200 research outputs found
The Drawer & a Pile of Bricks, by David Berridge
No full textIn the new house the sounds had no space, no sureness of near or far, nothing to attribute them to, apart from My Racist Aunts. That’s us, they said. All of us. Your deal.
Hairdressers on a Central London street freeze, find themselves transported to a desolate seaside town. Ideas and projects are written for the drawer, a realm of the unpublished and unattainable, then inconveniently realised. A monument to the Third Revolution takes shape in a small bar, alongside an open packet of crisps, a way of sitting on a stool, and a resemblance to Sherlock Holmes. What fortunes can be told from the names given to alleyways and steep flights of steps? Who can be glimpsed from behind a fishing boat, or in the lengthening shadows of the tall town houses bordering the park? Is this romance? There is a house to be cleared, and a pile of bricks appears to be immovable. Is an old friend awake for the election? Hatch a plan for escaping disaster, robotic movements on the cliff top, as Aunts of noxious intentions trumpet, amok in the city centre, again.
‘Can you make a life out of a pile of bricks, or make a pile of bricks out of a life? Does Regis equal a question? Does Britain equal birdsong? Is there a good enough way to respond to this book that builds such a slight, solid thing from its own sly language?’
–> Joanna Walsh
David Berridge lives in Hastings. He is the author of several books of poetry and prose, including The Fluxus President, and self build with no energy bills or dog, a long poem on three scrolls. He works as a bookseller in London
Doing it for the kids?: The discursive construction of the teenager and teenage sexuality in E4’s Skins
No full textThe teen series is often regarded by television scholars as an inherently American genre. Indeed, the genre is marked by US constructs, such as the cheerleader, jock, homecoming dance and prom and, in turn, teen television scholarship has focused almost exclusively on US texts. However, more recent years have seen the emergence of British teen drama series, most notably Skins (E4, 2007-), which has been so successful that it has spawned an (albeit short-lived) US version which aired on MTV. In an attempt to redress the dearth of academic study of British teen dramas, this article explores Skins in more detail. Journalistic discourse on the programme has frequently emphasised the series' nihilism in contrast to the didacticism that characterises its US generic counterparts, which the series' creators justify by claims for its authenticity. This article moves beyond the authentic/inauthentic debate to explore instead the discursive construction of the teenager and teenage sexuality in the specific context of broadcasting in the UK. Thus, after situating Skins in relation to the history of youth programming in Britain and, specifically, on Channel 4, the article will explore issue-led storylines involving teenage sexuality in more detail. It will argue that despite the programme's nihilistic ethos, Skins is underpinned by more conservative ideologies, particularly regarding the depiction of gender and sexuality. In turn, this ambivalence makes it difficult to discern the programme's ideological stance on sexual issues
The Gendered Impact of Caring Responsibilities on Parents' Experiences of Working in the Film and Television Industries
No full textThe gendered impact of caring responsibilities on parents' experiences of working in the film and television Caring responsibilities are often cited as a key reason for continuing gendered inequalities across the film and television sector (Wreyford, 2018; Wing-Fai et al, 2015; Creative Scotland, 2016; Raising Films, 2016). However, there is little detailed analysis of precisely how caring responsibilities impact upon parents' experiences of work in this field. Further, in a context in which women are disproportionately affected by caring responsibilities, it is not surprising that existing studies on the issue of care have tended to focus exclusively on women and motherhood. This female centricity risks replicating the essentialist notion that care is or should be a women's responsibility and obscures the fact that many men working in the sector are also parents (Gill, 2014). By drawing on one-to-one interviews with both men and women who work in Scottish film and television, this article will explore the specific gendered dimensions of the ways in which men and women discuss the impact of childcare on their experiences of work
Neural Representation of Hedonic Tastes in the Ventral Pallidum.
No full textThe overall goal of this thesis was to investigate how the ventral pallidum tracks experimentally-induced changes in the hedonic value of tastes. Taste reactions allows us to measure how ‘liked’ or ‘disliked’ a taste is by a rat. These reactions are not purely reflexive as they are altered when circumstances change: hunger can increase and satiety can decrease the tastiness of foods (Berridge 1996) and a salt appetite can make a normally ‘disliked’ salt solution ‘liked’ (Berridge et al. 1984, Schulkin 1991). Therefore taste reactions reflect the palatability of tastes. Understanding how the reward pathway tracks changes in the hedonic value of tastes may elucidate how neural coding is affected in disorders such as drug addiction and obesity.
