Author Archives: tess

IF – a Free University for the 21st Century

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IF is an innovative project offering free humanities courses to young people who have been priced out of today’s higher education market.  And it is looking for academics to get involved.

Committed to ensuring that young people, even if they have little money, can get a liberal, humanities education, IF is a  ‘Free University’ – free in terms of cost to students, and free as in independent, radical, innovative.

IF is starting in London.  The underpinning idea is that the capital is awash with great culture – museums, free lectures, art galleries, concerts, and the internet is bursting with free lectures from the best thinkers of today. What is more, loads of academics want to share their knowledge with a wider audience.

IF is bringing together these plentiful cultural resources to create an exciting learning experience – a high quality humanities course at no cost to the student.

Open to 18-30 year olds, a summer school is planned for this summer and a one year Humanities course will start at the end of 2014.  It is envisaged that a week for a typical student would look something like this:

  1. Watch or listen to an open-source lecture online: This can be done remotely in the student’s own time, at home or in a public library.
  2. Read and research relevant additional material
  3. Participate (in groups of maximum 20) in a 50-80-minute workshop with an academic to discuss the ideas set out in the lecture and reading list.
  4. Be directed to a free event or performance in a museum, gallery, concert-hall, or theatre that addresses the material under discussion in the week’s workshop.

Though not yet accredited, courses are designed to correspond to the level of first-year undergraduate study, with the scope of an introductory Arts Foundation course.

Get involved:

IF is looking for academics to run workshops and seminars on a voluntary basis. You can get in touch with the IF team at: contact@ifproject.co.uk

It is a voluntary, low cost project, but clearly there are expenses, so they are running a Kickstarter campaign with the aim of raising £10,000.

The IF website has a video and lots more information.

As supporter Will Hutton, Principal of Hertford College, Oxford University, and former editor of The Observer newspaper, says,

“SOON THE ONLY STUDENTS OF THE LIBERAL ARTS WILL BE THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE VERY RICH OR POORER STUDENTS WHO CAN SECURE ONE OF THE INADEQUATE NUMBER OF BURSARIES, SCHOLARSHIPS AND GRANTS. I WELCOME THIS INITIATIVE TO INVOLVE YOUNG LONDONERS IN SECURING A BASIC HUMANITIES EDUCATION.”

Lesbian and gay students feel marginalised in social work training

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Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) students on social work courses in Higher Education often feel marginalised because of their sexuality, according to a study from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Most students interviewed reported that LGB issues were sometimes not dealt with in an appropriate manner, and as a result felt that heterosexuality was assumed and heterosexual issues privileged on their courses. The research indicates that this may be as a result of a lack of data gathered by the Higher Education institutions (HEI) around the recruitment, progression or achievement of LGB students.

Social work programmes have not been required to record students’ sexual orientation for the General Social Care Council (GSCC), unlike other categories of identity such as ethnicity, age, gender and disability status.

Anna Fairtlough, one of the chief researchers, said: “What is most telling from this research is that there is a real lack of understanding when it comes to LGB students on social work programmes. Because there is no data, and limited research has been undertaken, it is not all that surprising to hear that LGB students are left marginalised.”

To tackle this, the researchers have developed a toolkit to successfully enable HEIs to promote LGB equality on social work programmes.

Anna Fairtlough continues: “Under the Equality Act 2010, organisations are not only required to try and prevent discrimination, but also to take active steps to advance the equality of people who share protected characteristics – and this includes LGB students.

“We have developed this auditing toolkit, to enable HEIs to identify where they sit in terms of their attitudes to LGB students, and also help them build on and improve their existing practice.”

As part of the auditing tool, the researchers have recognised three different levels of response to LGB students:

  • The heterosexist/homophobic level: ignoring homophobic actions or attitudes; inhibiting LGB students from ‘coming out’; or failing to address LGB equality issues in the academic practice
  • The anti-discriminatory level: committed in a general way to promoting equalities but give little attention to the equality area in relation to the curriculum or student experience
  • The anti-heterosexist level: actively promotes equalities; provides strategic leadership; consults with LGB students, staff and service users and carers; understand the complexities of LGB experiences and manifestations of homophobia and heterosexism; have confident, skilled staff able to deliver anti-heterosexist social work practice and education.

The toolkit goes through a series of questions to help the HEI understand what level they sit on, and then determines actions and priorities for the university, staff and students to improve on their LGB equality on social work programmes.

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If you are interested in LGBT issues you might like to listen to the following podcasts here at Pod Academy:

  • Don’t say gay – Cambridge university students look at how children might be introduced to alternative sexualities
  • Gay male identity – Andrew Cooper and Jeffrey Weeks discuss  how gay male identity is changing in a fast changing world.

 

Fashion bloggers remake the catwalk

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As London Fashion Week wowed the front rows last week the bloggers were in focus again.

Style blogging has democratised fashion journalism it has influenced the content of fashion pages in our newspapers and magazines. Most importantly, it has also moulded online editorial fashion content, whether written or moving image.

