DOCSLIB.ORG

Knowledge Goes Pop: from Conspiracy Theory to Gossip Birchall, Clare

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Knowledge Goes Pop: from Conspiracy Theory to Gossip Birchall, Clare www.ssoar.info Knowledge goes pop: from conspiracy theory to gossip Birchall, Clare Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Monographie / monograph Zur Verfügung gestellt in Kooperation mit / provided in cooperation with: OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Birchall, C. (2006). Knowledge goes pop: from conspiracy theory to gossip. (Culture Machine Series). Oxford: Berg. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-270769 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY-NC-ND Lizenz This document is made available under a CC BY-NC-ND Licence (Namensnennung-Nicht-kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung) zur (Attribution-Non Comercial-NoDerivatives). For more Information Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen finden see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.de Knowledge Goes Pop CULTURE MACHINE SERIES Series Editor: Gary Hall ISSN: 1743-6176 Commissioning Editors: Dave Boothroyd, Chris Hables Gray, Simon Morgan Wortham, Joanna Zylinska International Consultant Editors: Simon Critchley, Lawrence Grossberg, Donna Haraway, Peggy Kamuf, Brian Massumi, Meaghan Morris, Paul Patton, Paul Rabinow, Kevin Robins, Avital Ronell The position of cultural theory has radically shifted. What was once the engine of change across the humanities and social sciences is now faced with a new ‘post- theoretical’ mood, a return to empiricism and to a more transparent politics. So what is the future for cultural theory? Addressing this question through the presentation of innovative, provocative and cutting-edge work, the Culture Machine series both repositions cultural theory and reaffirms its continuing intellectual and political importance. Published books include City of Panic Paul Virilio Art, Time and Technology Charlie Gere Forthcoming books include Anti-Capitalism: Cultural Theory and Popular Politics Jeremy Gilbert Knowledge Goes Pop From Conspiracy Theory to Gossip CLARE BIRCHALL Oxford • New York English edition First published in 2006 by Berg Editorial offices: First Floor, Angel Court, 81 St Clements Street, Oxford OX4 1AW, UK 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA © Clare Birchall 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of Berg. Berg is the imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Birchall, Clare. Knowledge goes pop : from conspiracy theory to gossip / Clare Birchall.—English ed. p. cm.—(Culture machine series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-84520-143-2 (pbk.) ISBN-10: 1-84520-143-4 (pbk.) ISBN-13: 978-1-84520-142-5 (hardback) ISBN-10: 1-84520-142-6 (hardback) 1. Knowledge, Sociology of. 2. Popular culture. 3. Social perception. 4. Gossip. I. Title. II. Series. HM651.B57 2006 306.4'2—dc22 2006009546 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13 978 1 84520 142 5 (Cloth) 978 1 84520 143 2 (Paper) ISBN-10 1 84520 142 6 (Cloth) 1 84520 143 4 (Paper) Typeset by JS Typesetting Ltd, Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan Printed in the United Kingdom by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn. www.bergpublishers.com To RRS for speculating on me These are difficult times for ‘modern’ people who believe that there are proper sorts of knowledge, usually produced and disseminated in places like universities. Today, knowledges of various kinds are being produced at all sorts of places, and disseminated in all sorts of ways. Universities can no longer claim to be the sole guardians of knowledge, even of more or less academic knowledge, which is being produced as much outside the university as inside. While both the left and the right are challenging the status of certain ways of producing and presenting knowledge, the relations between expertise and the various forms of common sense are becoming increasingly conflicted. Knowledge Goes Pop jumps into the middle of this messy terrain, and offers an incisive and insightful analysis of both sides of the line dividing cultural criticism from popular knowledge. Hopefully, Birchall’s book will set in motion a sustained and rigorous discussion of the place of ‘knowledge’ in the coming modernity. Lawrence Grossberg, author of ‘Caught in the Crossfire: Kids, Politics and America’s Future’, Morris David Distinguished Professor of Cultural Studies and Director of the University Program in Cultural Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Contents Preface xi Acknowledgements xv 1 Know It All 1 2 Just Because You’re Paranoid, Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Out to Get You 33 3 Cultural Studies on/as Conspiracy Theory 65 4 Hot Gossip: The Cultural Politics of Speculation 91 5 Sexed Up: Gossip by Stealth 129 Conclusion: Old Enough to Know Better? The Work of Cultural Studies 151 Endnotes 159 Bibliography 171 Index 183 Preface WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK A voice on late-night talk radio told me that Kentucky Fried Chicken