Download or read book We Europeans written by Tony Kushner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We Europeans is the first book-length study of the original mass observation project. It is also the first detailed historical study of the formation of ordinary people's 'racial' attitudes in Britain. Drawing upon historical, literary, cultural and anthropological approaches, this book examines the sources of cultural identity in Britain in the twentieth century, and how these were shaped through the influences of family, education, and everyday 'high' and 'low' culture. The examination focuses on the archives of the British social-anthropological organization Mass-Observation, and is the first detailed history of it to be published. Founded in the 1930s by poets, psychoanalysts, surrealists, and sociologists, among others, the purpose of the organization was to create an anthropology of the British people by the 'natives' themselves, through the use of diaries, directives and special surveys. The organization was active from 1937 to 1951, then revived in the 1980s, when a new group of Mass-Observers were recruited to keep diaries and respond to directives. Both the historical archive of Mass-Observation and the more recent material provide fascinating insight into the everyday lives and formation of identities of ordinary people in Britain. Kushner places the material from these archives in the context of other contemporary writings; through them he explores grassroots identities in Britain in relation to the outside world, especially Europe but also the former Empire and the USA. This study will be of interest to scholars of sociology, cultural studies, literary studies and history who are particularly interested in 'race', race relations, immigration and cultural difference.
Download or read book The Changing Nature of Happiness written by Sandie McHugh and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-24 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shines a light on the meaning of happiness and how public perceptions of it have changed over time. A question that has engaged philosophers from the days of Aristotle, happiness is a subject of growing academic interest, and its recent integration into government policy is provoking increased debate into its definition and nature. Sandie McHugh and her associates build on the work of social anthropologist Tom Harrison’s ‘Worktown’ Mass Observation study from 1938, repeating the original study today. Together these accounts show how perceptions of happiness have changed over the years for the people of Bolton, UK, and reveal major difference between its definition then and now. This unique study is a useful tool in the understanding and study of happiness, offering invaluable insights for scholars and practitioners working in the fields of social psychology, positive psychology, health psychology and wellbeing. With chapters by Martin Guha and Jerome Carson; John Haworth; Robert Snape; and Matthew Watson and Linda Withey.
Download or read book Worktown s People written by Dave Burnham and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2023-04-15 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of how working class people in Bolton in the 1930s played an unsung yet crucial role in the Mass Observation survey of everyday life in the town - nicknamed ‘Worktown’ – following the Depression.
Download or read book Christmas and the British A Modern History written by Martin Johnes and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-10-06 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern Christmas was made by the Victorians and rooted in their belief in commerce, family and religion. Their rituals and traditions persist to the present day but the festival has also been changed by growing affluence, shifting family structures, greater expectations of happiness and material comfort, technological developments and falling religious belief. Christmas became a battleground for arguments over consumerism, holiday entitlements, social obligations, communal behaviour and the influence of church, state and media. Even in private, it encouraged reflection on social change and the march of time. Amongst those unhappy at the state of the world or their own lives, Christmas could induce much cynicism and even loathing but for a quieter majority it was a happy time, a moment of a joy in a sometimes difficult world that made the festival more than just an integral feature of the calendar: Christmas was one of British culture's emotional high points. Moreover, it was also a testimony to the enduring importance of family, shared values and a common culture in the UK. Martin Johnes shows how Christmas and its traditions have been lived, adapted and thought about in Britain since 1914. Christmas and the British is about the festival's social, cultural and economic functions, and its often forgotten status as both the most unusual and important day of the year
Download or read book Photographs Museums Collections written by Elizabeth Edwards and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The status of photographs in the history of museum collections is a complex one. From its very beginnings the double capacity of photography - as a tool for making a visual record on the one hand and an aesthetic form in its own right on the other - has created tensions about its place in the hierarchy of museum objects. While major collections of 'art' photography have grown in status and visibility, photographs not designated 'art' are often invisible in museums. Yet almost every museum has photographs as part of its ecosystem, gathered as information, corroboration or documentation, shaping the understanding of other classes of objects, and many of these collections remain uncatalogued and their significance unrecognised. This volume presents a series of case studies on the historical collecting and usage of photographs in museums. Using critically informed empirical investigation, it explores substantive and historiographical questions such as what is the historical patterning in the way photographs have been produced, collected and retained by museums? How do categories of the aesthetic and evidential shape the history of collecting photographs? What has been the work of photographs in museums? What does an understanding of photograph collections add to our understanding of collections history more broadly? What are the methodological demands of research on photograph collections? The case studies cover a wide range of museums and collection types, from art galleries to maritime museums, national collections to local history museums, and international perspectives including Cuba, France, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. Together they offer a fascinating insight into both the history of collections and collecting, and into the practices and poetics of archives across a range of disciplines, including the history of science, museum studies, archaeology and anthropology.
