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Ecstasy in the Unhappy Society

Tales of the terrible time of the unhappy society began to spread across the disparate old city settlements that were then strewn across the country, and people looked back with disgust to the failure of men and women of power to have the courage to change the way of the world. 136  ecstasy in the unhappy society this is especially worrying for gay men whom often come to club-land looking for an identity and a way to fit in to a community.4 yet the majority of the gay clubs demand a simple stem masculinity and body building; a pumping techno intensifies the atmosphere.

Heat from a Small Fire

But even before aussat was on air, the pitjantjatjara and warlpiri community operations had developed an easy-going style of local programming: they covered events in their area, like any other local station, but also started to use video in a process of 'cultural maintenance', recording stories (tjukurrpa), songs and ceremonies in the areas of country to which they referred.2 this wasn't a simple matter of heritage but a vital process reaching into the heart of cultural survival: re-infusing the landscape with their creation-myths in the act of singing, dancing and recording, reclaiming the country for the 'dreamtime' on video. i was in alice for a rather different purpose: making a documentary with an aboriginal media group for channel 4, about aboriginal television and video.1 the visit to the feature film location was a fascinating glimpse of how the other half lived - particularly interesting as some of the aboriginal people we had been working with on our programme had been hired as extras on the film.

An Exemplary Life : Raymond Williams

His story is the product of admirably thorough research - seeking out interviewees surviving from his earliest years, leafing through the local abergavenny newspapers for a particularly interesting chapter on the town's life in the 1930s, checking on williams's student and army journalism, surveying his adult education work in the 1950s, delving into the business correspondence with his publisher chatto and windus, and of course immersing himself in the more predictable primary sources: the host of books and articles, and their reviews, williams's influence on the new left and role in the establishment of new left review, his political involvement with colleagues such as stuart hall, edward thompson and michael rustin in the production of the 1967 may day manifesto, and lastly, incorporating the impressions and reflections of his one-time cambridge students, a distinguished roster including such as anthony barnett, terry eagleton, stephen heath, patrick parrinder and bernard sharratt. he then recounts the complex of loyalties and linkages to the country life of his grandfather - farmworker and roadmender - and of his father - boy farmworker, 215  soundings then part-signalman, part-market-gardener - which he carried forward in his own personal journey from the black mountain country village to the city of cambridge, and thus into the network of his educated and desk-bound life; he recounts its further reverberations, through his writing, with the cities of rome, moscow and new york, and, through his reading, its links with bunyan, for whom cambridge was a model for vanity fair, with jude the obscure's unattainable christminster, and with h g wells' sinister vision of metropolitan london.

Keyboard Cowboys and Dial Cowgirls

In the other story, the immune system is depicted as a complex communication system, with several centres and peripheries where ongoing negotiations take place on the boundary between self and other: 'immunity can also be conceived in terms of the semi-permeable self able to engage with others (human and non-human, inner and outer).'1 donna haraway prefers the second story because it leaves the separation between self and other behind and offers instead a continual interaction between different elements, in which the boundaries between self and other, or between own and alien, are constructed and changed. And my scepticism about the heroic status of high technology grows when i see that a lot of activities done by women are hard to describe as high-tech.

The Rise of Neurogenetic Determinism

64  the rise of neurogenetic determinism many others; lesch-nyhan syndrome, tay-sachs disease; the list of rare but devastating conditions is long... but neurogenetics consistently overstates its case, moving seamlessly from single to many genes, from genes with predictable consequences in virtually all known environments to genes with small or highly variable effects, whose norm of reaction extends so far as to prevent any claims to predictability. Soundings issue 2 spring 1996 the rise of neurogenetic determinism steven rose neurogenetic determinism claims to explain everything - from violence in the streets to sexual orientation - in terms of properties of the brain or genes.

The Great Moving Nowhere Show

Whatever it is, new labour is not a centre-left government in any traditional sense in which we in europe perceive it and that includes not only socialists but demo-christians, the whole of the social state which is the central tradition of the 19th and 20th centuries on the continent' eric hobsbawm, marxism today seminar, 4-6 september 1998 labour has been quietly seduced by the neo-liberal view that, as far as possible, the economy must be treated like a machine, obeying economic 'laws' without human intervention. social inequality, broadly defined, is one of the critical defining issues of national politics and a crucial test of the distinction between the blair project and market 'blair's image of the citizen is of the lonely individual, "set free" of the state to face the hazards of the global weather alone' these issues are at the heart of new labour's profound ambiguity and duplicity around welfare reform.