injects its food with drugs that render men impotent. A colleague asked if I thought the FBI was ‘in’ on 9/11. An alien abductee on the Internet claimed extraterrestrials implanted a microchip in her left buttock. The front page of a gossip mag screamed ‘Julia Roberts in Porn Scandal’. A best-seller suggested gender differ- ence is so great, men and women may as well come from different planets. A spiritual healer claimed he could cure my aunt’s chronic fatigue syndrome with the energizing power of crystals. This book came out of a deep fascination with the popular knowledges that saturate our experience of everyday understanding and communication in the twenty-first century. I was struck by how we mediate and are mediated by popular knowledges, how they influence the way we position ourselves in the world and shape the way we imagine the world works. I wanted to call such phenomena ‘knowledge’ in order to remind myself of its relation to the more ‘official’ knowledges that also tell us who we are, what to believe, and how to conduct ourselves socially. From Michel Foucault’s work, I knew that power relations are determined by knowledge, but I also wanted to think about the relations between knowledges in terms of power. Are popular knowledges, I wondered, marginalized by official knowledges? What challenge do they pose to traditional sites of knowledge production? Why does their presence cause so much institutional anxiety? When I began to tell people that I was studying conspiracy theories (among other examples of popular knowledge) they responded in one of two ways. They either asked why on earth people believe in such ‘nonsense’ or grilled me for what really happened to Diana, JFK, or Martin Luther King. Was September 11 a set-up to legitimize the invasion of firstly Afghanistan and then Iraq? Is there such a thing as the New World Order? Does the Bilderberg group really pull the strings? They wanted me to tell them why these stories existed or if they were true. And in some ways it might have been easier to address these concerns. I could, with regards to the second concern, occupy myself with the veracity of particular statements produced within popular knowledges. (Was Diana really xii Preface murdered? Do aliens actually abduct humans? Will this book improve my sex life? Have the latest celebrity couple truly broken up?) Let’s face it, we are all capable of becoming absorbed by the details and this is part of the pleasure to be found in gossip, conspiracy theory, alien abduction narratives and the like. Some commentators have gone down this route, debunking certain theories and ideas perpetuated by these kinds of narratives. Other commentators have addressed the first concern as to why people believe in ‘false’ or ‘fragile’ knowledge. Such approaches tend to perform symp- tomatic readings of popular knowledge in which the knowledge always takes the place of some psychosocial lack, or is read as a political act performed by usually disenfranchised agents. Francis Wheen, for example, in an article extracted from his book How Mumbo Jumbo Overtook the World writes, ‘The new irrationalism is an expression of despair by people who feel impotent to improve their lives and suspect that they are at the mercy of secretive, impersonal forces whether these be the Pentagon or invaders from Mars. Political leaders accept it as a safe outlet for dissent, fulfilling much the same function that Marx attributed to religion’ (2004: 12). Indeed, there are all sorts of routes to answer the question ‘Why do we turn to popular knowledge?’ – via psychoanalysis, philosophy, history, or anthropology – but I wanted to write a book that could open up a different way of responding to popular knowledges: one that moves beyond the truth or falsity of statements produced by a particular knowledge and the question of why people might choose to invest in them. Working against the grain of much academic work on fan communities and the idea of empowered consumers (in my field of cultural studies especially), I wanted to focus on the knowledge believed in, rather than those who believe. That is not to say that I wanted to eliminate the ‘subject’ altogether as there is always a residual concept of subjectivity in discursive mechanisms but I did not want to make claims as to these subjects’ intentions, desires, or reasons for belief. While I knew psychological motive and socio-political pressures would all inform a reading of popular knowledge’s increased circulation and employment, I felt that focusing on what makes each popular knowledge possible in the first place would allow me to consider the relationship between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’, ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ knowledges. I thought that under- standing these relationships was necessary for approaching some key events of our age.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Stuart Hall Bibliography 27-02-2018
