J.B. Priestley,the ‘Modern’ and America

ABSTRACT

J.B. Priestley has often been seen as representative of a nostalgic Englishness which rejected the modern world and, in the process, embraced anti-Americanism. However, as this article suggests, Priestley had a more complicated relationship with both America and modernity than has been accepted. Focusing on the 1930s, it shows how Priestley travelled widely in the United States and came to admire the democratic and collective aspects of American culture, whilst also developing a critique of what he saw as the lack of individuality and creativity in other elements of the ‘mass' society, anticipating arguments he would develop after 1945.     

Perceived Personal Discrimination,Panethnic and National Identification,and Collective Action to Support Immigrants’ Rights among U.S. Latinas/os

Many Latinas/os in the United States participated in the protests and rallies (i.e., collective action) to support immigrants’ rights that followed Donald Trump’s inauguration as U.S. President in 2017. Following the rejection-identification and rejection-disidentification models, we examined whether perceived personal discrimination, panethnic (i.e., Hispanic or Latina/o) identification, and national (i.e., American) identification were associated with greater likelihood of having engaged in collective action to support immigrants’ rights among a national sample of Latinas/os in the United States (N = 1,501). We found support for the rejection-disidentification model. Perceived personal discrimination was associated with lower national identification. Latinas/os who reported lower national identification, in turn, were more likely to have reported participating in collective action to support immigrants’ rights. We found less support for the rejection-identification model. Perceived personal discrimination was not associated with higher (pan)ethnic identification, although (pan)ethnic identification was positively associated with collective action. We consider the implications of these results for the rejection-identification and rejection-disidentification models and emphasize the importance of attending to U.S. Latinas/os’ multiple identities.     

Coining Offences in England and Wales,c. 1675–1750: The Practical and the Personal

This article argues for a departure from previous conceptual frameworks that have categorised early modern coining offences as ‘social crimes’ similar to poaching, smuggling and riot. It seeks instead to complement the work undertaken by Malcolm Gaskill, Carl Wennerlind and Nicholas Tosney by contributing to their holistic interpretations of the offences from a variety of legal, economic and cultural perspectives. Through an analysis of elite views, cheap print, and the textual content of Mint depositions and trial summaries, this article argues that the ways in which contemporaries understood the practicalities of clipping, counterfeiting, and uttering as illicit depended largely on individual factors. These included the morality of work and labour, and specific roles and relationships of coiners.     

The Changing Media Representation of T. E. Lawrence and Celebrity Culture in Britain, 1919–1935

Abstract

This article presents a new analysis of representations of T. E. Lawrence to explore how the media created celebrity identities in interwar Britain. Examining his appearance in seventeen national newspapers and in newsreels between 1919 and 1935, it shows how earlier press depictions that borrowed from Lowell Thomas’s portrayal of him as the mythical ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ were disrupted by a nascent media-driven celebrity culture which aimed to uncover intimate details of the lives of the so-called ‘real’ people that were believed to exist behind the outward personae of the famous. By the late 1920s, the press’s attention had switched from Lawrence as an imperial adventurer to focus on the intensely private man who lay behind the public image of the ‘Blonde Bedouin’. This shift in emphasis denoted a significant change in the way celebrities were presented by the news media in interwar Britain. Journalists intensified their exposure of celebrities’ private lives to amplify the empathetic connection between the public and the famous at a time when new modes of self-fashioning were configured through expression in private, domestic life. This shift was also informed by growing anxieties regarding how public figures communicated their social authority to the new audiences of the interwar mass media, newspapers and newsreels exposing famous people’s private lives to generate emotional connections with members of the public which would strengthen concepts of social leadership and trust.     

E.E. Fournier d’Albe’s Fin de siècle: Science,Nationalism and Monistic Philosophy in Britain and Ireland

The fin de siècle witnessed radical shifts in the intellectual and cultural landscapes of the British Isles in the context of a general revolt against Victorian values. E. E. Fournier d’Albe – physicist, spiritualist, inventor and Pan-Celticist – personified the ability of intellectuals to latch onto and advance new trends, made available by the emergent intellectual pluralism. Like many contemporaries he rejected traditional religion, but he also disdained scientific materialism, and sought a deeper metaphysical meaning to life, pursued through his various interests. Influenced by the totalising theories of figures like Herbert Spencer and Ernst Haeckel, Fournier concocted his own brand of scientific monism, rejecting materialism, embracing spiritualism, and ever optimistic in the notion of scientific progress, even in the wake of the carnage of the Great War. The article aims to give Fournier a fuller historical treatment, allowing his story to add to understanding of the milieus in which he lived and operated, and revealing how his monistic philosophy incorporated some of the disparate cultural strands explored by intellectuals in the fin de siècle reaction against conventional Victorian ideals.     

Marxism and Class Analysis. By André Béteille.

ABSTRACT

The emergence of a new type of consumer society was catalysed rather than impeded by the tumultuous events of the late 1960s. The rebels of 1968 contributed considerably to the breaking down of conservative obstacles to consumption, to the opening up of new markets and to the creation of a new type of consumer. At its heart, ‘1968’ was an intra-bourgeois confrontation pursued by an innovative minority. The many instances of personal transformation from protagonists of protest to pillars of the establishment can be interpreted in the context of communicative and consumerist modernization. The protesters' performative hedonism proved highly compatible with consumer culture. Protest culture, on the one hand, sought the publicity of consumer society as a spatial and moral sphere for its activities. The response of the ‘system’ to the protests, on the other hand, was surprisingly flexible and resulted in the further development of capitalism and consumer society in the late twentieth century.     

U.S. third culture kids’ identity and college success

Third Culture Kids (TCKs), people who spend a significant number of their developmental years in a country other than their parents’ passport (home) country, have many positive attributes. These include the ability to see other points of view, be open to people from different backgrounds, and be adaptable. This phenomenological study, based on interview data, explored how their identity as TCKs helped them succeed in college through an anti-deficit perspective. The population was nine participants (three men, six women) who had all lived outside of the United States of America (their parents’ home country) for at least seven years before the age of 18 and who returned to the United States. for college. The findings indicate a need for updated study on the experiences of Third Culture Kids and how they conceptualize and understand their own identities and its relation to the idea of a third culture. Recommendations are made for TCKs and their families, and institutions of higher education in supporting them.     

Poverty,Philanthropy and the State: Charities and the Working Classes in London 1918–79. By Katharine Bradley

Abstract

Nineteenth-century perceptions of alcoholism were shaped implicitly by notions of gender, class and morality. From 1879, legislation advocated the institutional management of inebriates as a response to the growing problem of habitual drunkenness. Examining the methods of treating varied classes of female alcoholics in three inebriate institutions between 1876 and 1898, this article highlights how reformatory and punitive treatment models were shaped by class and gender perceptions of the alcoholic. The article questions why the application of reformatory treatment models proved problematic and analyzes the points of tension encountered in the attempts to reform a mixed class of female patients.