Margaret Thatcher And Ruth Ellis

If femininity is opposed to violence according to one stereotype - women are not violent - thatcher presents a femininity which does not serve to neutralize violence but allows for its legimitation.39 it is a grotesque scenario - one which mimics that of ruth ellis in reverse where a woman who stands for a super-rationality writes violence into the law (or would do so), instead of being executed by it: In doing so, the case led to a redefinition of violence; the violence not only of the criminal, but also of the due processes of the law.23 the irony will be that margaret thatcher will return to the issue of capital punishment, calling up the collective memory of ruth ellis, as part of an attempt to put back in place the very terms which that earlier moment had put so definitively under threat.

A Look Back At Osborne

the dust-jacket of osborne's plays prints a quotation from tynan's original review of look back in anger which illustrates one claim for the play's social-realism. epitaph for george dillon there is, so far as i know, no published evidence about antony creighton's share in epitaph for george dillon, but i take it that the heart of the play, george himself, is osborne's work.

T.A. Jackson - A Centenary appreciation

This dead¬ lock meant that walter and tommy had to abandon what might well have succeeded in being a successful revolutionary break-through into modern journalism - the party might have pipped it at the picture post. walter holmes devoted a complete workers notebook to this sad story, in 1955.i quote from it: "among the tributes which tommy jackson's death has evoked there is no mention of this win episode because few know the story. 26 27  our history titles available no. 18 no. 24 no. 36/7 no. 42 no. 57 no. 58 no. 60 no. 61 no. 62 no. 63 no. 64 no. 65 no. 67 no. 68 no. 69 no. 70 no. 71 no. 72 sheffield shop stewards (bill moore) 'the lancashire cotton famine (s broadbridge) 'prints of the labour movement 'class and ideology in bath (r s neale) nazis and monopoly capital (allan merson) kilsyth miners in the 1926 general strike (carter) time and motion strike (mick jenkins) middle-class opinion and the 1889 strike (g cronje) 1945-year of victory (george barnsby) ... the origins of capitalism (a christozvonov) imperialism and the labour movement (maclntyre) the general strike in lanarkshire (maclean) spain against fascism 1936-39 (nan green and a m elliott) workers' newsreels, 1920s & 30s (hogenkamp) rank and file movements in building 1910-20 (latham)

The S.D.F, and the Boer War

And this failure was compounded by the federation's gigantic political errors (in particular its withdrawal from the labour representation committee) which reversed the centri¬ petal forces of the boer war agitation and isolated the social democratic federation from the mainstream of the british labour movement, thus depriving the movement even of the full benefit of its anti-imperialist instinct. but whatever the arguments over the rationale of its anti-war stand, the manifesto in practical terms had a heal thy effect on the social democratic federation, for it en¬ couraged it to increase the intensity of its anti-war campaign.

Alexander Macdonald and the Miners

the miners' & workmen's advocate, august 20, 1864 ** the miners' & workmen's advocate, august 27, 1864  page fifteen clearly, roberts saw this as the reason why he was not appointed legal advisers "they want a lawyer appointed by themselves - whom they may terrify and cajole, whom they can dismiss as they please rather than he should gain the hearts of the colliers - of the real men, the workers in the pits" * it was to the ordinary miner that, quite unequivocally, towers' journal addressed itself, it called upon them to boycott both the special conference in manchester on september 20th and the council's petition to parliaments no money should be sent to the national treasurer. the british miners' benefit society the first milestone along this lengthy and tortuous road was the british miners' benefit society, this was not so much a trade union as an attempt, by performing some of the functions customarily associated with trade unions, to render the formation of an organisation on a specifically working class basis unnecessary.

Transition From Feudalism to Capitalism

but in the degree to which disintegration of the old order proceeded and the petty mode of production shook itself loose from feudal bonds and feudal exploitation, the process of social differentiation within the petty mode of production was accelerated; and it was from this process of social differentiation (with its double tendency to form a kulak class of richer peasants on the one hand, and a depressed class of poor 'cottagers' or landless 'squatters' on the other) that bourgeois relat¬ ions of production were born. it seems to have been this kind of situation which under¬ lay what has been called the general crisis of feudal society in western europe in the l4th and 15th centuries; and it was the ver¬ dict of the late professor kosminsky (in his contribution to studi in onore di armando sapori) that it was not a decline of populat¬ ion "but rather the liquidation of the seignorial economy commuta¬ tion and dimunition of feudal rent" that underlay the economic de¬ cline of this period a decline and crisis of feudal economy which had as the other side of the medal an "improvement in the situation of the peasantry and an expansion of simple commodity production.