“More than just a street style photographer, Yvan Rodic is a cultural explorer or ‘blog-trotter’—a new breed of traveller on a perpetual mission to scout out the latest global trends…”

“My love of fashion was initially an act of rebellion against my parents and the ‘popular’ people at school – which then developed into something all consuming and now is my number one passion.”  Susie Lau, Style Bubble

These style mavens are now a fixture of our fashion weeks. They have caught the imaginations of photographers – often bloggers themselves – and PRs. This new army of fashion writers is now an important conduit for ramping up a designer’s profile on the internet.

And an army it is. The British Fashion Council, which organises London Fashion Week, has a separate category for accrediting bloggers for the event. This season it has had to limit the number of these blogs in the face of an estimated 3,000 people attempting to sign up.

It’s easy to be snobby about fashion bloggers as untrained arbiters of style. But the fact is that these aficionados of fashion have become important, perhaps the central, 21st-century trendsetters.

Of course, there is a world of difference between enthusiastic teenagers publishing selfies with the caption, “I love this dress,” and the high-profile bloggers that are respected by the traditional fashion media. These write well, articulate extensive knowledge and behave ethically in terms of disclosing “gifting” and their financial relationships with brands when they have them.

The best fashion blogs are effectively part of the established fashion media, no more a threat to established magazines than the swathe of niche independent magazines launched every year. Indeed, respected fashion bloggers are now rolled out as experts to comment on fashion stories across the media.Stylebubble’s Susanna Lau is a case in point, and this fashion week she is also contributing her thoughts to London Fashion Week Daily.

These fashion enthusiasts have effectively democratised the catwalks. Once the privileged and exclusive arena for retail buyers and fashion journalists alone, instant availability of fashion images from the runway, not to mention live streaming of the events, means that traditional journalism has had to change.

The change elicited by this boom in blogging was eloquently described by veteran fashion editor Suzy Menkes in an articlethis time last year. She contrasted what she described as the “black crows” of traditional journalism with the “peacocks” – both style bloggers and look-at-me stylists – and described how the fuss around what those outside the shows were wearing was beginning to overtake any fuss about the shows themselves. It is not only fashion writing that has been transformed, but also how we consume it.

This is perhaps why it is no longer the role of a fashion journalist to describe what a designer has sent down the runway. Any member of the public with access to the internet can see that for themselves – and even buy the product online in advance of it hitting the shops. Today, fashion journalists have to take a longer view. They have to contextualise in history and culture and advise how, why and when to wear different trends, looks or individual garments.

As style blogging has democratised fashion journalism it has influenced the content of fashion pages in our newspapers and magazines. Most importantly, it has also moulded online editorial fashion content, whether written or moving image.

And in response to many tens of thousands of teenage selfies showing their latest fashion purchase, and hundreds of fashion bloggers doing the same, fashion editors now parade themselves in the latest looks. No longer able to be aloof from their readers, fashion journalists have to flaunt themselves, taking on the role of model as well as information provider. But will this mean that eventually fashion journalists will need to look like models to get the job?

Anyone can be a commentator now – which means that as well as quality of writing, the show of personality is increasingly relevant. And back at London Fashion Week, the scrum of photographers looking for the most strikingly dressed visitors continues to annoy and delight in equal measure.

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This blogpost by Josephine Collins, Course Leader for BA (Hons) Fashion Journalism, at University of the Arts London was first published on The Conversation.

Photo is copyright London Fashion Council

The Baftas: Oscars-lite?

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The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has just held its annual award ceremony.  And Britishness seemed to be main motif in the BBC’s broadcast of the 2014 Baftas. But when host Stephen Fry mentioned the event was the highlight of the British film calendar, he backtracked and asked, “Is there such a thing as a British film calendar?”

Jose Arroyo, lectures on Film History and Film Aesthetics in Warwick University’s Department of Film and Television Studies.  Here he assesses the Baftas:

What are the Baftas about? What are they for? You might think to honour, celebrate and promote British cinema. But a different story emerges when one looks at the nominees. Bruce Dern, Leonardo Di Caprio and Tom Hanks, for example, were contenders for Best Actor.

Indeed, when the first award of the evening was announced, and Gravity won Outstanding British Film, the twittersphere went into a frenzy of speculation as to what was British about it. A friend of mine – who works for an independent British distributor – insisted “It is NOT a British film. It is NOT a British film. It is NOT a British Film.” Three times. Just in case we didn’t get the message.

Of course, there’s no need to get too purist about these things. The nominations don’t necessarily reflect a particular definition of British cinema, one which would probably run something along the lines of: films predominantly financed in Britain, about British stories, with a predominantly British cast and crew (Philomenaand The Selfish Giant would be unproblematic examples). But they do reflect British film culture: the films celebrated are the films that have entertained, delighted and informed us here, be they British or not.

And later in the show, when Alfonso Cuarón returned to the stage to collect his award for Best Director, and had presumably been made aware of the brouhaha over Gravity’s win for Best British Film he said:

I consider myself part of the British Film Industry. I’ve lived here for 13 years and made about half my films here. I guess I make a good case for the curbing of immigration.

Yet, at the end of his speech, the cinematic culture Cuarón feels a part of was made clear when he thanked Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Iñárritu, Mexican compadres and current colleagues in the higher reaches of global cinema. “I wouldn’t order breakfast before consulting them first,” he said.

