scholarly journals Fighting Thatcher with Comedy: What to Do When There Is No Alternative

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 374-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavin Schaffer

AbstractThis article offers a history of British alternative comedy as a case study of political challenge and opposition in the 1980s and considers the role of humor in political campaigning more broadly. It explores left-wing thinking on culture as a potential political weapon, and questions how this informed the development and impact of alternative comedy as a genre. The article observes that pioneering alternative comedians went some way to change British comedy values and inform political discussions. However, it also argues that the complex operation of jokes and the tendency of comedians to become “incorporated” within the political and cultural mainstream ensured that the impacts of radical alternative material were limited and ambiguous. It contends that the practice of alternative comedy was undermined by business and political values that were often influenced by Thatcherism, and that alternative comedians mostly failed to capture the imaginations of working-class Britons. These communities retained instead an affection for more traditional, differently rebellious, comedic voices. Ultimately, this article frames alternative comedy within a longer history of radical humor, drawing out broader lessons concerning the revolutionary potential of jokes and the relationship between comedians, their audiences, and politics.

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-431
Author(s):  
Bulat R. Rakhimzianov

Abstract This article explores relations between Muscovy and the so-called Later Golden Horde successor states that existed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on the territory of Desht-i Qipchaq (the Qipchaq Steppe, a part of the East European steppe bounded roughly by the Oskol and Tobol rivers, the steppe-forest line, and the Caspian and Aral Seas). As a part of, and later a successor to, the Juchid ulus (also known as the Golden Horde), Muscovy adopted a number of its political and social institutions. The most crucial events in the almost six-century-long history of relations between Muscovy and the Tatars (13–18th centuries) were the Mongol invasion of the Northern, Eastern and parts of the Southern Rus’ principalities between 1237 and 1241, and the Muscovite annexation of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates between 1552 and 1556. According to the model proposed here, the Tatars began as the dominant partner in these mutual relations; however, from the beginning of the seventeenth century this role was gradually inverted. Indicators of a change in the relationship between the Muscovite grand principality and the Golden Horde can be found in the diplomatic contacts between Muscovy and the Tatar khanates. The main goal of the article is to reveal the changing position of Muscovy within the system of the Later Golden Horde successor states. An additional goal is to revisit the role of the Tatar khanates in the political history of Central Eurasia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.


ZARCH ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Ténez Ybern

Si asumimos que el paisaje es el resultado perceptible de la relación dinámica entre un determinado grupo humano y su medio; esa definición que se cuenta entre las de más consenso entre aquellos que dicen hacer paisajes, suscita de inmediato ciertas preguntas: ¿Cuál es el papel de aquel que pretende crear paisajes, si el paisaje es un proceso que se da por si solo? ¿Hasta qué punto incide cambiar el aspecto de un lugar en esa relación entre la gente y su entorno cotidiano?El texto pretende explorar las consecuencias de esas paradójicas preguntas, a partir de una primera hipótesis: la del carácter intrínsecamente político del proyecto del paisaje. De esta hipótesis parte la intención de mostrar la evolución de la reflexión sobre ese papel político del hacer paisajes, en el que el hacedor de paisajes que está siempre situado entre los equilibrios de poder que se establecen entre las instituciones y la gente. A partir de aquí, se analizan algunos momentos clave de la historia de ese paisaje político, donde el “hacedor de paisajes” intenta encontrar su lugar.En el horizonte del texto, aparecen también imágenes de la historia reciente de mi ciudad, a modo de ilustración de lo dicho. If we accept that landscape is the perceptible result of the dynamic relationship process between a specific human group and an environment, this definition, which enjoys the most acceptance among those people who ‘make landscape’, immediately raises certain questions: What is the role of the person who aims to create landscapes, if landscape is a process that takes place on its own? To what point does this affect the relationship between people and their daily setting?This article initially aims to explore the consequences of that paradox through a first hypothesis: the intrinsically political nature of the landscape project. This hypothesis springs from the intention of describing the evolution of the reflection on this political role of making landscape, in which ‘landscape makers’ constantly find themselves affected by the balance of power established between institutions and people. Subsequently, analysis will be conducted on a series of key periods in the history of the political landscape in which landscape makers endeavour to find their place.Pictures of the recent history of my city appear interspersed within the text, in order to illustrate what has been described.


