scholarly journals Mickey B/Macbeth: Bringing Shakespeare to Prisons and Academia via Film Adaptation

Author(s):  
Rosa García Periago

This article examines in detail the project that will be carried out in Murcia (Spain) in 2021 involving Mickey B (dir. Tom Magill, 2007), a full-length film adaptation of Macbeth, filmed and created by the inmates of a high-security prison in Northern Ireland, Her Majesty’s Prison Maghaberry. As part of my collaboration with the Educational Shakespeare Company (ESC, now rebranded as esc films), a charity with branches in Northern Ireland and the US, I translated Mickey B into Spanish. Through this translation, I intend to introduce esc film’s work with socially excluded groups to both marginalized groups themselves and to academia in order to bring into focus the possibilities of community engagement and the necessary interlinks between academia and what happens beyond the academic world. This case study is the first to examine a finished Prison Shakespeare film project (Mickey B) outside Northern Ireland. It aims to analyze the process and artistic outcome of the project and to introduce into a Spanish context some of the ideas promoted by the film (the choice of Shakespeare’s plays to promote a reparative cultural work or the notion of inmates as victims as well as perpetrators). However, my aim is to go beyond prison Shakespeare, and to explore the numerous possibilities a film adaptation like Mickey B could have, not only in a prison context, but also within academia and film theatres. The constant and ongoing interconnections between the different scenarios and agents make this project the first of its kind in Spain.

Author(s):  
Brandon W. Kliewer ◽  
Lorilee R. Sandmann ◽  
B. PanduRanga Narasimharao

Corporate-university partnerships have the potential to create a myriad of mutually beneficial and reciprocal outcomes that support a larger public good. Within the various expressions of engagement, this chapter situates the outreach and engagement model historically and politically in the United States (US). A case study of a successful corporate-university partnership in the US is provided and is analyzed using the tenets of community engagement. The discussion of the case features three lessons that have the potential to inform corporate-university partnerships in contexts outside the US. Finally, approaches for implementing university outreach and engagement in the Indian context are proposed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Lansbury Hall ◽  
Jarra Hicks ◽  
Taryn Lane ◽  
Emily Wood

The wind industry is positioned to contribute significantly to a clean energy future, yet the level of community opposition has at times led to unviable projects. Social acceptance is crucial and can be improved in part through better practice community engagement and benefit-sharing. This case study provides a “snapshot” of current community engagement and benefit-sharing practices for Australian wind farms, with a particular emphasis on practices found to be enhancing positive social outcomes in communities. Five methods were used to gather views on effective engagement and benefit-sharing: a literature review, interviews and a survey of the wind industry, a Delphi panel, and a review of community engagement plans. The overarching finding was that each community engagement and benefit-sharing initiative should be tailored to a community’s context, needs and expectations as informed by community involvement. This requires moving away from a “one size fits all” approach. This case study is relevant to wind developers, energy regulators, local communities and renewable energy-focused non-government organizations. It is applicable beyond Australia to all contexts where wind farm development has encountered conflicted societal acceptance responses.


Author(s):  
Michael Mascarenhas

Three very different field sites—First Nations communities in Canada, water charities in the Global South, and the US cities of Flint and Detroit, Michigan—point to the increasing precariousness of water access for historically marginalized groups, including Indigenous peoples, African Americans, and people of color around the globe. This multi-sited ethnography underscores a common theme: power and racism lie deep in the core of today’s global water crisis. These cases reveal the concrete mechanisms, strategies, and interconnections that are galvanized by the economic, political, and racial projects of neoliberalism. In this sense neoliberalism is not only downsizing democracy but also creating both the material and ideological forces for a new form of discrimination in the provision of drinking water around the globe. These cases suggest that contemporary notions of environmental and social justice will largely hinge on how we come to think about water in the twenty-first century.


Author(s):  
Gregory S. Jay

White liberal race fiction has been an enduringly popular genre in American literary history. It includes widely read and taught works such as Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird along with period bestsellers now sometimes forgotten. Hollywood regularly adapted them into blockbusters, reinforcing their cultural influence. These novels and films protest slavery, confront stereotypes, dramatize social and legal injustices, engage the political controversies of their time, and try to move readers emotionally toward taking action. The literary forms and arguments of these books derive from the cultural work they intend to do in educating the minds and hearts, and propelling the actions, of those who think they are white—indeed, in making the social construction of that whiteness readable and thus more susceptible of reform. The white writers of these fictions struggle with their own place in systems of oppression and privilege while asking their readers to do the same. The predominance of women among this tradition’s authors leads to exploring how their critiques of gender and race norms often reinforced each other. Each chapter provides a case study combining biography, historical analysis, close reading, and literary theory to map the significance of this genre and its ongoing relevance. This tradition remains vital because every generation must relearn the lessons of antiracism and formulate effective cultural narratives for passing on the intellectual and emotional tools useful in fighting injustice.


Author(s):  
Jonathan S. Blake

Why do people participate in controversial symbolic events that drive wedges between groups and occasionally spark violence? This book examines this question through an in-depth case study of Northern Ireland. Protestant organizations perform over 2,500 parades across Northern Ireland each year. Protestants tend to see the parades as festive occasions that celebrate Protestant history and culture. Catholics, however, tend to see them as hateful, intimidating, and triumphalist. As a result, parades have been a major source of conflict in the years since the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. This book examines why, given the often negative consequences, people choose to participate in these parades. Drawing on theories from the study of contentious politics and the study of ritual, the book argues that paraders are more interested in the benefits intrinsic to participation in a communal ritual than the external consequences of their action. The book presents analysis of original quantitative and qualitative data to support this argument and to test it against prominent alternative explanations. Interview, survey, and ethnographic data are also used to explore issues central to parade participation, including identity expression, commemoration, tradition, the pleasures of participation, and communicating a message to outside audiences. The book additionally examines a paradox at the center of parading: while most observers see parades as political events, the participants do not. Altogether, the book offers a new perspective on politics and culture in the aftermath of ethnic violence.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Bennett

Cannabis (marijuana) is the most commonly consumed, universally produced, and frequently trafficked psychoactive substance prohibited under international drug control laws. Yet, several countries have recently moved toward legalization. In these places, the legal status of cannabis is complex, especially because illegal markets persist. This chapter explores the ways in which a sector’s legal status interacts with political consumerism. The analysis draws on a case study of political consumerism in the US and Canadian cannabis markets over the past two decades as both countries moved toward legalization. It finds that the goals, tactics, and leadership of political consumerism activities changed as the sector’s legal status shifted. Thus prohibition, semilegalization, and new legality may present special challenges to political consumerism, such as silencing producers, confusing consumers, deterring social movements, and discouraging discourse about ethical issues. The chapter concludes that political consumerism and legal status may have deep import for one another.


Author(s):  
Kasey Barr ◽  
Alex Mintz

This chapter examines the effect of group dynamics on the 2016 decision within the administration of President Barack Obama to lead the international coalition in a mission to liberate Raqqa, Syria, from the Islamic State. The authors show that whereas the groupthink syndrome characterized the decision-making process of the US-led coalition’s decision to attack Raqqa, it was polythink that characterized the decision-making dynamics both in the US-led coalition and within the inner circle of Obama’s own foreign policy advisors. Through case-study analysis, the authors illustrate that groupthink is more likely in strategic decisions, whereas polythink is more likely in tactical decisions.


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