A concern with Britishness and its articulation continued as a recurring motif. Earlier in the show, after Stephen Fry introduced her as a “ghastly piece of shrieking, stinking offal”, Emma Thomson replied, “Is it me or being British that means being referred to as a stinking piece of offal make me feel so much better about myself?”

The finale of the evening was when Prince William, in his role as president of Bafta, introduced Jeremy Irons to bring out the pomp and ceremony and recount the highlights of Helen Mirren’s career. Accepting the award for her Fellowship of the Baftas, Mirren first thanked her old teacher, Alice Welding, who recently died at the age of 102, for having inspired her to desire to live in a world of literature and poetry. She finished off her acceptance speech with a dazzling oration that invoked both acting and Albion, the “We are such stuff as dreams are made on” speech from The Tempest.

It was a rather theatrical and very British end to a Baftas that saw12 Years a Slave, a film which had Channel Four funding, a British director and a large British cast, win Best Film, but Gravity, with its American money and cast and its Mexican director, win Best British film. Chiwetel Ejiofor, black and British, won Best Actor.

Oh, and The Great Beauty, the winner of Best Foreign Film, didn’t even make it to the broadcast. It was put in the little “These awards were handed out earlier” addendum after the end of the main programme. So the Britishness of these Baftas seems to be defined by placing America at the centre, various articulations of Britishness on the margins and in the “specialised” categories – such as the “Michael Balcon Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema”. And the rest of the world? Utterly out of the picture.

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This article, by Jose Arroyo, Lecturer, Department of Film and Television Studies at University of Warwick first appeared on 17/02/14 on The Conversation website.

Abortion rights under threat in Spain

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The Spanish government wants to turn back the clock on abortion rights in Spain, where currently women have a right to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy up to 14 weeks.

But there is a growing campaign by women in Spain – even at this late stage (and despite a challenge to the government having just been defeated in parliament) they are hoping to be able to stop the destruction of a women’s right to choose.  If they can’t, Spanish women will be compelled to travel abroad if they need an abortion.

The following article was posted on the 50:50 strand of Open Democracy just 2 days ago – it describes how a women’s group on the northern coast of Spain devised a plan to fill a train full of protestors against the government’s proposals.. “El Tren de la Libertad” – destination Madrid – was the result.

The post was written by Liz Cooper, who got on board the train at Valladolid.

The Liberty Train: “Because I Decide”

Valladolid station has an elegant 19th century façade, modern bustling interior and long, bare, windswept platforms where these days the fast trains from the south pull in regularly, taking just over an hour from Spain’s capital city Madrid. Awaiting the arrival of the train from Asturias in the north, over 4 hours away by rail, is a group of women dressed in lilac and violet smocks, dancing, chanting and whistling behind a huge banner proclaiming  “Aborto libre No a la reforma Gallardón”  (Free abortion. No to the reform of Gallardón). It is a local Valladolid women’s group, who have arrived to receive “The Liberty Train” from the north. This is no normal ordinary scheduled service. The train awaited includes 150 seats booked some months earlier by a women’s group Tertulia Feminista les Comadres from Gijón on the northern coast, as part of their initiative to fill the centre of Madrid on Saturday February 1st with a protest against the proposed retrograde abortion law reform of the current conservative Government.

A number of women on the train fought in the 1980s for the first law to legalize abortion after the end of the dictatorship. This time around they intend to deliver their message “Porque Yo Decido” (Because I Decide) in seven languages, to the doors of the Spanish Parliament.  Mainly organized via Facebook they have received massive support with Liberty trains coming in to Madrid from major towns: Seville, Valencia, Granada, Barcelona, and from all over Spain. Buses also are bringing in protestors; some from the Basque country arrive to join the train in Valladolid. Publicly expressed support has come from the European Parliament, France, Britain, Italy, Argentina and the Ukraine; many other voices have joined the protest. There are symbolic marches planned in London in support, and in Paris 5000 people have marched in protest at the Spanish Government plans.

The Gijón women’s group is to spend the Friday night in Valladolid and they take the opportunity to protest at the annual convention of the Partido Popular (PP), the current governing party, coincidentally in Valldolid the same weekend. The Minister for Justice Ruiz Gallardón responds to the women’s protest by saying. “No amount of shouting is going to make me give up my commitment to complete my programme”. He also tells an interviewer that he is very proud to be seen as the creator of the reforms which he has been talking up to the press since 2012. It smacks of a personal obsession.

The proposed new reform against which this protest is convened overturns the 2010 law passed by the last Socialist Government which recognised a woman’s right to decide on abortion, giving her the decision up to 14 weeks of her pregnancy without question. The new proposals are in essence an attempt to wipe the idea of a woman’s right to decide off the reproductive map and give legal credence to the moment of conception as the beginning of life thereby equating abortion with assassination. It is pure Vatican dogma.

Pressure from the European Parliament has already made the Spanish Government hesitate and consider putting off further plans to push through the law until after the European elections in May. There is a growing international consensus that the proposal is barbaric, even drawing critical comment from the New York Times.

