In this paper we address the ways in which global processes of imperialism helped to constitute the cultural geography of the capital cities of Europe. London is our focus, not least because its re...

Heart of Empire? Landscape, Space and Performance in Imperial London

In this paper I explore the role of public statuary in constructing a heroic analysis of the past through an examination of the centenary celebrations staged to commemorate the 1798 rebellion in Ireland. Monuments entered the arena of public, secular space in Ireland mainly during the nineteenth century. It was not until the latter decades of that century that nationalist statuary, which sought to elaborate Ireland's quest for political independence, emerged. The significance of these monuments rests, I argue, in their popular appeal and the debates that surrounded their construction and unveiling. Although an alliance of nationalist interests was achieved during the centenary celebrations, this paper emphasizes the tentative nature of that alliance and the gendered iconography and discourse surrounding the statues themselves.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/622447.pdf

Sculpting heroic histories: celebrating the centenary of the 1798 rebellion in Ireland

The Work, Employment and Society conference held in Nottingham during September 2001 (WES 01) attracted over 320 delegates from all over the world who attended some 200 papers organized into a dozen streams. One of the most popular and well attended of these streams was entitled ‘Representations of Labour’, which spanned six sessions over the first two days of the event. Of the papers in these sessions, seven made use of visual aspects of work and employment through a variety of media. The range of work in this area was captured in one session that included a paper from Carol Wolkowitz on photographing work, a second presentation combining a photographer who worked with a poet, and a final discussion by Vivian Price, a US filmmaker who showed a video on the portrayal of female construction workers. What was interesting was that the initial call for papers for WES 01 had not specifically mentioned the ‘visual’ or ‘representation’ at all. It was only as the abstracts started to arrive in numbers that it became clear that there was a coherent stream to be built around issues of visual representations. In part what had inspired several contributions, in the absence of a formal stream, was the choice of pictures on the conference poster, which combined text with photographs by Langdon Coburn and Sebastião Salgado. During the conference a popular exhibition was staged of Salgado’s work from his ‘Terra: Struggle of the Landless’ collection, alongside an installation by Kay Syrad and Gordon MacDonald entitled ‘Making Work Visible’ (see Figure 1).

Ways of (not) Seeing Work: The Visual As a Blind Spot in WES?

In this thesis I explore the production of social memory in the subterranean infrastructural landscapes of the London Underground and the Berlin U- and S-Bahn within a period spanning roughly the last eight decades between 1933 and 2013. To do this I apply an approach that is interdisciplinary in scope, comparative in nature and lies at the nexus of transport and cultural history, historical and cultural geography, and memory, landscape and heritage studies. More specifically this approach necessitates an engagement with the theories and literatures related to landscape, social memory and urban infrastructures in order to create new ways to study the cultural geographic and historic characteristics of urban underground railways, whilst simultaneously problematising the biased application of landscape approaches in non-urban contexts and contributing to the re-theorisation of the relationship of landscape and infrastructure. This is achieved by establishing ‘the social memories of landscape’ as my central focus, and the actors, processes, structures and discourses implicated in the production of a variety of ‘buried memories’ as my main concerns. Thereafter, and upon establishing the main components of this research’s mixed methodological and case-orientated comparative approach, I use a series of empirically grounded comparative excavations to shed light on how social memories are produced in the physical, representational and experiential landscapes of the Underground, U- and S-Bahn as exemplified by their cartographies and toponymies, realised and unrealised memorials, and alternative and creative uses of their ruins and vestiges. These excavations contribute in turn to new understandings of the mnemonic actors, processes, structures and discourses that have particular influence and resonance in these urban underground landscapes, and hence serve to demonstrate how the Underground, U- and S-Bahn’s subterranean transport contexts influence the production of social memory.

Excavating buried memories: mnemonic production in the railways under London and Berlin 1933-2013

In the eighteenth century the language of feeling, with its key terms of sentiment, sympathy and sensibility, was central to the discussion of man and society, manners, ethics and aesthetics. This chapter shows how sensibility was figured both as a universal human attribute and as the particular feature of modern, late eighteenth-century society. It discusses the ways in which a whole range of genres used sentimentalism to excite sympathy and assess the implications of these strategies for notions of authorship, readership and the public. The chapter focuses on the sensibility in its shifting manifestations between the 1770s, when it first became a generalized object of concern, and the politicized discussion in the French Revolution. Sensationalist philosophers, physiologists and physicians constructed the foundations on which theories of sensibility were built. The authorial, editorial and reading techniques of literary sentimentalism, identified and analysed by critics in the 1750s and 1760s, spread with astonishing swiftness in the third quarter of the century.

Sentiment and sensibility

Trafalgar Square tells the story of the creation and use of one of London's most famous landmarks, from its beginnings in the 1840s up until the present day. Drawing on detailed archival research, it describes how the Square and its memorials to military and naval heroes - including of course Nelson - were conceived, quarrelled over and finally, after many years of building and delays, completed. In 1848, while the Square was still in the making, demonstrations there were prohibited, and ever since that time the story of the Square has been marked by celebration, rallies, public agitation and the perennial fight for free speech.

Trafalgar Square: Emblem of Empire

1800-1840 The beginnings of trade unionism 1840-1880 the struggle for recognition 1880-1920 mass unionism and the First World War 1920-1950 depression and the Second World War 1950-1980 consensus and confrontation 1980-2000 Thatcherism and new Labour.

Rodney Mace

Papers

Trafalgar Square: Emblem of Empire

British Trade Union Posters: An Illustrated History