Tag: Twentieth Century
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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.
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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.
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Changing Altitudes: The Impact of the Tobacco Industry on the Prohibition of In-Flight Smoking in the US
Prior to 1988, smoking was permitted on all commercial aircrafts. Kat Jivkova discusses the health studies which led to its ban and the pro-tobacco campaigners who sought to delay it.
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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.
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Is Big Brother Still Watching? How Orwell’s 1984 Predicted the Future
George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984”, serves as a cautionary tale of the dangers of suppression and mass surveillance. Dalma Roman discusses how these themes have become intwined in our lives today.
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‘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.
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The Unsinkable Molly Brown
A first-class passenger onboard the ill-fated RMS Titanic, Margaret “Molly” Brown’s pleas to rescue people stranded in the Atlantic saw her immortalised in film. However, her philanthropic efforts extended far beyond the immediate tragedy, as Naomi Wallace explains.
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Argentine Borderlands: Relationships Between Torturers and Desaparecidos Under the Military Junta
Under the brutal rule of the military junta in Argentina from 1976 to 1983, hundreds of secret torture camps were established to interrogate and imprison suspected agitators and ‘subversives’. Kat Jivkova examines the relationship between prisoners and guards in these camps and the intriguing ways in which the boundaries between the two groups oftentimes blurred.
Retrospect Journal 