The traditional Vatican attitude to women is heavily backed by senior members of the Spanish Catholic Church not all of whom apparently are fully occupied in Church affairs. The Archbishop of Granada for example is also director of the publishing company, Nuevo Inicio in Italy and he published a book in November directed at women, entitled “Cásate y sé sumisa” (“Marry and Obey”).  Its publication in Spanish drew some critical remarks from the right, but the left was very precise: Maite Molina, a councillor from the left wing group “Izquierda Unida” (IU) has said: that it “is a provocation on the part of the Catholic Church that likes to glory in its hatred of women by publishing this book”

Recently the Catholic Episcopal Conference in Spain, whose outgoing President is the Archbishop of Bilbao, Rouco Varela, well known for his anti-abortion and other right wing views and frequently a target for the radical feminist group Femen, has gone further than the Government in proclaiming that any abortion law is wrong. “No one has the right under any circumstances to take the life of an innocent human being. Any abortion law however restrictive remains an unjust law.”  So no meddling by a democratic society with the beliefs of the Catholic Church would seem to be the message.  It should be remembered that Spain is, according to its Constitution, a non-denominational State.

To add to the mix, a new Spanish Cardinal, 84 year old Fernando Sebastian Aguilar, has just been appointed by the recently enthroned “liberal” Pope, and has inaugurated his position as Cardinal by describing homosexuality as a defect that can be corrected by treatment. He has not yet proclaimed on the subject of abortion, but it is thought he is unlikely to have feminist views on the issue.  In what century does the Catholic Church, and the right-wing, live?  History tells us that in the 20th century in Spain together they supported fascism, the Franco dictatorship, the subsidiary position of women and the Sacred Crusade against communism, republicanism, masonry and homosexuality.  It looks as if they may now be taking advantage of an extreme right-wing Government, with a left opposition still in disarray to mount a serious attempt to return to those times.  It is clear that amongst the Church leaders there is at the very least an intention to destroy the hard fought rights that Spanish women have won over the last thirty-five years.

On Saturday morning the train leaves Valladolid on time, packed to the rooftops mainly with women, on its one hour dash to the capital. There is a women’s film crew on board, national and regional newspaper journalists and photographers, video films in progress, lots of lilac dressed women excitedly pushing past each other up and down the aisles, women practising the song written for the day in an atmosphere of excitement and nervous anticipation; everyone seems to be interviewing someone and all are talking at the same time. The journey is over in a flash. At Chamartin, the northern Madrid station, the women still have one more train to catch, the local train to the southern station Atocha, where the demonstration is assembling on the station’s huge esplanades at the bottom of the Paseo de Prado. The protestors will walk just over one kilometre up to the Spanish Parliament (Las Cortes) past the Ministry of Health and the world famous Prado Art Gallery.

Madrid has prepared its own special welcome for the marchers. The “Marea Blanca” (the White Masses) of protestors wearing the habitual white uniform of many health employees, most of whom are women, has for months been out on the streets protesting against the privatization of healthcare in the region. Just one week before the Liberty Trains arrive, the Madrid Government backs down over the privatisation of six major hospitals admitting the health system is practically paralysed. It is the perfect context for the multicoloured marchers to move into with their thousands of banners, flags, drums, tambours, whistles, violins and guitars backing the chanting and animating the slow progress of the marchers. There are trades union groups, many men in support, lots of children, prams, dogs and even a few bicycles but mainly it is a moving mass of women chattering, blowing whistles and chanting slogans with banners held high in the various different languages of Spain. It is cold but the sun is shining. As expected the demonstration is blocked a hundred metres or so away from the Parliament building and cordoned off by police. After maintaining their position for some time, calling for the resignation of the Minister for Justice and the Prime Minister, the Gijón women are allowed to present their written protest at the Parliament building. The bulk of the march breaks up as people veer off to the meeting to be held at the Trades Union Headquarters of the Workers Party (CC.OO) dumping their banners as they go, some in the barricaded window of a Catholic Franciscan propaganda shop.

Was it worth the enormous effort involved? Numbers were estimated at around30,000 by the digital newspaper “Público”.  For a small independent group of women with very little support from the national media in the run up to the protest, to have inspired women and men from all over Spain, and even from other European countries to catch the train in protest against the intended changes to the current abortion law, is surely a remarkable achievement… But perhaps their even greater triumph is the reiteration of the existence of a feminist movement, once again being openly and proudly proclaimed on the streets of the capital.

In the early days of the new Spanish democracy, women’s rights were certainly seen as a crucial part of the future of Spain and many women fought to achieve them.  One initiative of the incoming Socialist Government in 1982, and probably with the best of intentions, was to create the Institute for Women at state level; over time many smaller versions were set up at regional and municipal levels. They have done, and still do, much to further the cause of women but suffer from one diabolical defect: they are at the mercy of whatever political party happens to run their government, their autonomous region or their town hall. Currently, as most regions and town halls are in the hands of the conservative PP, they are suffering massive cuts and reduction of their powers. The brief era of pro-feminist legislation of the last Socialist Government is being destroyed and feminism as a political position, as legitimate as socialism or conservatism, seemed to be fading away behind the skirts of the government run Institutes for Women.

Thanks in no small part to the Gijón group, who according to the press have achieved the biggest and the most widely supported protest against the reforms to date, feminism is back where it belongs: on the national political agenda. It was obvious on Saturday that the protestors will not give up. They have made it clear that women will make the decisions about their reproductive rights for themselves and are not prepared to let the Church and the right-wing destroy what they have so far achieved. If need be, they say, there will be more Liberty Trains and they will keep coming.