    Stuart Hall (3 February 1932 – 10 February 2014) Editor — Universities & Left Review, 1957–1959. — New Left Review, 1960–1961. — Soundings, 1995–2014. Publications (in chronological order) (1953–2014) Publications are given in the following order: sole authored works first, in alphabetical order. Joint authored works are then listed, marked ‘with’, and listed in order of co- author’s surname, and then in alphabetical order. Audio-visual material includes radio and television broadcasts (listed by date of first transmission), and film (listed by date of first showing). 1953 — ‘Our Literary Heritage’, The Daily Gleaner, (3 January 1953), p.? 1955 — ‘Lamming, Selvon and Some Trends in the West Indian Novel’, Bim, vol. 6, no. 23 (December 1955), 172–78. — ‘Two Poems’ [‘London: Impasse by Vauxhall Bridge’ and ‘Impasse: Cities to Music Perhaps’], BIM, vol. 6, no. 23 (December 1955), 150–151. 1956 — ‘Crisis of Conscience’, Oxford Clarion, vol. 1, no. 2 (Trinity Term 1956), 6–9. — ‘The Ground is Boggy in Left Field!’ Oxford Clarion, vol. 1, no 3 (Michaelmas Term, 1956), 10–12. 1 — ‘Oh, Young Men’ (Extract from “New Landscapes for Aereas”), in Edna Manley (ed.), Focus: Jamaica, 1956 (Kingston/Mona: The Extra-Mural Department of University College of the West Indies, 1956), p. 181. — ‘Thus, At the Crossroads’ (Extract from “New Landscapes for Aereas”), in Edna Manley (ed.), Focus: Jamaica, 1956 (Kingston/Mona: The Extra-Mural Department of University College of the West Indies, 1956), p. 180. — with executive members of the Oxford Union Society, ‘Letter: Christmas Card Aid’, The Times, no. 53709 (8 December 1956), 7. 1957 — ‘Editorial: “Revaluations”’, Oxford Clarion: Journal of the Oxford University Labour Club, vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Clinton Email November Release
    UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05772613 Date: 11/30/2015 RELEASE IN FULL CONFIDENTIAL October 9, 2010 For: Hillary From: Sid Re: Yes, some things: 1. Richard Wolff told me that one of the reasons Jones was summarily executed was payback for dumping Mark Lippert (whom he called "Thing Two," from Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat), McDonough's sidekick (whom Jones calls "Thing One"). Of course, Jones had to go to Obama himself to dispose of Lippert. The true cause was that Thing One and Thing Two were leaking negative stories about Jones. McDonough, naturally, has assumed Donilon's post. Obladi, oblada, as John Lennon (who would have been 70) might say. 2. Shaun Woodward is in the Labour shadow cabinet in his former position as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Gordon Brown's hatchetman, Charlie Whelan, whose job was to undercut Tony, had worked the unions to vote for Ed Miliband rather than Ed Balls (the one closest to Gordon) in order to beat David--the last scene in the revenge tragedy of Gordon v. Tony. Only 19 percent of the union people voted, but were credited with the full one-third of Labour votes for leader selection, so a minority of a minority threw the election by 1.3 percent to Ed. Then Balls, his wife Yvette Cooper (an MP and former cabinet secretary), and other Brownites ran as a slate for shadow cabinet--the first time the shadow cabinet was to be elected by the constituency. That succeeded to electing them all and shutting out Peter Hain, the former deputy PM, as well as Shaun.
    [Show full text]
  • Particularitiesof Tony Blair' Governments'foreign Policy Decision
    Максим Прихненко . Особливості механізму прийняття зовнішньополітичних рішень … 321 Історико -політичні проблеми сучасного світу : Modern Historical and Political Issues: Збірник наукових статей . – Чернівці : Journal in Historical & Political Sciences. – Chernivtsi: Чернівецький національний університет , Chernivtsi National University, 2016. – Т. 33-34. – С. 321-327 2016. – Volume. 33-34. – pp. 321-327 УДК : 32-327(410) © Максим Прихненко 1 Особливості механізму прийняття зовнішньополітичних рішень в урядах Тоні Блера В статті системно проаналізовано модель прийняття зовнішньополітичних рішень , а також ключові фактори , які впливали на формування та впровадження цих рішень у зовнішньополіти- чний курс Великобританії у якості складової частини загальної моделі лідерства Тоні Блера . Ключові слова Модель лідерства , механізм прийняття рішень , блеризм . Particularitiesof Tony Blair’ governments’foreign policy decision-making process The present article is devoted to the problem of particularities of Tony Blair’ governments’ foreign policy decision-making process. The aim of the paper is to analyze the decision-making model formed by Tony Blair as well as to identify key factors which impacted the process of creation and implemen- tation of foreign policy decisions in the framework of Tony Blair’ leadership model. It was concluded that Tony Blair had formed tree level decision-making system. Rolls of the Parliament and the Gov- ernment in the deliberation process were frustrated. On the other hand, special advisers and so called selective committees impacts were strengthened. This institutes played the role of consulting bodies on specific issues of the agenda. Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs were the driving force of all process. But usually the second one was like the executor of Prime Minister’ decision.
