The 2024 political landscape was marked by two pivotal events for the Conservative Party: the 4 July general election and the November leadership election. The July election followed a period of instability and contentious debates over Britain’s post-Brexit trajectory. In the November election, four candidates – Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat – competed to define the party’s future direction. This was the fifth leadership election within the space of eight years. In both events, culture war issues emerged as important, reflecting a broader populist strategy to frame the party as the defender of traditional and, accordingly, common sense values against the perceived liberal overreach of the Labour Party. Drawing on theories of cultural hegemony, populism and political communication to analyse key speeches by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and new Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, this article investigates the reasons behind the choice of such strategies, their impact on electoral outcomes and their broader implications for political discourse.
The paper aims to analyze the construction of the character JJ in Emma Donoghue’s short story “The Welcome” (2006). The story portrays Luce’s sexual awakening for JJ, the new resident of the women-only cooperative living residence, The Welcome. The shyness of JJ and her supposed indifference to the attempt at a romantic approach and friendship made by Luce is a reaction to the process of transgenderism. If, as the Argentine critic Ricardo Piglia (2000) argues, all short stories narrate two stories, the first is a frustrated love story, and the second is about JJ’s revelation as a transgender person. The critical intervention undertaken in this article challenges and exposes internalized images and racial regimes of representation by demonstrating that the signs and elements which prepare the reader for JJ’s revelation represent her as an abject character. From being fundamental to the theory of subjectivity (Kristeva 1988, McAfee 2004) to a signifying practice of the body and sexuality (Butler 1999), abjection is a common signifier of blackness (Scott 2010). By intersecting race, gender, and sexual identities, the short story fails to represent JJ as a complete subject because it articulates stereotypical images around blackness and transgenderism, casting, at once, both terms as abjection. Thus, the centralization of Luce’s desire and the representation of JJ as an abject character suggest the impossibility of intimacy for the black queer body within the homonormative parameters of gender, sexuality, and race.
In Melt (2017), by Shane Mac an Bhaird, two Irish scientists struggle in the Antarctic to reach glory from their research while Veba, a female creature found in the subglacial lake, questions the reality or fantasy of the episode. The study carried out in this article considers, first, the context of creation of the play through the presentation of the concept of new Irish theatres in the millennium, which involves the appearance of companies and social activism movements that challenge the notion of what theatre means. This is followed by an analysis of Ireland and the Anthropocene, to contextualise the play themes and include other social justice activisms, in the form of cultural projects, which encourage the reduction of the environmental impact and provide a backdrop against which Melt emerged. The approach to the play from these perspectives will lead to the conclusions, which aim to show why Mac an Bhaird’s work offers and confirms new perspectives in contemporary Irish theatre. Furthermore, the study aims to contribute to the deserving scholarship for this play, which has not yet received much critical attention.
Some aspects of the complex intellectual discussion that accompanied the transformation of the British colonial system at the beginning of the 20th century are considered. Based on the analysis of published works, a generalized description of the conceptual views of the members of the “Round Table” group regarding the formation of the political and legal foundations of the British Commonwealth, as well as the development of close cooperation between Great Britain and self-governing dominions is given. At the same time, special attention is paid to the study of the practical significance of the ideas of A. Milner, L. Curtis and other intellectuals who were part of the group of intellectuals for transforming the forms and methods of managing the vast domains of the British crown. This transformation was due to a complex of factors of a socio-economic, political, moral and psychological nature, which Great Britain was forced to face in the first decades of the 20th century. It is noted that the changes that took place in the governing system of the largest colonial empire in history, among other things, contributed to the subsequent formation of mechanisms of international influence, which at the beginning of the 21st century were called “soft power”. It is shown that, on the other hand, in their theoretical constructions A. Milner and his followers strove to preserve the continuity of the ideology of imperialism, which gained popularity in the British establishment in the late Victorian period.