The first project investigated how neurons in the ventral pallidum (VP) track changes in hedonic value of a sweet taste by a conditioned taste aversion. When a taste changed from ‘liked’ to ‘disliked’, the predominant VP response also changed: taste responsive VP cells tastes typically increase firing rate in response to ‘liked’ tastes whereas the hedonically devalued taste typically triggered a decrease in firing rate. The second project compared the effects of dopamine and opioid modulation of ‘liked’, relatively neutral, and ‘disliked’ taste stimuli. We found that opioid modulation enhanced the hedonic value of quinine (which is normally ‘disliked’), but that only morphine resulted in a VP population response that mirrored the hedonic value of the tastes. The third project tested the effects of dopamine and opioid modulation on the hedonic value of a pair of cues (water infusions) and reward (a sucrose infusion). Overall, the cues did increase in hedonic value via association with reward, and the VP reflected the similarity in hedonic value between the cues and reward by responding similarly to cues and reward, under most drug conditions. Amphetamine decreased the proportion of units that responded to the first cue with an increase in firing rate, relative to vehicle control. In summary, the VP tracked changes in hedonic value under a variety of experimental manipulations, supporting evidence of its role in the neural coding of hedonia.PhDNeuroscienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107100/1/itogac_1.pd
Mum's the Word: Public testimonials and gendered experiences of negotiating caring responsibilities with work in the film and television industries
No full textThis article explores parents' published accounts of their (gendered) experiences of reconciling caring responsibilities with work in the film and television industries, paying particular attention to mothers. It is based on detailed analysis of the testimonials of parents who work in the sector, produced for and published on the website of UK activist organisation, Raising Films. As Wing-Fai et al (2015) argue, the new labouring subjectivities produced and demanded by media industries’ working cultures are antithetical to those with caring responsibilities, in turn creating a climate in which the challenges of care are silenced. Recent reports and initiatives have sought to challenge this silencing, employing quantitative methodologies to identify the number of parents working in film and television that are affected by duties of care (Creative Scotland, 2016; Raising Films, 2016). What has been less attended to is the way in which these negotiations make cultural workers feel, and more specifically, the gendered dimensions of these inequalities. This article addresses this gap by offering a detailed analysis of the testimonials of mothers published on the website. I argue that women’s testimonials contribute to challenging the silencing around issues of care in the sector. While at times women reinforce new labouring subjectivities that privilege self-regulation, they simultaneously critique the punishing nature of neoliberal working cultures, commonly reflecting on the industries’ demand to suppress the challenges of care. These critiques are rarely framed as resistance to explicit gender inequalities. However, I argue that the testimonials’ presentation – published collectively and alongside one another on the site – allow for recurring experiential patterns to emerge that makes it difficult to see these accounts as an individual woman’s problem and, importantly, highlights the specific gendered dimensions of the emotional violence of neoliberal labouring practices
Managing Feelings: Raising Films' Testimonials and the Impact of Caring Responsibilities on the Emotional Well-being of Mothers Who Work in the UK Film and Television Sector
No full textI love you, man: gendered narratives of friendship in contemporary Hollywood comedies
No full textThis article begins with a simple observation: there are very few contemporary Hollywood films in which women are shown becoming friends. This is in contrast to the “bromance”, in which new connections between men are privileged, yet this pattern has gone largely unremarked in the literature. This article has two aims: to sketch this pattern and explore reasons for it through comparing the “girlfriend flick” and “bromance”. To do this, we first discuss those rare occasions when women do become friends on screen, using Jackie Stacey’s (1988) work to understand the difficulties this narrative trajectory poses for Hollywood. This raises questions about the relationship between the homosocial and homosexual which set up our comparison of female and male friendship films and provides the rationale for our focus on the beginnings of friendships as moments where tensions around gendered fascinations are most obvious. The films discussed are Baby Mama (McCullers, 2008), Step Brothers (McKay, 2008), I Love You, Man (Hamburg, 2009), Funny People (Apatow, 2009), Due Date (Phillips, 2010), and Crazy, Stupid, Love (Ficarra and Requa, 2011). The differences we identify hinge on issues of gendered representability and identification which have long been at the heart of feminist film scholarship
From the woman who 'had it all' to the tragic, ageing spinster: The Shifting Star Persona of Jennifer Aniston