Sheffield Shop Stewards 1916 - 1918

we would add that while the purpose of the original inves¬ tigation was to find out about anti-war developments in sheffield during the first world war, what emerged as (in the long run) of equal importance was the organisation of the shop stewards' movement, with lessons for us even today,  sheffield shop stewards in the first world war • by bill moore the sheffield shop stewards led the fight in britain against the war and against the attempts by employers and government to break down the trade union rights won over a long period - but not until the latter end of 1916. kilsyth miners in the 1926 general strike (paul and carol carter) the social democratic federation and the boer war (bill baker) time & motion strike manchester 1934-7 (mick jenkins) middle-class opinion and the 1889 dock strike (gillian cronje) 1945-year of victory (george barnsby) the origins of capitalism by a. chistozvonov 25p 20p 20p 20p 20p 20p 25p 20p 20p 25p 25p 25p 30p bibliographies lionel munby and ernst wangermann (ed), marxism and history lawrence & wishart 1967 history group, bibliography of the british labour movement (revised 1968 edition) 75p 20p red international of labour unions and the national minority movement: list of publications in britain 25p national unemployed workers committee move¬ ment and the national unemployed workers movement: list of publications 20p postage: 8p a single copy, add 3p for each additional copy.

Social class and the psyche

148  social class and the psyche contrast the middle-class children’s discussion of independent travel with that of a group of black and white working-class boys from the same class: david i go everywhere, wood green, holloway, chapel. We wanted to see what the use of psychoanalytic ideas might usefully tell us about the lived experiences not only of urban working-class children but also middle-class children, who are so often excluded from discussions of social class.

Transversal politics and translating practices

the network is a cross-community alliance of women's centres and other women's organisations that have come together to get working-class women's needs voiced in the political system and the peace process of northern ireland.' during 1998 the three projects made a further transversal move, exchanging visits across state boundaries to see what could be learned from each other's experience.3 it was the findings of this series of transnational visits (we called this continuation of the project bridge between bridges) that were presented at the 'doing transversal politics' conference. the women building bridges research project was funded by city university, the e. and h.n. boyd and j.e. morland charitable trust, the william a. cadbury charitable trust, the community relations commission of northern ireland, the global fund tor women, the lipman-miliband trust, the network tor social change, the niwano peace foundation, the scurrah wainwright charity and womankind worldwide.

The values of community writing

a brief history of community writing community writing has been in common usage since the early 1980s to describe forms of writing and publishing, and forms of reading that writing, which exist outside the dominant literary and educational institutions and the relations of reading and writing which they maintain and promote. Soundings issue 12 summer 1999 the values of community writing rebecca o'rourke and lynette hunter rebecca o'rourke and lynette hunter describe the development of community writing in the uk and look at its relationship to transversal politics unlike the 'doing transversal politics' seminar at gresham in january 1999, which grew out of several years of work with a core group of women, 'translating practices, translating words' brought together a range of cultural practitioners who in the main worked in isolation from each other.

A game of two halves

modern globalisation processes and the decentering of english identity stuart hall describes the period when 'the image of a stiff upper-lipped white middle class male' was the central component of a very narrowly defined and distinctly 'english' national cultural identity which stood for everybody in the british isles. Soundings autumn 1998 issue 10 a game of two halves 'english' identity fifty years after windrush bilkis malek bilkis malek focuses on the insights football culture gives us into the ambivalences of the english psyche.

'The individual is a minority'

33  soundings having begun this piece with the literary intervention of ralph ellison and the new black intellectuals and having ended with richard rorty's emphasis on competitive individuality and alexander's notion of modern civil society, we have gone full circle: what first appeared to be a passionate defence of individual achievement in literature and culture on the side of the new black intellectuals, and such leftist intellectuals as richard rorty, develops into a serious analysis of differentiated american society, and a defence of the achievements of modern american democracy - at least in terms of its universalist notions of citizenship. Whether socialists argue the need to get rid of civil society because it is utterly bourgeois, or radical feminists argue that civil society is inherently patriarchal, or black nationalists think of racism as a natural part of civil society - all these discourses suffer from the generalisation of particular discourses and deny the complexity of modern civil society.

