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Introduction:Wellbeing Past and Present
No full textThis introductory chapter explains the manner in which the volume developed from a conference organised by the Centre for Historical Studies at UON. It then explores the main historiographical trends in wellbeing studies and the history of wellbeing. It is suggested that history has been in deficit in approaching wellbeing in comparison to other disciplines. This is partly because the term itself has been so ill-defined. The introduction then goes on to unpack the contents of the volume
'Tarting up Ideas in Costume Jewellery': Contemporary Gothic Camp
No full textGothic has always been campy. Its penchant for melodrama, affinity with superficial expressions of extreme emotion, and preferred locales, set dress-ings and costumes all collude to craft a camp way of imagining the world. Susan Sontag argued this in 1964, noting that ‘the origins of Camp taste are to be found’ in eighteenth-century artefacts, with ‘Gothic novels’ being one of Sontag’s many examples. Subsequent criticism further indicates the tremendous tendency of Gothic and horror to be campy. For example, Jack Babuscio argues that horror cinema’s camp qualities emerge from the genre’s tendency to ‘make the most of stylish conventions for expressing instant feeling, thrills, sharply defined personality, outrageous and “unac-ceptable” sentiments, and so on’. Likewise, Gothic scholars obliquely suggest a contact point between Gothic and camp. Despite this, critical work on Gothic camp is scant. This critical lacuna is even more noticeable within Queer Gothic studies. Considering that the predominant approach that queer Gothicists take when analysing the mode involves a fixation on forms of queer representation and expressions of queer politics interpret-able within Gothic work, this gap is arguably understandable – camp is often perceived as light and frothy, and hence at odds with ‘serious’ crea-tive political endeavours. That said, camp criticism has staged numerous interventions that demonstrate its capacity as a tool for historical, cultural and political critique. For example, Fabio Cleto’s fantastic reader Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject (1999) and Moe Meyer’s edited collection The Politics and Poetics of Camp (1994) both expertly outline camp’s queer politics
Fostering Belonging Through Compassionate Care in Education
No full textEducationalists have a long history of supporting children and young people who have experienced challenges in their lives. However, with ever-increasing societal changes, many are rethinking their approaches to the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils. Some have responded by focusing more on compassionate leadership and nurturing and trauma-informed approaches. The chapter provides an overview of some of the contemporary issues impacting the health and wellbeing of children and young people, including how the global pandemic of Covid-19 has facilitated new understanding. There will be a focus on how experiences of trauma, abuse and adversity can affect development and behaviour. The terms and intervention methods currently in vogue will be considered. There will be a focus on the importance of compassionate leadership that facilitates a whole setting response and the importance of self-care
A ‘community in the county’? Sir John Sandys and social mobility in later medieval Hampshire.
No full textA study of the remarkable rise of John Sandys, knight-adventurer, Hampshire landed gentry and the significance of heiresses. The paper was read to the History department research seminar in October 2018 and is in press with Southern History
'Tarting up Ideas in Costume Jewellery': Contemporary Gothic Camp
No full textGothic has always been campy. Its penchant for melodrama, affinity with superficial expressions of extreme emotion, and preferred locales, set dress-ings and costumes all collude to craft a camp way of imagining the world. Susan Sontag argued this in 1964, noting that ‘the origins of Camp taste are to be found’ in eighteenth-century artefacts, with ‘Gothic novels’ being one of Sontag’s many examples. Subsequent criticism further indicates the tremendous tendency of Gothic and horror to be campy. For example, Jack Babuscio argues that horror cinema’s camp qualities emerge from the genre’s tendency to ‘make the most of stylish conventions for expressing instant feeling, thrills, sharply defined personality, outrageous and “unac-ceptable” sentiments, and so on’. Likewise, Gothic scholars obliquely suggest a contact point between Gothic and camp. Despite this, critical work on Gothic camp is scant. This critical lacuna is even more noticeable within Queer Gothic studies. Considering that the predominant approach that queer Gothicists take when analysing the mode involves a fixation on forms of queer representation and expressions of queer politics interpret-able within Gothic work, this gap is arguably understandable – camp is often perceived as light and frothy, and hence at odds with ‘serious’ crea-tive political endeavours. That said, camp criticism has staged numerous interventions that demonstrate its capacity as a tool for historical, cultural and political critique. For example, Fabio Cleto’s fantastic reader Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject (1999) and Moe Meyer’s edited collection The Politics and Poetics of Camp (1994) both expertly outline camp’s queer politics
Entangled Things:Objects and the Anthropocene
No full textEntangled Things takes the concept of entanglement as its starting point in investigating the relationship between us and the material things we engage with. Each chapter illustrates a particular form of entanglement – desiring things, hoarding things, creating things, ridding ourselves of things – using ethnographic examples and theoretical perspectives. Hulme encourages a wider consideration of the place of humans in the world, and the kind of choices we enact when influenced by the material things around us. She explores our relationships with material objects in light of both personal and planetary ‘space’, and personal and historical time, from the space in our homes, storage spaces, landfill and oceans; to the times in our lives and the times in wider shared histories that things connect us to, not to mention our sense of time and our own place in the world. In so doing, Hulme intentionally places discussions on our entanglement with things squarely back into the context of the Anthropocene, with a provocative analysis in which the Anthropocene is posited as a concept which on one hand takes away human agency, placing us in the context of immense geological epochs, whilst on the other hand pushes agency upon humans, blaming us for the extreme challenges of the current era and looking to us to solve those challenges. For Hulme, material things are instrumental in helping us to grasp our existential place in the world and weave a way through the complications of living in epochal times
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