Brexit on Stage: Two Verbatim Projects in Progress

The article deals with two post-Referendum projects launched by British national organizations, the National Theatre and the Guardian with Headlong, whose task was to reflect more accurately on a broader range of current British experience. The projects were written in response to questions on whether national artistic institutions, the subsidized “complex culture,” have not been out of touch with the rest of the country, notably the post-Referendum crisis. Both projects set out to research the crisis with documentary and quasi-documentary methods, to involve in an exercise in “listening” and to focus on polarisation, voter fatigue and lack of trust. The article concentrates on the two projects as variants of political theatre and on the ways they use the verbatim method in their attempts to diagnose and understand the crisis arguing, further on, that the effects differ, leading either to populism or to empathetic understanding and reconciliation.

How Much Choice is Enough? Parental Satisfaction with Secondary School Choice in England and Scotland

Governments around the world have sought to promote school choice, not just in order to improve educational outcomes, but also because such choice is believed to be intrinsically valuable: parents are believed to want to choice and to feel empowered by it. This article empirically evaluates the intrinsic value of school choice, comparing the attitudes and experiences of parents in England (where expanding choice is an explicit policy goal) and Scotland (where policymakers tend to play down choice), combining an online survey with in-depth interviews. While the overwhelming majority of parents in both countries express a desire for some school choice, only a minority want choice primarily for intrinsic reasons. Rather, most believe it is necessary to avoid negative outcomes for their children. Moreover, while parents in England tend to say they have more choice than their Scottish counterparts, they are no more satisfied with the level of choice that they have. Indeed, they tend to be more cynical, fatalistic and disempowered. Based on the British experience, school choice policies have not been successful in promoting intrinsic value.

Unproductive Co-production: European Integration, the British Film Industry and the Franco-British Co-production Agreement of 1965

The negotiation of bilateral co-production agreements had a major impact on European film-making from the 1950s to the 1970s. These agreements also provided the basis for the closer integration of Europe's film industries within what was then the European Economic Community (EEC). However, the British government was slow to adopt co-production arrangements and British film-makers tended to be more reticent about using them once they were made available. This article examines the British experience of European co-production during this period, focusing on the negotiation and implementation of the Franco-British co-production agreement of 1965 in the context of broader debates about film production and policy within the EEC. Particular attention is given to Someone Behind the Door (1971), a proposed Franco-British film which was ultimately made as a collaboration between French and Italian production companies after delays on the British side caused the French producer to withdraw from the UK. The correspondence collected by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) as the proposal for Someone Behind the Door was processed – including input from film union and producer associations – provides a unique insight into the bureaucratic policies and procedures which encumbered European co-production in Britain. While continental film-makers established comfortable habits of cooperation, British co-production was stymied from the outset by a misalignment between the interests of Britain's government, its film unions and its producers.

Africana Cultural Memory in the Afroeuropean Context

With the publication of Black Cultural Mythology (2020), the discipline of Africology and African American Studies has a better resource that answers the call for methodological and theoretical tools to institutionalize Africana cultural memory studies as a robust subfield. This content analysis tests the applicability of the critical framework of Black cultural mythology—which emerges from a study of the African American Diaspora of the United States—with the Afroeuropean Diaspora, namely the Black British experience. A feature of this study’s methodology is evaluating the efficacy of the genre of anthology—in this case Kwesi Owusu’s Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader (2000)—as a comprehensive source suitable for content analysis and from which to infer a sense of the region’s approaches to cultural memory and memory-adjacent worldviews.

A weapon too far: The British radiological warfare experience, 1940–1955

Between 1940 and 1955, Britain explored controversial radiological weapons. Keen to discover further military uses for atomic energy, defence officials and scientists initially approached the field with much hope and optimism. However, technical difficulties, economic costs, public and political aversion, competition from other controversial weapons, and even the resistance of scientists themselves, soon came to dominate the direction of policy. This article explores the unique British experience with radiological weapons, determines how far Britain ventured down this questionable path, and accounts for why, after over a decade of research, they were judged a step too far.

Peran Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles Dalam Sistem Pajak Bumi di Pulau Jawa Tahun 1811-1816

This study aims to determine: 1) the background of Raffles in implementing the landrent system, 2) how the implementation of landrents 3) the impact after the implementation of landrents in Java in 1811-1816. This study uses a literature research method, in approaching events in the past so that historical events can be explained chronologically. The steps in this research are collecting data sources, criticizing both external and internal sources, continued with interpretation, and historiography. The results showed (1) the background of landrents replacing the forced cultivation system in Java was implemented inspired by the British experience in India. (2) The landrent system can be implemented if it can control the territory, either through diplomacy or a ceasefire to control the territory so that the system works, the landrent system was initially implemented per village, in 1814 it was changed to an individual tax system which actually made it worse, especially for farmers. (3) For the UK, the landrent system was implemented without responsibility, inconsistency in implementing the rules. For the island of Java, the implementation of the traffic rules running on the left, adopted from England, the crime rate decreased, paying attention to culture, Javanese literature, historical heritage. When the Dutch returned, the landrent system continued until 1830.

MODERN PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATION AND FUNCTIONING OF THE PROFESSIONAL FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATION COURSES IN GREAT BRITAIN

The objective of this article is to analyze the content of the professional foreign language communication courses at the universities of Great Britain – Oxford, Cambridge and London School of Economics. The purpose of our project is to identify the features of the organization and functioning of the professional foreign language communication courses at universities of Great Britain and to substantiate the possibilities of using the British experience in Ukraine. According to the purpose of the project, the following main tasks of our research are defined: to study the state of the problem research; to investigate the directions of reforming courses in Great Britain; to describe the organization and functioning of the professional foreign language communication courses; to carry out a comparative and pedagogical analysis of language policy in Ukraine and Great Britain and to exemplify some recommendations for the possible implementation of the experience of Great Britain in the practice of higher education in our country. The object of the project is the professional foreign language communication courses in universities of Great Britain. The subject of the study is the content, forms, methods and technologies of the above mentioned courses. During our research it has been proved that an important incentive for the creation of courses is the introduction and practice of both compulsory and optional elective courses in British universities. The practical significance of the obtained results of the project lies in the possibility of using the experience of organizing and functioning of professional foreign language communication courses in universities of Great Britain in higher educational institutions of Ukraine.