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Liz Cooper has worked in publishing for over 30 years. In the 70s she worked on the paperShrew, the magazineRed Rag, and the Women’s Liberation Newsletter. She worked for 4 years for PDC, a radical publishing and distribution co-operative before moving on to theNew Statesman in the 80s and briefly News on Sunday. She now lives in Northern Spain.

Monuments Men – Destruction of ancient sites still part of warfare

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The forthcoming film Monuments Men, starring George Clooney and Matt Damon, celebrates the men and women who were tasked with protecting historic buildings and monuments during World War II. But the destruction and looting of cultural heritage has been intertwined with conflict for thousands of years. To steal an enemies’ treasures, defile their sacred places and burn their cities has been part of war throughout history. And sadly, in the modern battlefields of the ancient world, in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, and elsewhere, it continues to this day.

This article by Emma Cunliffe, Postgraduate Associate at Durham University, was first posted on The Conversation on 10 February 2014.

The Colosseum in Rome was built using spoils from the sack of the Temple of Jerusalem in AD 70. Many of the Louvre’s collections were “acquired” by Napoleon while rampaging through Europe (albeit later returned). In fact, much of Napoleon’s collection of war booty – acquired during his failed campaign in Egypt – was declared forfeit by the British victors and given to the British Museum under the Treaty of Capitulation of 1801. The Rosetta Stone, which famously enabled the deciphering of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic script, was acquired through this treaty and is still on display there today.

Although antiquities gained widespread public interest throughout the 19th and early 20th century, it was not until the Second World War that the idea of preserving them in conflict finally took hold. As Hitler’s armies advanced across Europe, he saw an opportunity to conquer not only the land and the people, but the cultures of defeated nations. Millions of artistic works and important cultural objects were seized and sent back to Germany, where Hitler took a personal interest in selecting the very best. His new Führermuseum was to be the most spectacular art museum ever built, culled from the cultural riches of the western world.

Those in command of the Allied forces were faced with a historical and cultural loss of unprecedented scale. Declaring his support for the protection of the past, the supreme Allied commander, Dwight Eisenhower, said:

Inevitably, in the path of our advance will be found historical monuments and cultural centres which symbolise to the world all that we are fighting to preserve. It is the responsibility of every commander to protect and respect these symbols wherever possible.

Enter the Monuments Men

In 1943, the Allied forces approved the formation of a new unit: the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Commission (MFAA). For the first time in history, armies went into the field with officers dedicated to protecting art and monuments during the conflict. It was going to be a tough job. Entire historic quarters in cities such as Warsaw were demolished in days and the artistic treasures of Europe were vanishing.

Just 345 men and women, with no dedicated resources, were tasked with protecting historic buildings, monuments, libraries and archives across the whole of Europe and North Africa. Most were museum staff, art historians, scholars and university professors, yet their success was incredible. They found and returned more than five million stolen objects and artworks and ensured the protection of numerous buildings, often using no more than their own ingenuity.

A part of their story is told in the new film, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival yesterday and due for release in the UK on 14 February. Monuments Men is based on author Robert Edsel’s book of the same name, by the Monuments Men Foundation, and also in the book and ensuing film The Rape of Europa. In 1951, the MFAA was disbanded as politicians drafted the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, followed by the First Protocol in 1954 and the Second Protocol in 1999 (which extended and clarified the original tenets).

The convention protects places and objects “of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people” during conflict. It argues the heritage of all sides should be protected and that warring sides should not use it or its immediate surroundings, nor direct assaults against it. It also granted suitable authority and units for its protection. Crucially, it separates the principles of military necessity from military convenience. Unfortunately, it is not widely adhered to and many of the lessons learned by the MFAA have been forgotten.

The monumental battle today

The Monument Men of today are almost all volunteers. Some are local people, such as the Syrian Association for Preserving Heritage and Ancient Landmarks, who work in Aleppo (a UNESCO World Heritage city) to try and save its monuments and buildings. Individual organisations monitor the situation. Some countries have formed voluntary national Committees of the Blue Shield.

The Blue Shield network was suggested in the Hague Convention and is the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross. It is a group of non-governmental organisations working to protect monuments, sites, museums and archives during and after conflict and natural disasters. Members are drawn from universities, museums and heritage organisations, with advisors from the Red Cross, UNESCO, the military and others.

 

World Heritage site: The Basilica of St Simeon Stylites in Syria, the oldest surviving Byzantine church, dating back to the 5th century, now rumoured to be badly damaged by fighting Emma Cunliffe

Their objectives are to formulate and lead national and international responses to emergencies that threaten cultural property. They encourage respect for, and protection of, cultural heritage, providing training and advice. Despite the Hague Convention’s mandates, often the only military personnel who engage with cultural heritage protection do so voluntarily.

Today, 126 countries have ratified the Hague Convention, although the necessary work is rarely funded and not all the tenets are enforced. The UK has not ratified it, despite thedestruction caused by the coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003. In August 2013, chemical weapons were used in Syria and intervention was discussed. Had it happened, the British military is under no obligation to protect, or even consider, any of the thousands of significant sites throughout the country, many of which date back to the earliest achievements of mankind.