Download or read book Jews and other foreigners written by William Williams and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-19 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a wide range of documentary and oral sources, including interviews with refugees, this book explores the responses in Manchester to those threatened by the rise of Fascism in Europe. By exploring the responses of particular segments of Manchester society, from Jewish communal organisations and the Zionist movement to the Christian churches, pacifist organisations and private charities, it offers a critical analysis of the factors which facilitated and limited the work of rescue and their effect on the lives of the seven or eight thousand refugees – Spanish, Italian, German, Austrian and Czech – who arrived in Manchester between 1933 and 1940.
Download or read book The Archive Project written by Niamh Moore and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-28 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent scholarship on archival research has raised questions concerning the character and impact of 'the archive' on how the traces of the past are researched, the use and analysis of different kinds of archived data, methodological approaches to the practicalities involved, and what kind of theory is drawn on and contributed to by such research. The Archive Project: Archival Research in the Social Sciences builds on these questions, exploring key methodological ideas and debates and engaging in detail with a wide range of archival projects and practices, in order to put to use important theoretical ideas that shed light on the methods involved. Offering an overview of the current 'state of the field' and written by four authors with extensive experience in conducting research in and creating archives around the world, it demonstrates the different ways in which archival methodology, practice and theory can be employed. It also shows how the ideas and approaches detailed in the book can be put into practice by other researchers, working on different kinds of archives and collections. The volume engages with crucial questions, including: What is 'an archive' and how does it come into existence? Why do archival research and how is it done? How can sense be made of the scale and scope of collections and archives? What are the best ways to analyse the traces of the past that remain? What are helpful criteria for evaluating the knowledge claims produced by archival research? What is the importance of community archives? How has the digital turn changed the way in which archival research is carried out? What role is played by the questions that researchers bring into an archive? How do we deal with unexpected encounters in the archive? A rigorous and accessible examination of the methods and choices that shape research 'on the ground' and the ways in which theory, practice and methodology inform one another, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in archival and documentary research.
Download or read book The Architecture of Pleasure written by Josephine Kane and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-16 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The amusement parks which first appeared in England at the turn of the twentieth century represent a startlingly novel and complex phenomenon, combining fantasy architecture, new technology, ersatz danger, spectacle and consumption in a new mass experience. Though drawing on a diverse range of existing leisure practices, the particular entertainment formula they offered marked a radical departure in terms of visual, experiential and cultural meanings. The huge, socially mixed crowds that flocked to the new parks did so purely in the pursuit of pleasure, which the amusement parks commodified in exhilarating new guises. Between 1906 and 1939, nearly 40 major amusement parks operated across Britain. By the outbreak of the Second World War, millions of people visited these sites each year. The amusement park had become a defining element in the architectural psychological pleasurescape of Britain. This book considers the relationship between popular modernity, pleasure and the amusement park landscape in Britain from 1900-1939. It argues that the amusement parks were understood as a new and distinct expression of modern times which redefined the concept of public pleasure for mass audiences. Focusing on three sites - Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Dreamland in Margate and Southend's Kursaal - the book contextualises their development with references to the wider amusement park world. The meanings of these sites are explored through a detailed examination of the spatial and architectural form taken by rides and other buildings. The rollercoaster - a defining symbol of the amusement park - is given particular focus, as is the extent to which discourses of class, gender and national identity were expressed through the design of these parks.
