Anti-Militarist Direct Action

Author(s):  
Chris Rossdale

This chapter outlines the understanding of direct action on which the rest of the book builds. It begins with two vignettes of notable anti-militarist direct actions, before setting out some formal definitions of direct action. It then outlines a brief history of anti-militarist direct action in the UK, showing how the tactic developed through the two world wars and the anti-nuclear movements of the 1950s and 80s. The second half of the chapter introduces four concepts through which we can read the politics of direct action. These concepts – (anti-)representation, prefiguration, (anti-)strategy and empowerment – and the debates that surround them, help to situate direct action not only as a particular practice or tactic, but as generative of particular kinds of subjects, movements, and approaches to social transformation.

Costume ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Almond ◽  
Caroline Riches

This article was prompted by the discovery of the archive of international fashion designer Gerald McCann, hidden in a garage in Fleetwood, Lancashire, UK. The contents of the archive revealed a treasure trove of press cuttings, photographs, fashion drawings and interviews as well as designs and costings from a once well-known designer, whose significance to the global fashion industry is sparsely documented and largely forgotten. The article reveals the history of the designer, who graduated from the Royal College of Art in London in the 1950s, during the tenure of Professor Madge Garland, and forged a career at the heart of ‘Swinging London’ in the 1960s. He was lured to the USA in the 1970s, returning to the UK in the 1990s as a designer for House of Fraser and Harrods. The research offers the first significant assessment of McCann's position in global fashion and the value and relevance of his legacy, as well as exploring the rationale for documenting the history of forgotten fashion designers.


2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
AVANTHI MEDURI

In this paper, I discuss issues revolving around history, historiography, alterity, difference and otherness concealed in the doubled Indian/South Asian label used to describe Indian/South Asian dance genres in the UK. The paper traces the historical genealogy of the South Asian label to US, Indian and British contexts and describes how the South Asian enunciation fed into Indian nation-state historiography and politics in the 1950s. I conclude by describing how Akademi: South Asian Dance, a leading London based arts organisation, explored the ambivalence in the doubled Indian/South Asian label by renaming itself in 1997, and forging new local/global networks of communication and artistic exchange between Indian and British based dancers and choreographers at the turn of the twenty-first century.


Author(s):  
C. Claire Thomson

This chapter traces the early history of state-sponsored informational filmmaking in Denmark, emphasising its organisation as a ‘cooperative’ of organisations and government agencies. After an account of the establishment and early development of the agency Dansk Kulturfilm in the 1930s, the chapter considers two of its earliest productions, both process films documenting the manufacture of bricks and meat products. The broader context of documentary in Denmark is fleshed out with an account of the production and reception of Poul Henningsen’s seminal film Danmark (1935), and the international context is accounted for with an overview of the development of state-supported filmmaking in the UK, Italy and Germany. Developments in the funding and output of Dansk Kulturfilm up to World War II are outlined, followed by an account of the impact of the German Occupation of Denmark on domestic informational film. The establishment of the Danish Government Film Committee or Ministeriernes Filmudvalg kick-started aprofessionalisation of state-sponsored filmmaking, and two wartime public information films are briefly analysed as examples of its early output. The chapter concludes with an account of the relations between the Danish Resistance and an emerging generation of documentarists.


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna McMullan ◽  
Trish McTighe ◽  
David Pattie ◽  
David Tucker

This multi-authored essay presents some selected initial findings from the AHRC Staging Beckett research project led by the Universities of Reading and Chester with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. For example, how did changes in economic and cultural climates, such as funding structures, impact on productions of Beckett's plays in the UK and Ireland from the 1950s to the first decade of the twenty-first century? The paper will raise historiographical questions raised by the attempts to map or construct performance histories of Beckett's theatre in the UK and Ireland.