Protecting cultural property is about more than old books, buildings and fine paintings. Our cultural heritage stands as the symbol of everything humanity has achieved: our finest moments and even our worst atrocities. It is the physical reminder of our past and inspiration for our future. While not every site can be saved, its loss should be a matter of necessity and never convenience. As Eisenhower stated 70 years ago, to fight without even considering it is to sacrifice everything for which we are fighting.

 

Emma Cunliffe is a member of the UK Committee of the Blue Shield, and worked with the Global Heritage Fund to produce the report “Damage to the Soul: Syria’s Cultural Heritage in Conflict”.

Is that song driving you mad? A cure for earworms….

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At last, a scientific report holds the promise of a cure for those songs that you just ‘can’t get out of your head’. Some people may enjoy going over and over a favourite tune, but they cause anxiety and distress for 1 in 3 of us. A new report written by academics at Goldsmiths, University of London provides the best hope yet for a cure.

Organisers of National Science & Engineering Week and academics at Goldsmiths have teamed up to profile the subject of ‘earworms’ – tunes that randomly pop into our heads and repeat on an endless cycle – to show some of the science behind everyday life. The Week is part of an initiative involving leading scientists across the country, and touching on a range of everyday subjects from play to speech, football to technology.

The new report, published today in scientific journal ‘PLOSE ONE’, is based on a study of over 18,000 people across England and Finland and is the first study of its kind to explore how people actually deal with earworms, and whether these methods are effective.

The findings indicate that earworms can be controlled in a number of ways from actively listening to another tune (successful for 1 in 10) to immersing yourself in the tune itself.

Although ‘cure tunes’ vary, the most popular song used for people looking to replace that annoying ditty is ‘God Save the Queen’. ‘Karma Chameleon’ and ‘Happy Birthday’ also rated highly. In most reports, using these tunes helps block the involuntary cycle of earworms without adopting the same repeating characteristic.

Other successful approaches include activities that provide a verbal distraction such as conversation, watching TV, reading and even praying. Whilst other activities (such as exercise) were also employed, these were found to be less effective. This is due to the fact that competition in short-term memory is highest when the competing streams are similar.

For some, listening to or singing along with the annoying tune itself was found to be the best way of exorcising it, particularly as it enabled people to listen to the entire tune to resolve the repetitive section.

Earworms are believed to be experienced by over 90% of people at least once a week, with an even higher prevalence among people who play and sing music and who see music as an important part of their lives. They are part of a wider compendium of experiences known as ‘mind pops’. These include personal flashbacks and mind-wandering.

Human brains have enormous affinity for music, particularly because music offers so much structure and repetition for the brain to latch on to. The next step is for researchers to explore the theory that earworms might play a role in matching or changing people’s emotional state.

Dr Lauren Stewart, the principal investigator of the project from the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths, said: “Understanding why earworms start and stop will help us better understand how and why the mind engages in spontaneous, involuntary cognition. Does such activity have a function? Or is it ultimately just a manifestation of the brain’s background activity’ when apparently ‘at rest’?”

She added: “People differ in how they feel about their earworms – some love them, some of them are totally driven to distraction, and for others, it might be very dependent on the content and context of the earworm as to how they feel about them.”

Earworms are just one of the varied subjects being explored during National Science & Engineering Week, which takes place from 14-23 March 2014. The Week will see galleries, universities, schools and museums around the UK running events to showcase the real-life application of science and the critical role science plays in our lives, from the fun and fantastical to the serious and profound.

Forthcoming events touch on subjects such as whether whales sing for their supper, if you can walk on custard, and what makes the perfect cupcake.

Imran Khan, CEO of the British Science Association (organisers of National Science & Engineering Week) adds: “Everyone should grow up with the opportunity to get involved in science and see how it affects their lives, so we’re really pleased Goldsmiths is supporting our national initiative to engage more young people in science. We want to inspire the next generation of scientists, but also get people to realise that science isn’t just for science nerds, too!”

To find out more about the free events available to the public, visit www.britishscienceassociation.org/NSEWevents

About National Science & Engineering Week

National Science & Engineering Week (NSEW) is a ten-day national programme of science, engineering and technology events and activities across the UK aimed at people of all ages. NSEW takes place between 14-23 March. National Science & Engineering Week is funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and works in partnership with Engineering UK.

Storm over the City

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‘You don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows’, sang Bob Dylan.

Rod Stoneman was in New York when Hurricane Sandy struck.  In this post he revisits the shrill media versions of the storm,  and considers whether the hystericisation of weather is another form of the threat from the outside, the other that holds the community together.

This post first appeared on The Column blog.

Rod Stoneman

Rod Stoneman

Notes while confined to a hotel room for the duration of the severe storm in New York in the autumn of 2012.

 

 

 

 

1. Expectation

I had no sense of danger crossing the Atlantic into JFK in New York on 28 October. It was an average Sunday afternoon, without any warning or premonition. Following the first airport comments, “yours is probably the last flight in”, the instant word-of-mouth about an imminent storm built expectations rapidly. There was an immediate sense of anticipation and apprehension that confirmed the arrival of a proximate threat. The first moment of viewing the keyed up reporters on the flat screen television that dominated the hotel room, built suspense and preparation for the dramatic, for the ‘shock and awe’ of the hurricane.