Mastering the history of slavery

Reviews soundings issue 9 summer 1998 mastering the history of slavery catherine hall hugh thomas, the slave trade: the history of 'the atlantic slave trade 14401870, picador, £25 robin blackburn, the making of new world slavery: from the baroque to the modem 14924800, verso, £15 the similarity between these two books is limited to scale. Now they will rest before shouldering the endless work they were created to do down here in paradise.' 90  priceless? harriet atkinson art treasures of england: the regional collections exhibition at the royal academy of art, january - april 1998 the explicit aim of the recent art treasures of england exhibition at the royal academy was to celebrate the wealth of the english regional galleries, and the richness of their collections.

Political science: a secret history

Although the 'romance' between joe and jed and the marriage of joe and clarissa are the 'enduring loves' explicitly shown in the novel, there are several analogous relations we are meant to see: jed's love of god, joe's love of science, clarissa's love for john keats and her hunt for an elusive final letter to fanny brawne, the widow's love for her husband killed in the accident, clarissa's love for children. Reviews soundings issue 8 spring 1998 political science: a secret history paul myerscough frederick crews et al, the memory wars: freud's legacy in dispute, granta, £9.99 prior to the publication of t h e unknown freud' in the new york review of books in 1993, frederick crews had received only as much - which is to say as little - attention as any english professor might expect during a career of inconspicuous modesty.

Ecstasy in the unhappy society

Tales of the terrible time of the unhappy society began to spread across the disparate old city settlements that were then strewn across the country, and people looked back with disgust to the failure of men and women of power to have the courage to change the way of the world. 136  ecstasy in the unhappy society this is especially worrying for gay men whom often come to club-land looking for an identity and a way to fit in to a community.4 yet the majority of the gay clubs demand a simple stem masculinity and body building; a pumping techno intensifies the atmosphere.

A Global Sense Of Place

this is not a question of making the ritualistic connections to 'the wider sys¬ tem' - the people in the local meeting who bring up international capitalism every time you try to have a discussion about rubbish-collection - the point is that there are real relations with real content - economic, political, cultural - between any local place and the wider world in which it is set. now, i want to make one simple point moving at a different pace: travelling down to earth from the global perspective, control over mobility both reflects and reinforces power 25 here, and that is about what one might call the power-geometry of it all; the power geometry of time-space com¬ pression. for different social groups, and different individuals, are placed in very distinct ways in relation to these flows and interconnections.

Europe's Vale Of Tears

the formal process of constitutional reform takes at least six months; a general sense that things are moving up as a result of economic reform is unlikely to spread before six years have passed; the third condition of the road to freedom is to provide the social foundations which transform the constitution and the economy from fine-weather into allweather institutions which can withstand the storms generated within and without, and 60 years are barely enough to lay these foundations. It is hard to tell how long the trek through the valley of tears will take, but certain marxism today may 1990 'even if a determined policy brings goods to the shops and creates a currency of real value without black-market exchange rates, there will be many who earn too little to afford the goods'  that it takes longer than the lifetime of the first parliament and always likely that it engenders a degree of disillusionment which threatens the new constitutional framework along with the economic reforms which proised so much but could not deliver in time.

The Ron And Nik Show

there has been no congressional criticism of the $2.2 billion supplied to the afghan mujaheddin, and no press marxism today june 1988 'the importance of the inf treaty lies in the extent to which it can produce a broader momentum of east-west detente in arms control and the third world'  'since 1980 there have been no further successful anti-us third world revolutions, and the balance has shifted in the direction of the usa' leaks about the mechanisms of arms supplies or the sites and forms of training provided in pakistan. if the inf agreement reflects some more nebulous willingness of both sides to compromise, it also indicates that moscow and washington have run up against substantial internal obstacles in the arms race: the russians can ill afford a further uninhibited round of strategic competition, the americans have discovered that even their economic and technological power has its limits, and that the attempt to bankrupt the ussr through an arms race has done not a little to enhance their own budget deficit and weaken their competitiveness vis-a-vis japan and western europe.

What Is To Be Done?

One of the party academics preparing drafts for gorbachev's big speech to open the party conference on june 28 found himself, to his increasingly delighted surprise, writing that it was significant that lenin had never been general secretary of the party, that the office from which the nation is ruled should not depend on the way stalin hijacked the party bureaucracy 60 years ago. In the days before the 27th party conference in february 1986, copies of pravda even sold out before dawn one morning when the party daily printed a famous letter complaining about the privileged and 'secret' shops and hospitals available to the party elite.