2021 ◽  
Vol 133 (4) ◽  
pp. 639-658
Author(s):  
Enrico Castro Montes

Abstract Ambassadors on the Sports Front: Sports, Politics and Diplomacy during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)This article examines the role of sports in the international politics and diplomacy of nation states in wartime. Through a case study on public diplomacy during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), this article shows how sport could influence international public opinion. By focussing on some lesser-known international sporting events from this period, such as the 1937 Labour Olympiad in Antwerp, this article will move away from the dominant focus in sports history on mega-events such as the Olympic Games. Although research about the relationship between sports and diplomacy has grown in recent years, it has barely taken into account the influence of a war context on sport and diplomacy. This article attempts to fill this gap by analysing left-wing Belgian and Spanish newspapers, archives of the Belgian workers' sports movement, and unused source material from the FIFA archive.


Author(s):  
Mohamad Latief ◽  
Mifedwil Jandra

This research aims at analyzing political secularism in Indonesia and most specifically dealing with the recurrent polemic upon the relationship between Islam and State. The research initially seeks to describe the political situation of the country where the formalistic and substantives debate, especially on their distinctive approach to stipulate the proper role of religion on the country’s politic, could be witnessed. The description, however, will deal more on the latter political paradigm which is increasingly grasping an impressive preference from numbers of political individuals and institutions particularly when they come to discuss Islamic tenets and their application within the context of a pluralistic society like Indonesia. Using normative and socio-historical approaches, the paper argues that this political preference, despite its convincing successes in Islamizing the country’s politic, still suffers from numbers of defects that finally raise our apprehension. These defects summarily provide proofs to the questioned commitment of the substantive to the Islamic political values as a whole; the one which reveals an agreed separation of the state and religion; the one of secularism.Keywords; Formalistic, Substantive, Secularism, Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa, Partai Amanat Nasional. AbstractThis research aims at analyzing political secularism in Indonesia and most specifically dealing with the recurrent polemic upon the relationship between Islam and State. The research initially seeks to describe the political situation of the country where the formalistic and substantives debate, especially on their distinctive approach to stipulate the proper role of religion on the country’s politic, could be witnessed. The description, however, will deal more on the latter political paradigm which is increasingly grasping an impressive preference from numbers of political individuals and institutions particularly when they come to discuss Islamic tenets and their application within the context of a pluralistic society like Indonesia. Using normative and socio-historical approaches, the paper argues that this political preference, despite its convincing successes in Islamizing the country’s politic, still suffers from numbers of defects that finally raise our apprehension. These defects summarily provide proofs to the questioned commitment of the substantive to the Islamic political values as a whole; the one which reveals an agreed separation of the state and religion; the one of secularism.Keywords; Formalistic, Substantive, Secularism, Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa, Partai Amanat Nasional.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 92-124
Author(s):  
Astrid Meier

Abstract The aim of this article is to highlight the political uses of the legal concept of waqf in a confrontation between an Orthodox and a Catholic institution during the initial phase of the schism within the Church of Antioch. The Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai confronted the hospice of the Franciscans in the court of the Chief Judge of the province of Damascus in 1145/1733. The legal aspects of the lawsuit are an interesting example of the use of the Ottoman judiciary by non-Muslims, but in order to understand the political implications of the case, it needs to be analysed in the broader context of the religious and political tensions of the time. Therefore, a sketch of the history of both monasteries and their endowments is supplemented with a chapter on the role of Sylvestros, Patriarch of Antioch, in Damascus and an examination of the French and Spanish interests within this Ottoman context.