    [Show full text]
  • Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)
    Wednesday Volume 494 24 June 2009 No. 98 HOUSE OF COMMONS OFFICIAL REPORT PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (HANSARD) Wednesday 24 June 2009 £5·00 © Parliamentary Copyright House of Commons 2009 This publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Parliamentary Click-Use Licence, available online through the Office of Public Sector Information website at www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/ Enquiries to the Office of Public Sector Information, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU; Tel: 0044 (0) 208876344; e-mail: [email protected] 777 24 JUNE 2009 778 rightly made the case. I hope she will understand when I House of Commons point her to the work of the World Bank and other international financial institutions on infrastructure in Wednesday 24 June 2009 Ukraine and other countries. We will continue to watch the regional economic needs of Ukraine through our involvement with those institutions. The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock Mr. Gary Streeter (South-West Devon) (Con): Given PRAYERS the strategic significance of Ukraine as a political buffer zone between the EU and Russia, does the Minister not think that it was perhaps an error of judgment to close [MR.SPEAKER in the Chair] the DFID programme in Ukraine last year? It would be an utter tragedy if Ukraine’s democracy should fail, so BUSINESS BEFORE QUESTIONS should we not at the very least be running significant capacity-building programmes to support it? SPOLIATION ADVISORY PANEL Resolved, Mr. Thomas: We are running capacity-building programmes on democracy and good governance through That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, That she will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
    [Show full text]
  • Aides to the Prime Minister from Robert Walpole to David Cameron by Andrew Blick and George Jones
    blogs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2014/03/12/book-review-at-powers-elbow-aides-to-the-prime-minister-from-robert-walpole- to-david-cameron/ Book Review: At Power’s Elbow: Aides to the Prime Minister from Robert Walpole to David Cameron by Andrew Blick and George Jones Special Advisers and prime-ministerial aides have come to prominence increasingly over the last decade, with operatives like Alastair Campbell and Andy Coulson frequently making front-page news. But little is generally known about the role itself, what it entails, and how it has developed down the years. Catherine Haddon, in reviewing this new offering from Andrew Blick and George Jones, finds their history of the role enlightening and impressive in its breadth and scope. At Power’s Elbow: Aides to the Prime Minister from Robert Walpole to David Cameron. Andrew Blick and George Jones. Biteback Publishing. September 2013. Find this book: ‘The office of Prime Minister is occupied by one individual but the exercise of the role has always been a group activity’. With this theme at the heart, Andrew Blick and George Jones’ latest book moves on from their previous study of prime ministers to look at the advisers that surround them. Blick and Jones take us all the way back to Robert Walpole to examine how the support of aides and the reaction to them helped define not only the concept of permanent Civil Service but also the very role of Prime Minister itself. What Blick and Jones’ book demonstrates is that the UK premiership has not been a static organisation – it has adapted to the style and approach of the individuals that held the post.
    [Show full text]
  • Alastair Campbell
    Alastair Campbell Adviser, People’s Vote campaign 2017 – 2019 Downing Street Director of Communications 2000 – 2003 Number 10 Press Secretary 1997– 2000 5 March 2021 This interview may contain some language that readers may find offensive. New Labour and the European Union UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE): Going back to New Labour, when did immigration first start to impinge in your mind as a potential problem when it came to public opinion? Alastair Campbell (AC): I think it has always been an issue. At the first election in 1997, we actually did do stuff on immigration. But I can remember Margaret McDonagh, who was a pretty big fish in the Labour Party then, raising it often. She is one of those people who does not just do politics in theory, in an office, but who lives policy. She is out on the ground every weekend, she is knocking on doors, she is talking to people. I remember her taking me aside once and saying, ‘Listen, this immigration thing is getting bigger and bigger. It is a real problem’. That would have been somewhere between election one (1997) and election two (2001), I would say. Politics and government are often about very difficult competing pressures. So, on the one hand, we were trying to show business that we were serious about business and that we could be trusted on the economy. One of the messages that business was giving us the whole time was that Page 1/31 there were labour shortages, skill shortages, and we were going to need more immigrants to come in and do the job.