2. Inside – Media

The enhancement of excitement was rapid – the news channels shifted gear towards a looser, faster interaction between the presenters in the studio and the reporters in the field. The story was built through familiar forms: maps and electronic animated diagrams, satellite images, captions and ‘crawlers’ – updates moving across the bottom of the screen. The studios moved to a higher proportion of live feeds from different parts of the city, which cranked up expectation and suspense. Palpable exhilaration was mixed with disconcertion and alarm was transmitted by the reporters.

As the story grew it became the dominant narrative gradually displacing the commentary and speculation about the approaching Presidential election. As always the material was interrupted and interspersed by the frequent sequences of advertisements. The proportion of advertising on American television and its unfamiliar genres: publicising medical products, aggressive political ads, shameless and exaggerated consumerism, is disconcerting when viewed as an outsider. By Monday 29 October this rose to a feeding frenzy – excitable reporters in orange protective clothing shouting and gesturing into the camera; the water droplets running down the camera lens became an index of urgency …

At its height the media pitch was hysterical and cataclysmic; recalling images from the fictional film The Day after Tomorrow. This frame fell away towards Wednesday when it was clear that the height of the storm had passed, and that the catastrophe was not on the scale that had been initially imagined. The media had raised the storm to a very high level of drama throughout, reporters were so agitated and in many cases histrionic that, without underestimating the effects of the hurricane, [1] it felt that television’s melodramatic style was narrativising it towards the apocalypse, a fateful day of reckoning. These extreme and heightened emotions seemed to be for their own sake – there was never any question of what the reckoning might be.

Statue-of-Liberty-has-been-closed-indefinitely-after-Superstorm-Sandy-flooded-its-island-in-New-York-Harbor

3. Outside – Streets

Downtown, the southern third of the Manhattan Island, had lost electricity and was subject to substantial flooding. Walking in the area around 59th Street and Lexington Avenue most of the cafés and small stores continued to operate through the battering of wind and rain; an unspoken sense of communal solidarity and connection in the bars and shops.

There were evident disparities between the shrill media versions and the tempered tone of those in the street near the actual storm centre. A construction crane attached to the One57 skyscraper in West 57th Street was bent and leaning, it began to be built as a mini narrative within the main story – will it fall? Could it break the surface of the street? Would it lead to a devastating explosion from gas mains? Turning the corner into West 53rd Street to en route to the Museum of Modern Art, I was surprised to encounter the sight of the actual crane previously made familiar by so many television images. The street was closed off but a mere 50 yards away the real crane was a very small scale mini-derrick – a palpable visual shock after it had seemed so large and dangerous on the television screen.

One57_Crane_CollapseDangling_crane_6th_Av_57_St_jeh

 

People seemed resilient, most made light of the circumstances they were passing through. There was humour and irony present in the resilience, a little girl in the lift who had arrived at the Fitzgerald Hotel from lower Manhattan asked her parent “Mummy are we really refugees then?”

4. Between

Concerned and alarmed emails from afar indicated that over-estimated perception of the devastation was understandably widespread and made it clear that the rest of the world was watching the same overheated coverage generated by the North American media. The very graphic label for the event being used, ‘Superstorm Sandy’, was a sensationalist scare term created for shock value. [2] That New York was itself the subject of the news placed the hegemon self-consciously at the centre and reinforced the insularity and xenophobia of the United States.

The scale of the metropolis is part of its specificity and the history of the image of New York is about modernity and ‘citi-city’ or ‘cityness’ itself.  The whole world is familiar with the iconography of this place whether they have been to New York or not: yellow cabs glide over steaming manholes under towering skyscrapers. The shadow of 9/11 is always there in representations of that city, even in its absence. The media versions are consistent in that, almost without exception, severe weather is a short-term encounter of maximum drama of fragmented stories, visual depiction and narrative links that never connect with any deeper level of analysis or context. It is precisely here that longer term implications of the politics of the environment should come into play. The debates about environmental issues do not feature on news agendas and are rarely prioritised. The foreboding about increasingly extreme weather becomes a peril, a menace without context or solution.

The hystericisation of weather is also another form of the threat from the outside, the other that holds the community together… But that also has the clear revelation of a constructive aspect – the possibilities of affirmative communal connections surface in a moment of crisis. The unfamiliar social and personal bonding that people talk of as characterising wartime – a national or community spirit, a population finding a different, more open, informal and supportive interrelationship.

The weather has always functioned as a neutral topic of conversation among strangers, the remarks of chance and passing encounters. Described as ‘phatic’, it establishes that the channel of communication is open by talking about something we all have in common that is not at all contentious. As usual what happens in the natural world is only significant in that it affects us. Meteorological phenomenon should not impede or inconvenience us… The constraint of the dust from an Icelandic volcano which grounded all European flights for a few days in April 2010 caused a significant shock to the expectation of uninterrupted travel and free movement. Unconsciously our understandings are embedded in our anthropocentrism – it is always all about us. [3] Our oblique relation to the outside environment starts with the weather.

There is a requirement to re-evaluate the values and meanings assigned to the natural. Through observation we begin to make our relation to a wider world. But normally the city protects us from sensing a wider world, the hinterland, the rural and its extensive spaces beyond. We rarely experience the fundamental physical elements of the planet, the landscapes, the seascapes and the full range of changing weather is softened in the city. The further reaches are largely confined to brief and touristic encounters. Some kind of new ‘pathetic fallacy’ is taking shape, reversing the cultural projection of human feelings onto the weather that was a literary trope for many centuries past.