Author(s):  
Sabrina Arcuri ◽  
Gianluca Brunori ◽  
Francesca Galli

This chapter forms the land case study for Italy. As with all empirical chapters it explores several key themes in relation to food charity in Italy: • the history of food charity in the national context and the relationship between the welfare state and charities; • the nature of and drivers behind contemporary food charity provision; • key changes in social policy and their impact on rising charitable food provision; • and the social justice implications of increasing need for charitable assistance with food. The chapter concludes with critical reflections on the future direction of food charity provision in Italy and the implications of this.


1976 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Watson Andaya

The history of the Malay world in the eighteenth century is characterised by a constantly shifting balance of power, extreme flexibility in the political patterns, and an ongoing search for strong friends and advantageous allies. Malay and European sources relating to the period contain an often overwhelming amount of information concerning seemingly endless conspiracies, broken treaties, negotiations, and re-alignments. Yet from this maze of detail distinct themes emerge, one of which concerns the activities of various Malay anak raja (sons of kings and pirates) and anak baik (sons of nobles). Existing material allows for the compilation of a number of interesting biographies. We can, for instance, follow the career of Perak's Raja 'Alim, who might have successfully unseated his cousin and become ruler himself had it not been for Dutch intervention. The wandering life led by a Siak prince, Raja Ismail, and his unceasing efforts to rally support for a triumphant return to his homeland are similarly described in both Malay chronicles and the missives of Dutch governors. Such accounts make for absorbing reading and undoubtedly have their own intrinsic historical value. On the other hand, it is perhaps more fruitful to regard anak raja like Raja 'Alim and Raja Ismail not so much as individuals as representatives of a distinct social category within what has been called the “ruling class.” If viewed in this light, the activities of many anak raja mentioned in the records take on a new dimension, and comments concerning their role in Malay history assume a wider application.


Author(s):  
Caterina Carpinato

The essay aims to outline the history of the teaching of Modern Greek at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice: it started with its foundation in 1868, with Costantino Triantafillis, and was interrupted for more than a century from 1890. This paper also deals with the history of the discipline from 1868 until today, with an eye on the connection with the political and cultural life of the country and on the relationship with other disciplines (such as Ancient Greek language and literature and Byzantine civilization). After an interval of a century classes of Modern Greek started up again at Ca’ Foscari in 1994-95 thanks to the teaching of Lucia Marcheselli Loukas. Since 1998 the teaching has been revived with a tenured professor and, in the last twenty years, it has trained graduate students and young scholars who today play a cultural and linguistic role of mediation between Italy and Greece.


2020 ◽  
pp. 157-200
Author(s):  
Adam Sutcliffe

This chapter focuses on the purpose of the Jews in relation to the potential and meaning of nationhood, in both Zionist and non-Zionist contexts. It talks about Moses Hess, a writer in Germany in the 1860s, who linked a profoundly negative view of the Jews' diasporic role as arch-capitalists to his irenic view of the role of the Jews in his Zionist vision of the future. It explains how a Zionist grappling with the idea of Jewish exemplarity runs through the twentieth-century history of the movement. This chapter also highlights the cultural Zionism of Ahad Ha'am and the political rhetoric of David Ben-Gurion, who repeatedly invoked Isaiah's “light unto the nations” as his vision for the Jewish state. It analyzes the relationship of Jewish exemplarity and purpose to the broader political life of the nation state that became a rich and complicated seam of debate within twentieth century thought.


Author(s):  
Brooke Sylvia Palmieri

Using the records and publications of the Quakers, this chapter considers the religious and political context behind the creation of the Quaker archive and the relationship between scribal material and print culture in making meaning. The story of Mary Fisher’s (c.1623–1698) trip to Constantinople to convert the Sultan of the Ottoman Turks provides a valuable case study in how a letter became an archival document before circulating widely in print. Initially a product of the zealous, evangelical epistolary culture that characterised Quaker writings of the 1650s, it was transferred into the public archive created during the extreme persecution of the 1660s to situate the Quakers within a longer history of suffering. Later it was used to advance the political argument for toleration by offering an instance of Muslim hospitality in counterbalance to Christian cruelty. The chapter highlights how changing historical contexts transform the nature of the truth of archives.


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