Category: Academic
-
Beyond the Beads and Feathers: Unpacking the Subversive Potential of Carnival in the Atlantic World
Beyond the colour and conviviality, Carnivals have served as a means for participants to challenge oppression through performance. Angela Davis explores the history of this tradition and the sociocultural changes it has driven.
-
On John Berger’s Ways of Seeing
John Berger’s seminal text, “Ways of Seeing”, remains a critical work in the study of art, five decades after its publication. Georgia Smith provides an insightful discussion of his discourse on the “male gaze” and the spectator-subject relationship.
-
Stories From St Conall Cael’s Handbell
How many stories can one object hold? Verity Limond reveals what a medieval Irish handbell can tell us about everything from monastic life to international trade connections.
-
A Dark Comedy: The History of Blackface in Minstrel Shows
‘The Black and White Minstrel Show’ was a popular BBC series that featured performers in blackface singing American minstrel songs. Sam Marks explores the racist origins and history of minstrel shows and explains how and why these traditions ended up in the UK.
-
More Than a Mistress: The Story of Jane Shore
Jane Shore was the mistress to Edward IV and many other significant figures during the Wars of the Roses. Marnie Camping-Harris takes a look at her remarkable life.
-
Colonialist Legacies: Forced Virginity Testing of Indian and Pakistani Women in 1970s Britain
Many South Asian women migrating to Britain during the 1970s faced inhumane examinations based on racial prejudice. Sophie Whitehead examines Britain’s austere immigration policies during the 1970s and the colonial mentality which produced them.
-
‘All life is a service’: The Contested Erotics of Fascism from Foucault to Frost
The sexualisation of fascist aesthetics has received a great deal of critical and philosophical analysis. Georgia Smith examines this discourse and the convergence of eroticism and fascism.
-
Early Modernity and the World Beyond Europe
Seth Silverberg discusses how applicable the Early Modern periodisation is outside of Europe and encourages a reconsideration of the term, as well as of the concept of modernity itself.
Retrospect Journal 