Blood for the Future

The Northern Ireland “Troubles” in Les Levine’s Resurrection

These events form part of the Holy Cross Dispute, a period of eight months of acute sectarian tension in Northern Ireland. During this time, Holy Cross Girls Primary School, a Catholic elementary school in a Protestant enclave of Ardoyne, north Belfast, was picketed by hundreds of loyalist Protestant protestors trying to stop ...
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How Game of Thrones Will End

Spoilers from the fifteenth century

I’m not a particularly vigorous fan of Game of Thrones, the kind who dissects all things Westeros on Internet forums. I haven’t seen any secret scripts or decoded some hidden message from the books. But I’m a scholar of Renaissance literature who’s taught a class on how the series takes its storyline ...
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How Game of Thrones Will End

The Catholic ’68

Love and Protest

“1968 youth need 1968 priests”, read one of the banners outside Westminster Cathedral, carried by marchers from a south London parish as part of a coordinated series of ‘pray-ins’ and protest meetings at cathedrals across the country. Progressive Catholic activism in the summer of 1968 took a variety of forms, ...
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The Catholic ’68

“No Gods, No Masters”

Antisemitic tropes and utopian ideals in imagining and resisting capitalism

This piece was prepared for a short talk as part of “Navigating finance and the imagination: A collaborative theoretical walking tour ”, an event organized by Max Haiven and Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, that took place in London in April 2018. Participants in this interdisciplinary event drew on Cornelius Castoriadis’ work to explore ...
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“No Gods, No Masters”

The 1970s Gay Sex Scandal That Enthralled Britons Is Back

What the Thorpe affair reveals about the history of elite men seeking sex and relationships with other men

When British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe was acquitted of conspiracy to murder on June 22, 1979, the press had a field day. Thorpe allegedly paid to have his lover of fifteen years -- the horse groom and sometime model Norman Scott -- assassinated. The outing of a popular, charismatic ...
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The 1970s Gay Sex Scandal That Enthralled Britons Is Back

The Origins of Mutuality

How worker co-operation has emerged and re-emerged over time in the City of London

Ask people what they appreciate about London, and money is outranked by the people, the culture, the opportunities and even the parks and green spaces. But when it comes to the City of London, all people remember is finance. My contribution is to unpick some of this association by telling a ...
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The Origins of Mutuality

Be Here Now

A review of 1997: The Future that Never Happened

My abiding memory of 1997 is of a music video that emerged towards the end of the year. Officially a charity single for Children in Need, but actually an encomium for the BBC and its license fee, the all-star cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day’ released in late November was ...
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Be Here Now

Are EU Exit Referenda Good for Democracy?

Referenda are important instruments of democratic politics. They have been used since the late eighteenth century in various circumstances of political life, most often in relation to constitutional change or issues of self-determination. In contemporary democratic societies, there is pressure to submit contested political questions to popular vote, in order ...

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Are EU Exit Referenda Good for Democracy?