No full textFirst paragraph: In a montage episode of Friends (NBC, 1994–2004), ‘The One Where They All Turn 30’ (7.14), Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) sits down to a birthday breakfast with her friends and 24-year-old boyfriend, surrounded by colourful balloons. Dressed in a plain white T-shirt and pyjama bottoms, with shoulder-length bobbed hair and wearing a child’s birthday crown, her youthful girlishness is highlighted. Yet, while the episode underlines Rachel’s youth, it simultaneously suggests that she is at an inappropriate life stage in relation to her age. Rachel’s narrative in the episode revolves around her anxieties about getting older without having achieved any of her self-imposed life goals – goals that include meeting a man, getting married and having children. Reinforcing the idea of Rachel as in a state of arrested development, she is currently living in Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and Chandler’s (Matthew Perry) former apartment, a space that connotes immaturity in the series more widely – connected as it is with bachelor and often childish lifestyles. In keeping with the generic conventions of the sitcom, Rachel’s response to turning 30 is portrayed as a comedic overreaction. Yet, the narrative ultimately culminates with Rachel splitting up with her boyfriend to concentrate instead on her realising her long-term aims. In doing so, the episode clearly articulates some of the central tenets of postfeminist discourses of ageing and ‘time crisis’, which measure success through the attainment of particular life goals such as marriage and motherhood (Negra, 2009)
Event experiences: design, management and impact
No full textThe papers submitted for this PhD by publication represent research centered on event experiences and their design, management and impact. They are the result of research projects that have produced seven published peer-reviewed papers and one book. The body of work has made an original, significant and sustained contribution towards the development of an emerging field of study in events. The work has made a major contribution towards furthering understanding of the human experience that results from the management of events, their design and their impact.
At the heart of this submission is a consideration for how events are experienced and what factors and components contribute to the depth of that experience. The majority of papers analyses and reflects upon the construction of experience settings (their design) and essentially seeks knowledge to identify the variables that shape any experience of events (Ryan, 2012). In doing so the research undertaken has embraced a less restrictive set of methodologies usually afforded by statistical exercises in favour of a more embodied, immersive and participative approach. This has included not only observation and autoethnography, but also reflection on that which has been observed. In turn this reflection and analysis has drawn upon a range of theories and models to advance understanding of the social occasions that we call events where human interactions with the designed programme and environment illicit a range of responses that may culminate in a memorable and unique moment in time. The research therefore touches upon the emotional response to event experiences, the study and interpretation of the meaning of events, and notably their signification to an intended audience. In the course of this research I have evaluated and reflected upon the study and practice of event management across a range of event types and genres. Seeking to initially clarify the role of design in creating event experience led me to questioning the paradigmatic model for event management and resulted in the development of an alternative consideration for event planning and management - Event Experience Design Framework (EEDF). Unlike existing models this places design as the central and pivotal driving force that inhabits all areas of the event management process and upon which all events should then be based.
The contribution of this body of work can therefore be summarised as follows:
1. Development of a paradigmatic concept that places design as the central and essential practice that underpins the planned event experience.
2. Theoretical positioning of how designing event experiences impacts on stakeholders
3. Recognition and application of theoretical models and tools relevant to event design and creativity, and further use of conceptual models to analyse experiential outcomes
4. Identification and awareness of the broader socio-cultural impact of planned events This submission provides evidentiary material that I have made a positive and meaningful contribution to raising the profile of events through research, teaching and learning by an acknowledged excellence in events management education and as a recognised (and first) National Teaching Fellow in Events. Furthermore, the submission provides a reflection on this research and development that has enabled me to make such a pivotal contribution to the field. It concludes with an outline of plans for the future
Aspects of Translation Theory, and Comparison to translation English-Albanian from the author G. R. Berridge, Diplomacy Theory and Practice and Albanian version G. R. Berridge Teoria dhe Praktika
No full textThe main aim of this topic is to provide a full-fledged analysis of the terminology used in the diplomatic field and to achieve this an in-depth analysis of two chapters from two books is elaborated, one is in Albanian Language and the other in English Language. The author of the book is the renowned scholar of diplomacy G. R. Berridge, Diplomacy Theory and Practice and the version in Albanian “Diplomacia, Teoria dhe Praktika”. To achieve a comparison of translation between the Albanian and English version it was necessary to carefully scrutinize and carry out a detailed analysis of translation aspects such as the Importance of Equivalence, Methods of Analysis, Grammatical Structure, Synchronic Approach and Diachronic Approach to the text and to draw the difference between the Political and Administrative Style. In addition to this it was of significant importance to make an ample lexical analysis of the key words and expressions. The misinterpretations of certain words in the diplomatic terminology may aggravate and take the shape of a conflict. So, contribution in this aspect of translation appears to be essential and in relevance to contemporary problematic
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