Download or read book Age of Promises written by David Thackeray and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Age of Promises explores the issue of electoral promises in twentieth century Britain - how they were made, how they were understood, and how they evolved across time - through a study of general election manifestos and election addresses. The authors argue that a history of the act of making promises - which is central to the political process, but which has not been sufficiently analysed - illuminates the development of political communication and democratic representation. The twentieth century saw a broad shift away from politics viewed as a discursive process whereby, at elections, it was enough to set out broad principles, with detailed policymaking to follow once in office following reflection and discussion. Over the first part of the century parties increasingly felt required to compile lists of specific policies to offer to voters, which they were then considered to have an obligation to carry out come what may. From 1945 onwards, moreover, there was even more focus on detailed, costed, pledges. We live in an age of growing uncertainty over the authority and status of political promises. In the wake of the 2016 EU referendum controversy erupted over parliamentary sovereignty. Should 'the will of the people' as manifested in the referendum result be supreme, or did MPs owe a primary responsibility to their constituents and/or to the party manifestos on which they had been elected? Age of Promises demonstrates that these debates build on a long history of differing understandings about what status of manifestos and addresses should have in shaping the actions of government.
Download or read book Worktown collection 1937 1940 written by and published by . This book was released on 1940 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Music for the People written by James J. Nott and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2002-09-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular music was a powerful and persistent influence in the daily life of millions in interwar Britain, yet these crucial years in the development of the popular music industry have rarely been the subject of detailed investigation. For the first time, here is a comprehensive survey of the British popular music industry and its audience. The book examines the changes to popular music and the industry and their impact on British society and culture from 1918 to 1939. It looks at the businesses involved in the supply of popular music, how the industry organised itself, and who controlled it. It attempts to establish the size of the audience for popular music and to determine who this audience was. Finally, it considers popular music itself - how the music changed, which music was the most popular, and how certain genres were made available to the public.
Download or read book Collecting Ordering Governing written by Tony Bennett and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-06 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The coauthors of this theoretically innovative work explore the relationships among anthropological fieldwork, museum collecting and display, and social governance in the early twentieth century in Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand, and the United States. With case studies ranging from the Musée de l'Homme's 1930s fieldwork missions in French Indo-China to the influence of Franz Boas's culture concept on the development of American museums, the authors illuminate recent debates about postwar forms of multicultural governance, cultural conceptions of difference, and postcolonial policy and practice in museums. Collecting, Ordering, Governing is essential reading for scholars and students of anthropology, museum studies, cultural studies, and indigenous studies as well as museum and heritage professionals.
Download or read book Mass Observation written by Jennifer J. Purcell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-02-09 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reproduces the original 1937 founding pamphlet of Mass-Observation – the compelling social research project that ran for decades in the mid-20th century – with expert commentary throughout. It also features brand new supporting essays by and informative interviews with prominent scholars of Mass-Observation which reflect on the organisation, its origins and its influence on multiple academic disciplines, including history, sociology and anthropology. An introductory essay by the editor synthesizes the arguments of this material, as well as contributing vital historical context and suggestions for ways in which other disciplines might benefit from the use of Mass-Observation approaches and archival material. There is also a chronology of Mass-Observation, its publications and major figures associated with it. Mass-Observation offers an unparalleled wealth of insights into the lived experiences of Britons in the 20th century and this volume provides the best introduction to it available, familiarizing you with both the original Mass-Observation aims and what value this fascinating material carries for us today.
Download or read book Worktown Collection written by and published by . This book was released on 1937 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book We Europeans written by Antony Robin Jeremy Kushner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon historical, literary, cultural and anthropological approaches, this book examines the sources of cultural identity in Britain in the twentieth century, and how these were shaped through the influences of family, education, and everyday 'high' and 'low' culture. The examination focuses on the archives of the British social-anthropological organization Mass-Observation, and is the first detailed history of it to be published. Founded in the 1930s by poets, psychoanalysts, surrealists, and sociologists, among others, the purpose of the organization was to create an anthropology of the British people by the 'natives' themselves, through the use of diaries, directives and special surveys.
Download or read book Dying for the nation written by Lucy Noakes and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-05 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Death in war matters. It matters to the individual, threatened with their own death, or the death of loved ones. It matters to groups and communities who have to find ways to manage death, to support the bereaved and to dispose of bodies amidst the confusion of conflict. It matters to the state, which has to find ways of coping with mass death that convey a sense of gratitude and respect for the sacrifice of both the victims of war, and those that mourn in their wake. This social and cultural history of Britain in the Second World War places death at the heart of our understanding of the British experience of conflict. Drawing on a range of material, Dying for the nation demonstrates just how much death matters in wartime and examines the experience, management and memory of death. The book will appeal to anyone with an interest in the social and cultural history of Britain in the Second World War.
Download or read book Worktown Collection written by and published by . This book was released on 1937 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