Transfers ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Torma

This article deals with the history of underwater film and the role that increased mobility plays in the exploration of nature. Drawing on research on the exploration of the ocean, it analyzes the production of popular images of the sea. The entry of humans into the depths of the oceans in the twentieth century did not revitalize myths of mermaids but rather retold oceanic myths in a modern fashion. Three stages stand out in this evolution of diving mobility. In the 1920s and 1930s, scenes of divers walking under water were the dominant motif. From the 1940s to the 1960s, use of autonomous diving equipment led to a modern incarnation of the “mermen“ myth. From the 1950s to the 1970s, cinematic technology was able to create visions of entire oceanic ecosystems. Underwater films contributed to the period of machine-age exploration in a very particular way: they made virtual voyages of the ocean possible and thus helped to shape the current understanding of the oceans as part of Planet Earth.


Author(s):  
Travis D. Stimeling

Nashville Cats: Record Production in Music City, 1945–1975 is the first history of record production during country music’s so-called Nashville Sound era. This period of country music history produced some of the genre’s most celebrated recording artists, including Country Music Hall of Fame inductees Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, and Floyd Cramer, and marked the establishment of a recording industry that has come to define Nashville in the national and international consciousness. Yet, despite country music’s overwhelming popularity during this period and the continued legacy of the studios that were built in Nashville during the 1950s and 1960s, little attention has been given to the ways in which recording engineers, session musicians, and record producers shaped the sounds of country music during the time. Drawing upon a rich array of previously unexplored primary sources, Nashville Cats: Record Production in Music City, 1945–1975 is the first book to take a global view of record production in Nashville during the three decades that the city’s musicians established the city as the leading center for the production and distribution of country music.


Author(s):  
Ros Scott

This chapter explores the history of volunteers in the founding and development of United Kingdom (UK) hospice services. It considers the changing role and influences of volunteering on services at different stages of development. Evidence suggests that voluntary sector hospice and palliative care services are dependent on volunteers for the range and quality of services delivered. Within such services, volunteer trustees carry significant responsibility for the strategic direction of the organiszation. Others are engaged in diverse roles ranging from the direct support of patient and families to public education and fundraising. The scope of these different roles is explored before considering the range of management models and approaches to training. This chapter also considers the direct and indirect impact on volunteering of changing palliative care, societal, political, and legislative contexts. It concludes by exploring how and why the sector is changing in the UK and considering the growing autonomy of volunteers within the sector.


Author(s):  
Sam Brewitt-Taylor

This chapter outlines three examples of how secular theology was put into practice in the 1960s: Nick Stacey’s innovations in the parish of Woolwich; the radicalization of the ‘Parish and People’ organization; and the radicalization of Britain’s Student Christian Movement, which during the 1950s was the largest student religious organization in the country. The chapter argues that secular theology contained an inherent dynamic of ever-increasing radicalization, which irresistibly propelled its adherents from the ecclesiastical radicalism of the early 1960s to the more secular Christian radicalism of the late 1960s. Secular theology promised that the reunification of the church and the world would produce nothing less than the transformative healing of society. As the 1960s went on, this vision pushed radical Christian leaders to sacrifice more and more of their ecclesiastical culture as they pursued their goal of social transformation.


Author(s):  
Katherine Bode

This chapter on the history of book publishing in Australia divides Australian novel publishing since 1950 into three periods: the 1950s and 1960s, the 1970s and 1980s, and the 1990s to the present. During the 1950s and 1960s, British companies dominated the publication of Australian novels and publishing decisions were predominantly made overseas, but the period also witnessed a ‘local publishing boom’, driven by the belief in the importance of Australian literature and publishing. The 1970s and 1980s saw the growth of a vibrant local publishing industry, supported by cultural nationalist policies and broad social changes. At the same time, the significant economic and logistical challenges of local publishing led to closures and mergers, and — along with the increasing globalization of publishing — enabled the entry of large, multinational corporations into the market. This latter trend, and the processes of globalization and deregulation, continued in the 1990s and beyond.


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