street homelessness an emergency now? The answer I propose, in the shadow of Foucault’s biopolitics, is the public health threat they currently present, rather than any lasting commitment to ending homelessness. The offer of emergency accommodation seems at first sight to contradict previous dispersal methods and signal a potential shift in policy and prejudice. When, however, we apply this biopolitical framework, the Government’s approach appears more consistent with past attitudes, because it used accommodation as a means of securing the general population against a ‘homeless bio-hazard’. I end the chapter, therefore, questioning any real long-term commitment to solving homelessness postCovid-19, utilising Machiavelli’s concepts of Fortuna, Virtu and Accidente.Item Embargo Writing a textbook is good for you(Springer, 2023-07-04) Blair, AlasdairThis chapter explores the challenges and opportunities offered from writing textbooks. Drawing on the author’s own experience of writing and editing over 10 books, the chapter demonstrates how textbook writing should be considered an important part of an academic’s career. The chapter argues that writing textbooks needs to be viewed once again as an important aspect of a political science academic’s contribution to the discipline and that promotion criteria within universities should attach just as much importance to textbook writing as writing articles for publication in academic journals. The reason for this is twofold: first, at a time when there is a general decline in trust in politics across the world, it is more important than ever to communicate and discuss these issues to as wide an audience as possible, including both undergraduate students and the general public. Second, writing a textbook requires the writer to explain complex points clearly to a general audience. This is quite different from journal writing, which can sometimes be impenetrable to the non-academic.Item Open Access Research transparency and openness(Springer, 2023-04-04) Basile, Linda; Blair, Alasdair; Buckley, FionaIn this editorial, we present the new guidelines for research transparency and open data when publishing in European Political Science. These standards are drawn from the Transparency and Openness Promotion guidelines. In introducing these guidelines, we take an opportunity to reflect on the importance of research transparency, the challenges that it faces, and offer a few suggestions to encourage and foster a culture of open data.Item Open Access Do we need urban parish councils? The problems in England(2023-06-23) Jones, AlistairThe current UK government appears very keen to promote devolution through the levelling up agenda. Some of this is clearly aimed at forms of regional government, although confusingly described as devolving to the local. There is also a clear push to encourage sub-municipal organisations to get involved due to their close links with the community. In fact, the government is very keen for the establishment of sub-municipal organisations to assist in this levelling up agenda. Within the documentation, parish and town councils – the most obvious form of sub-municipal government – hardly get a mention. The creation of such bodies is not mentioned. Yet these bodies can be among the most effective routes in finding out what services are needed and how to deliver them. Such sub-municipalities are prominent in rural England. There are over 9 000 sub-municipalities, the vast majority of which are ‘rural’ or ‘semi-rural’. There are some large urban sub-municipalities – Queen’s Park (in London), the city of Salisbury, Sutton Coldfield, to name but three. Yet these are a distinct minority. The aim of this paper is to explore why such sub-municipalities are so rare in England. Some of this is down to a lack of sub-local leadership. In other instances, local councils have devolved small amounts of expenditure to the ward level, and have encouraged the creation of neighbourhood councils. There is also the issue of identity. People may, for example, describe themselves as living in a particular suburb of a town or city - but only to fellow residents of said city, or those who live nearby. This lack of identity is problematic. If central government was to push for the parishing of all of England, there would be significant issues in drawing the boundaries of the proposed parishes, as well as the allocation of powers and finances.Item Metadata only Against austerity and repression: Historical and contemporary manifestations of progressive politicisation in Turkey(Sage, 2020-05-06) Donmez, Pinar E.This paper aims to explore the growing and deepening trend of politics of repression coupled with prolonged crisis and austerity politics, reflecting on the potentials as well as limitations of progressive politics in such a constrained context. Austerity policies continue pushing for anti-labour and reactionary politics in a variety of forms reflecting the unresolved crisis conditions of contemporary capitalism. While the liberal democratic state-form remains relatively intact in particular contexts, in others, it gradually evolves into repressive forms. The growing repression risks conceiving the anti-authoritarian struggles and the anti-capitalist and labour movements separate and/or mutually exclusive. This review article draws on the recent insights of (de)politicization, labour geography and history and political economy scholarships with specific reference to the case of Turkey while cautioning against the binary thinking of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in leftist and labour mobilisations. It proposes a historical perspective in order to appreciate the diversity and multiplicity of struggles against the intersecting nodes of austerity, capitalism and repression in the complex geographies of periphery.Item Metadata only Islamophobia in Belgium: National Report 2020(Leopold Weiss Institute, 2021-09-21) Easat-Daas, Amina