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Commemorating Sir David Hughes Parry
No full textBrief article based on an edited transcript of a seminar presentation given by Dr R. Gwynedd Parry of Swansea University at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in October 2010 to mark the publication of his biography of Professor Sir David Hughes Parry QC (founding Director of the IALS). The article is published in Amicus Curiae – Journal of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by SALS at the IALS (Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London)
Rhetoric as democratic survival and resistance – groundwork for a philosophy of communication
No full textThis working paper describes the foundation of a philosophy of communication based on the paradoxical nature of the dialogical relationship. A conceptual articulation of communication needs to display particular structural features if it is to be adequate to the paradoxes inherent in the idea of communication. A working paper produced at the IGRS as part of a Visiting Fellowship
Primary Concerns: an investigation into the reduction in impact of the televised debate in U.S presidential primary campaigns
No full textAn MA submitted in part-fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of MA in US Politics and Contemporary History, Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2007-8
Honneth on reification
No full textAn overview and critical analysis of Honneth’s retrieval of the concept of reification for recognition theory. A seminar paper given as part of the IGRS series ‘Denkanstöße’, 2008
On Sleep and Death in Goethe’s 'Euphrosyne'
No full textThis article was written during the author's time as Sylvia Naish Fellow at the Institute for Germanic and Romance Studies, London.
A German version of this article is forthcoming with Königshausen & Neumann (2010)
In cane's shadow: the impact of commodity plantations on local subsistence agriculture on Cuba's mid-nineteenth century sugar frontier
No full textThe fertility of the Cuban soil should have meant that the island be capable of feeding itself, yet during the nineteenth century such self-sufficiency appeared to be sacrificed in favour of spreading commodity cultivation – in particular sugar plantations, with this single crop coming to dominate the national economy. Cane plantations increasingly dominated the Cuban landscape, casting an ever longer shadow over the island's agricultural diversity as they spread, and by the early years of the twentieth century it seemed legitimate to claim that “without sugar there is no country”. Sugar exports became by far the most important element in the island's economy, generating great wealth for some but at the same time leading to considerable fragility; and by the beginning of the twentieth century, the impact of extensive sugar cane cultivation had radically altered the island's environment. However, even in its heyday, cane was just one (albeit very large scale and lucrative) agricultural product in a country where a large proportion of the rural population lived and worked on peasant smallholdings. Whether these were directly or indirectly tied to larger estates, or seeking to scratch out an independent living from the land that the plantations were unable to exploit (or had not yet reached) - along with the cultivation of food crops on the conucos of slaves and emancipated plantation workers and intercropping on estates ostensibly devoted to other commodity crops - they resulted in a hidden rural diversity belying the absolute dominance of cane.
Nevertheless, and despite the growth in the number of such smallholdings alongside the spread of the cane plantations, as the nineteenth century progressed Cuba found itself unable to meet its basic food requirements. That this was so at a national level has long been known. What is less understood is what actually occurred to the local subsistence economy in those districts where sugar-cane plantations spread. This paper makes a start at addressing this question. Drawing on mid-nineteenth century census data – in preparation for subsequent detailed local research - a comparison is made between two local cases of the nineteenth-century sugar frontier: San Juan de los Remedios, in the centre of the island; and Guantánamo, in the extreme east. Both districts saw cane cultivation rapidly rise from insignificance, though at the same time, neither district became entirely dominated by this one crop during the period (though they would be subsequently), thereby enabling the detailed relationship between the growth in sugar production and the local availability of basic food crops to be observed. The paper begins by describing the varied form that Cuban agriculture took prior to the development of ‘modern' sugar plantations, with its diverse combination of subsistence and commodity crops, before describing the spread of sugar plantations during the nineteenth century, and the increasing importance of this single crop for the island's economy, as well as its apparent dominance of some localities. The paper goes on to analyse the impact that the spread of a plantation economy had upon rural areas, both in terms of the apparent spread of smallholdings and the inability of the island to satisfy its basic food requirements. The paper ends with a discussion of the dynamic relationship between commodity and subsistence agriculture in Cuba
We Need to Talk about Gender: Mothering and Masculinity in Lionel Shriver's 'We Need to Talk about Kevin'
Get PDFUrban Governance and Civic Responsibility: Interwar Council Housing in Buxton
No full textCouncillors and locals alike in Buxton, Derbyshire, had a strong sense of civic identity relating to the town's reputation as a spa and site of leisure in the interwar period. The council clearly saw its civic role as maintaining this prestigious image. The imposition of housing powers from the central government in 1919 therefore raised an important question in the area: how far did the council's responsibility to housing the local working classes extend now that they had the means to improve conditions? The unpredictable complexities of state policy certainly had an effect on the progress of housing schemes in the town, yet a close examination of the intricate and local culture of perceived responsibility reveals the importance of a very localised decision-making process. From the resolution to build, through the problems in implementing housing schemes, to the management of tenants and property following construction, it was the local authority that had the power to make substantial changes. Buxton was a small rural town, without a popular belief that it was blighted by typical urban problems of overcrowding and slums. It instead looked to its status as a spa town to inform housing policy decisions. By elucidating Buxton's experience, as opposed to larger industrial cities with familiar problems of housing and slums, a different analysis of local intervention can be contributed to the historiography of council housing in Britain
Science in Poetic Contexts: Astronomy and Astrology in the Hebrew Poetry of Sepharad (Ciencia en un contexto poético: Astronomía y astrología en la poesía hebrea de Sefarad)
No full textThis article is a preliminary overview of the presence of astronomical-astrological knowledge in a considerable number of poems written by Jews in Sepharad or rooted in the Sephardic tradition (11th-15th c.). Scientific knowledge, notably astronomical and astrological concepts, played an important role in the curriculum of medieval Muslims and Jews, as did poetry. However, the transmission of scientific knowledge in poetic form took place not only in Arabic, but also in Greek and Latin (didactic poetry). In addition, early piyyutim (written outside the Sephardic tradition and prior to Muslim influence) also made brief references to astronomical subjects. In any case, it seems that astronomy and astrology in Hebrew flourished mainly in Sepharad and under Arabic influence, which also left an impressive imprint on the poetic work of its Jews, samples of which will be considered here (with translations in the appendix)
Legislative advances in financial stability in the US - the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act 2010
No full textThis article seeks to address recent legislative and regulatory changes in the United States in the area of systemic risk management and to assess the impact of the changes on financial market supervision. It also addresses changes to the regulation of insurance markets, the enhancements to systemic risk monitoring and the effectiveness of the proposed consumer protection bureau. The article is by Priya Nandita Pooran, Attorney-at-law and was published in Amicus Curiae – Journal of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by SALS at the IALS (Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London)