    [Show full text]
  • The Power of the Prime Minister
    Research Paper Research The Power of the Prime Minister 50 Years On George Jones THE POWER OF THE PRIME MINISTER 50 YEARS ON George Jones Emeritus Professor of Government London School of Economics & Political Science for The Constitution Society Based on a lecture for the Institute of Contemporary British History, King’s College, London, 8 February 2016 First published in Great Britain in 2016 by The Constitution Society Top Floor, 61 Petty France London SW1H 9EU www.consoc.org.uk © The Constitution Society ISBN: 978-0-9954703-1-6 © George Jones 2016. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. THE POWER OF THE PRIME MINISTER 3 Contents About the Author 4 Foreword 5 Introduction 9 Contingencies and Resource Dependency 11 The Formal Remit and Amorphous Convention 13 Key Stages in the Historical Development of the Premiership 15 Biographies of Prime Ministers are Not Enough 16 Harold Wilson 17 Tony Blair – almost a PM’s Department 19 David Cameron – with a department in all but name 21 Hung Parliament and Coalition Government 22 Fixed-term Parliaments Act, 2011 25 Party Dynamics 26 Wilson and Cameron Compared 29 Enhancing the Prime Minister 37 Between Wilson and Cameron 38 Conclusions 39 4 THE POWER OF THE PRIME MINISTER About the Author George Jones has from 2003 been Emeritus Professor of Government at LSE where he was Professor of Government between 1976 and 2003.
    [Show full text]
  • Feral Beast": Cautionary Lessons from British Press Reform Lili Levi University of Miami School of Law, [email protected]
    University of Miami Law School University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository Articles Faculty and Deans 2015 Taming the "Feral Beast": Cautionary Lessons From British Press Reform Lili Levi University of Miami School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/fac_articles Part of the Communications Law Commons, and the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons Recommended Citation Lili Levi, Taming the "Feral Beast": Cautionary Lessons From British Press Reform, 55 Santa Clara L. Rev. 323 (2015). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty and Deans at University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TAMING THE "FERAL BEAST"1 : CAUTIONARY LESSONS FROM BRITISH PRESS REFORM Lili Levi* TABLE OF CONTENTS Introdu ction ............................................................................ 324 I. British Press Reform, in Context ....................................... 328 A. Overview of the British Press Sector .................... 328 B. The British Approach to Newspaper Regulation.. 330 C. Phone-Hacking and the Leveson Inquiry Into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press ..... 331 D. Where Things Stand Now ...................................... 337 1. The Royal Charter ............................................. 339 2. IPSO and IM
    [Show full text]
  • Rolf Harris Verdict Bbc
    Rolf Harris Verdict Bbc Queer and unexcelled Brendan renovated so irrepressibly that Arvin prostitute his vichyssoises. Occupied and demandable trichotomouslyPalmer often intrusts or topologically some proctoscopes after Stanford when repudiate or duped and opulently. repoint immortally,William minglings well-trodden his noontime and big-league. luxuriating Harris even offered to pay for a professional video link to be installed. Maidenhead Hockey Club, Marlow Hockey Club, Slough Hockey Club, Windsor Hockey club and more. The reason they had been dumped from behind onto his reckless and karen villagers near where he created content, rolf harris verdict bbc television program director of protesters gathered in. Rolf harris groped them but you may know your experience with rolf harris verdict bbc tv presenter was expected to get our students. Please enter a terrible joke, rolf harris arriving at. Rolf harris trial went wrong, rolf harris verdict bbc they get that i pity pedophiles. Will you stop talking! After Harris and his wife relocated to England, they regularly returned to Perth for family visits and also toured the rest of Australia, where he spent as much as four months travelling with his band. Harris is currently serving time for four other indecent assaults. He was released from Stafford Prison to appear in hisretrial for three counts of indecent assault after a jury in a previous trial failed to reached verdicts. The broadcaster had been questioned by police earlier this week. The decision meant the jury heard nothing about the images and was seen at the time as a major setback for the prosecution. Stephen Vullo QC, defending, said Harris is so certain of his innocence that throughout the investigation of all the charges, he wanted to find as many witnesses as possible.