Slavic languages. Baltic languages. Albanian languages
The history of Freemasonry in Banat still hides many unknown things. The historical course of many lodges in this region is not yet fully known. If we know enough data about some lodges such as the one in Reșiţa, those in Timișoara and others, we have too little data about some lodges, such as the one in Caransebeș or Lipova. Moreover, the museum artifacts that come from lesser-known lodges allow us to reconstruct their history and even the history of certain characters. In this sense, the museum institutions from Great Britain are very helpful; they keep in their collections medals of some lodges from Banat or even original documents, lists of lodges from Banat, etc. These artifacts and documents have not been studied so far and represent a novelty in reconstructing the history of Banat Freemasonry. Examples are the medals of the Irenea lodge in Caransebeș and Concordia in Lipova. The history of these lodges is known only in fragments, and the study of these medals allows us to complete the data on these little known lodges. Another piece unknown to the Romanian academic public is a medal of the „Three white lilies” lodge from Timișoara. The Museum of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Worcestershire and the Museum of Freemasonry in London are very helpful in this regard by offering the opportunity to study the pieces kept in their collections. In our study, we also present the work of a Serbian Freemason from Paris, D. Tomitch, on the rights and interests of Serbs in Banat Timisoara on certain territories within Romania. The English Masonic press is another resource that has not been fully exploited so far. Usually, studies on the history of Romanian Freemasonry cite foreign literature, but very little or almost no Masonic foreign press, especially the old press. However, in the British Masonic press, we find valuable references to Freemasonry in Romania and including Banat, from different historical periods. In the case of Banat Freemasonry, the references in the British press date from the second half of the 19th century. We find references regarding the lodges in Arad, Timișoara, Oraviţa, Lipova, and Caransebeș. All this information, compared to what we know so far, gives us the chance to detect the mistakes made in previous chronological dating but also to complete what we lacked in terms of information.
Through a focus on two examples of industrial militancy by South Asian women workers in the UK that took place thirty years apart – the Grunwick and Gate Gourmet disputes - this article explores the effectiveness of the trade union movement in representing minority ethnic women workers. We examine these two disputes in the context of the changing nature of the labour market and the significant shift in industrial relations legislation between the 1970s and the 2000s. We reflect on what these two disputes indicate about the extent to which the British trade union movement has changed to reflect the priorities and experience of migrant women workers in the UK over the last four decades.
This article focuses on the ways in which masculinities are represented in John Michael McDonagh’s film The Guard and how they relate to satire. Following Pat Kirkham and Janet Thumim’s framework, four different so-called “masculinity sites” are considered in a textual analysis of the film. The first site, the body, is doubly explored: with his dignified and discreet star persona, the way Brendan Gleeson contributes to the construction of Sergeant Gerry Boyle’s body is significant, as is the manner in which the physical bodies of the male characters are portrayed, with particular focus on Boyle. The second site, action, gives the audience the chance to see Boyle in a variety of situations which result in him acquiring a legendary status. In the realm of the third site, the external world, Boyle is heavily influenced by his relationship to the Garda. In the final site, the internal world, Boyle reveals himself to have the capacity to listen to and understand both a colleague’s widow and his own terminally ill mother. The contrast between Boyle’s arguably heroic attitude and the politically incorrect and racist language he employs to undermine people in power contributes to the film’s elaborate construction of satire.
In The Nether World, published in 1889, Gissing portrays the squalid life of the working class in London through a very pessimistic vision of British society. The urban setting, which is used as a backdrop, also plays a crucial role in the creation of a universe akin to hell. The evocations of the landscape and of nature, which are rare but extremely efficient, therefore seem to serve the unfolding of a perfectly orchestrated narrative. Such evocations generate clusters of images which are first meant to convey some grim picture of reality but which also lead to a poetic and fleeting representation of the elements, a reverie on the « dung-heap » (a metaphor defining the naturalist novel) and on the flowers which grow from it.
John Henry Newman’s reflections on what he described as ‘the theology of a religious imagination’ contain considerations that are relevant to the disciplines of philosophy and literature as well as theology. Newman was convinced that all beliefs—religious, secular or political—must first be credible to the imagination and that the religious object is only adequately appropriated via an imaginative process that calls to mind the working of the literary imagination. Drawing especially on the Romantic tradition, Newman portrays the imagination as the capacity to relate to an object as a ‘whole’, that is to say, as something with a claim on us. This understanding of the imagination is at work in Newman’s discussion of the ‘idea’ of Christianity and its progress (or lack thereof) through history. The Christian ‘idea’ can only be discerned to the degree that it comes to expression in a variety of historical forms. These, in turn, become the object of inquiry and reflection. For Newman, then, the adequate appropriation of the object of Christian faith requires both an act of the imagination and a willingness to engage in critical, historical reflection.