John Ruskin had criticised the emotional inaccuracy of projecting a state of mind or human attributes onto nature as deceptive and sentimental. But there is a long and persistent tradition of paintings and literary texts connecting external conditions with human events and making them reflect our feelings; as in Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

The night has been unruly. Where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down and, as they say, Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death, And prophesying with accents terrible Of dire combustion and confused events New hatched to the woeful time. The obscure bird Clamored the livelong night. Some say the Earth Was feverous and did shake. (Act 2, Scene 3)

John_Martin_-_Macbeth_-_Google_Art_Project

John Martin, Macbeth (1820)

Now weather conditions cannot be easily cast as reflections of human consciousness as they act out their autonomy in their forceful ability to intrude and disrupt. More frequent storm surges, seas batter coastal regions, extreme and severe meteorological patterns are becoming frequent. Climate destabilisation is beginning to damage economies, devastate food production and risks deflecting centuries of human development. Noah and his family survived the flood, their ark rising above wicked world, the storm subsided and the chosen emerged.

The richest use technology to dream of inventions that can rise above the turbulent waters, a luxury floating ark in New Orleans is designed with “Eco-highlights”. But the medieval ship of fools is perhaps a more relevant image – a vessel whose deranged passengers neither know nor care where they are going. The “…confused events / new hatched to the woeful time” subside. Following the panic and the hysteria of the media we reach for the reassurance of a sunny morning; after the unruly night’s storm, we need to turn away from the noise and the world’s jeopardy, delay that day of reckoning.

You don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows

(Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues, 1965.)

lahinch storm

3 January 2014, Lahinch, Ireland (photo: George Karbus)

RS

Professor Rod Stoneman is the Director of Huston School of Film & Digital Media in Galway, Ireland and was formerly the Chief Executive of the Irish Film Board, he is also the author of Seeing is Believing: the politics of the visual – which Pod Academy has featured in a number of short podcasts. You might also be interested in our podcast, From Syria to Hurricane Sandy: verifying crowd sourced news.

1. A total of 48 people lost their lives as a result of the storm. 2.As an article in the journal Popular Science pointed out.
3.‘Crying Wolf Too Late’, Seeing is Believing: The Politics of the Visual (London: Black Dog, 2013) pp118-121.

Corporate capture?

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The role of large corporations in lobbying for policy change was the subject of a workshop at Medact‘s recent conference.

A number of Government appointed expert committees have recently made recommendations on pressing health issues, including minimum pricing of alcohol and food labelling. But their proposals have been kicked into the long grass by government after intensive lobbying by the food and drinks industry.

David Miller, Professor of Sociology at the University of Bath explained how companies have a number of different ways of exerting influence on policy at a national and European level, including the presence and popularity of their brands, think tanks, lobbying groups, ‘partnership bodies’ where EU civil servants and industry representatives together advise the EU on policy, charities (funded by the industry) which purport to represent ‘consumer interests’, sophisticated PR, and ‘the revolving door’ through which civil servants move from Government departments straight into related jobs in industry.

Here are links to, or about, some of the organisations mentioned by Professor Miller:

Professor Millier is a co-founder of Spinwatch, a public interest investigations organisation.

Medact is an organisation of health professionals working for a ‘safer, fairer and better world’.

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Boom..oom..mmm: The world’s longest echo breaks record

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It’s official, the world’s longest echo can be heard at an oil storage complex at Inchindown, near Invergordon in Scotland.  Hear it by hitting the play button above.

The 1970 Guinness Book of Records holds the last claim for the longest echo. When the solid-bronze doors of the Hamilton Mausoleum in Scotland slammed shut, it took 15 seconds for the sound to die away to silence. The Inchindown echo is a full minute longer.

Professor Trevor Cox of Salford University discovered the Inchdown echo while working with Allan Kilpatrick, an archaeological investigator for the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

Allan fired a pistol loaded with blanks about a third of the way into the storage tank, and Trevor recorded the response picked up by the microphones about a third of the way from the far end – a standard technique used in concert hall acoustics.  At 125 Hertz, a frequency typically made by a tuba, the reverberation time was 112 seconds. Even at the mid-frequencies important for speech, the reverberation time was 30 seconds. The broadband reverberation time which considers all frequencies simultaneously was 75 seconds. They had discovered the world’s most reverberant space

Sonic Wonderland book jacket

 

All of this was just part of Trevor’s research on his new book, Sonic Wonderland: A Scientific Odyssey of Sound, published by Vintage Digital, part of the Random House Group.  It is an exciting journey for anyone who delights in audio treats, and a passionate plea for a deeper appreciation of, and respect for, our shared sonic landscapes.

 

 

 

Some of the other sounds can be heard here:

And as a footnote on that echo – here are some typical reverberation times at mid-frequency:

  • ·         Living room: 0.4 seconds
  • ·         Opera house: 1.2 seconds
  • ·         Concert hall for classical music: 2 seconds
  • ·         St. Paul’s Cathedral: 9.2 seconds

 

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