    [Show full text]
  • The Return of Cabinet Government? Coalition Politics and the Exercise of Political Power Emma Bell
    The Return of Cabinet Government? Coalition Politics and the Exercise of Political Power Emma Bell To cite this version: Emma Bell. The Return of Cabinet Government? Coalition Politics and the Exercise of Political Power. Revue française de civilisation britannique, CRECIB - Centre de recherche et d’études en civilisation britannique, 2017. hal-01662078 HAL Id: hal-01662078 http://hal.univ-smb.fr/hal-01662078 Submitted on 12 Dec 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. The Return of Cabinet Government? Coalition Politics and the Exercise of Political Power Emma BELL Université de Savoie « The Return of Cabinet Government ? Coalition Politics and the Exercise of Political Power », in Leydier, Gilles (éd.) Revue française de la civilisation britannique, vol. 17, n°1, 2012. Abstract It is often said that political power in the UK is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister and a cadre of unelected advisers, prompting many commentators to announce the demise of Cabinet government. This paper will seek to determine whether or not the advent of coalition government is likely to prompt a return to collective decision-making processes. It will examine the peculiarities of coalition politics, continuities and ruptures with previous government practice and, finally, ask whether or not the return of Cabinet government is realistic or even desirable.
    [Show full text]
  • Untitled-1 1 Contents Highlights New Acquisitions Lifestyle, Health & Wellbeing Non Fiction Fiction Recently Published
    Untitled-1 1 Contents Highlights New Acquisitions Lifestyle, Health & Wellbeing Non Fiction Fiction Recently Published Picador Contacts Sophie Brewer, Associate Publisher: [email protected] Jon Mitchell, Rights Director: [email protected] Anna Shora, Senior Rights Manager: [email protected] Mairéad Loftus, Rights Executive: [email protected] Aisling Brennan, Rights Assistant: [email protected] Sub-Agents Brazil – Tassy Barham Baltic states – ANA Baltic Bulgaria and Serbia – ANA Sofia *China – ANA Beijing *China – Peony Literary Agency Czech & Slovak Reps – ANA Prague Greece – J.L.M. Agency Hungary & Croatia – ANA Budapest Israel – The Deborah Harris Agency *Japan – The English Agency *Japan – Tuttle-Mori *Japan – Japan Uni Korea – Eric Yang Agency Romania – Simona Kessler Russia – ANA Moscow *Taiwan – ANA Taipei *Taiwan – Peony Literary Agency Turkey – Anatolia Lit * Non-exclusive agent Highlights Lily's Promise How I Survived Auschwitz and Found the Strength to Live Lily Ebert and Dov Forman The incredibly moving and powerful memoir of an Auschwitz survivor who made headlines around the world in 2020. A heart-wrenching and ultimately life-affirming story that demonstrates the power of love to see us through the darkest of times. When Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert was liberated in 1945, a Jewish-American soldier gave her a banknote on which he’d written ‘Good luck and happiness’. And when her great-grandson, Dov, decided to use social media to track down the family of the GI in 2020, 96-year-old Lily found herself making headlines around the world. Lily had promised herself that if she survived Auschwitz she would tell everyone the truth about the camp.
    [Show full text]
  • Drama Co- Productions at the BBC and the Trade Relationship with America from the 1970S to the 1990S
    ORBIT - Online Repository of Birkbeck Institutional Theses Enabling Open Access to Birkbecks Research Degree output ’Running a brothel from inside a monastery’: drama co- productions at the BBC and the trade relationship with America from the 1970s to the 1990s http://bbktheses.da.ulcc.ac.uk/56/ Version: Full Version Citation: Das Neves, Sheron Helena Martins (2013) ’Running a brothel from inside a monastery’: drama co-productions at the BBC and the trade relationship with America from the 1970s to the 1990s. MPhil thesis, Birkbeck, University of Lon- don. c 2013 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copyright law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit guide Contact: email BIRKBECK, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SCHOOL OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY OF ART AND SCREEN MEDIA MPHIL VISUAL ARTS AND MEDIA ‘RUNNING A BROTHEL FROM INSIDE A MONASTERY’: DRAMA CO-PRODUCTIONS AT THE BBC AND THE TRADE RELATIONSHIP WITH AMERICA FROM THE 1970s TO THE 1990s SHERON HELENA MARTINS DAS NEVES I hereby declare that this is my own original work. August 2013 ABSTRACT From the late 1970s on, as competition intensified, British broadcasters searched for new ways to cover the escalating budgets for top-end drama. A common industry practice, overseas co-productions seems the fitting answer for most broadcasters; for the BBC, however, creating programmes that appeal to both national and international markets could mean being in conflict with its public service ethos. Paradoxes will always be at the heart of an institution that, while pressured to be profitable, also carries a deep-rooted disapproval of commercialism.
    [Show full text]