National Revival in Wales between 1880 and 1914 Essay

National Revival in Wales between 1880 and 1914 - Essay Example 205). Perhaps Keir Hardie's greatest contribution, however, was in the genesis of the Labour Party in Britain. Hardie had been an ardent member of the Liberal Party, but he felt that the policies put in place by William Gladstone fell far short of representing the interests of the working classes. While the Liberal Party would make big promises in exchange for the votes of workers, it would never carry out meaningful policy changes that would help the workers' condition, and so in April 1888, Hardie ran as an independent labour candidate in West Lanark. While he came in last, he was encouraged about the future. In August of that year, the Scottish Labour Party was formed. Hardie won a seat in Parliament in 1892. Interestingly, for his first session, he did not wear the same outfit that other working-class MP's wore; instead, he wore only a plain tweed suit, red tie, and deerstalker hat. He was in favor of such progressive policies as free education, pensions, the abolition of the House of Lords, suffrage for women, and a progressive income tax (Wrigley 2002, p. 203). In 1893, Hardie was one of the founding members of the Independent Labour Party. However, two years later, Hardie found himself out of Parliament. An explosion at a Pontypridd colliery had killed 251 miners, and Hardie asked that a message of condolence be added to a Parliamentary address giving congratulations for the birth of a royal heir (the future King Edward VIII). After this was refused, Hardie made a speech attacking the monarchy and lost his seat in 1895 (Wrigley 2002, p. 205). However, Hardie was not out of politics for long. He spent the next five years making speeches and, in 1900, put together a meeting of trade unions and socialist groups, which agreed to form the Labour Representation Committee, which was the precursor of the Labour Party. In that same year, Hardie was elected as the junior MP for Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare in the South Wales Valleys, and he would represent this region until his death in 1915 (Wrigley 2002, p. 207). The election in which Hardie returned to Parliament became notorious in history for another reason as well. The British military was involved in the Second Boer War, and this war became the primary issue in the 1900 British general election. The Conservative government of Lord Salisbury was reelected, with an enlarged majority over the Liberal Party. There were a couple of reasons for this enlarged majority: not only did the British public want to rally behind its government and support the war effort, but the emergence of the Labour Party created the possibility of vote-splitting among the opposition, as some might vote Liberal and others Labour, which would assist the Conservative cause. Because of this, and because of some funding shortages encountered by the Liberal Party, over 100 races did not have a Liberal Party opposition candidate. The election became known as the "khaki election," because of the new khaki uniforms that the British Army was wearing at war. This became a po pular term in British politics for an election that is decisively influenced by wartime or postwar emotion. Other elections in British

American Paradox, The US Iranian relations during the Shah of Iran Essay

American Paradox, The US Iranian relations during the Shah of Iran. The paradox between the US policy against the dictato - Essay Example However, there was a lot of discontent among the people of Iran due to his dictatorial attitude. Shah’s regime collapsed in 1979 during a period known as the Iranian or Islamic revolution. The Islamic revolution brought monarchical rule in Iran to an end. The Iranian Revolution took place in 1979, 1many analyst explain that during this time about eight million people, approximately one-fifth of the whole of Iranian population, took to the streets to demonstrate about the still-formidable regime of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi. After the victorious triumph of the revolution, it became evident that the powers affiliated with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni had gained control in the post-revolutionary struggle for power, the grand party that had managed to overthrow the Shah`s regime had begun to collapse. Consequently, progressive support for the new regime decreased to a very dedicated core base that comprised a division of clerical establishments, the middle class, and the urban poor enabling the new regime to combine its powers. 2 The recent history of the Iran an Islamic Republic is outstanding in its steady disintegration in the extent and capacity of public support for the regime. At the end of the twentieth century, Iran was a nation of frustrated hopes. The revolutionaries had pledged to reverse the course of dependent economic development, which favored economic growth and compensating a few well connected families that had been pursued by the Pahlavi regime. The revolutionary regime, promised to establish an economically developed and independent Iran in which the fruits ofthe economic growth and prosperity were to be added with equity and social justice. Civil liberties as well as the rights of citizens to petition their Government through the formation of voluntary association and political parties were to assured. The Government and the society were to become morally upright through piety and strict compliance with the dictators of Islam. 3â€Å"Sho rtly after the revolution, in search of self-sufficiency, the Iranian government nationalized a vast proportion of Iran’s large scale industries, as well as banking and insurance.† 4Iran`s economy had been deteriorating due to the country`s population. The country’s population has doubled, reaching approximately 64 million people, which is approximately 30 million above the population during the Shah`s regime. The population exploded as a result of the clerical elites who reintroduced the child marriage, and discouraged contraceptives after the revolution. Iran`s population is already expanding to the present regime which has caused even a more devastating consequences for the future. Relations between the United States and Iran during the reign of Shah were pleasant. During the reign of President Eisenhower in the United States, Moscow asserted that the United States supported a coup by Shah. 5â€Å"The United States had been pictured as actively intervening in Iranian affairs and as the inspirer of the attempted coup by the Shah.† This was contrary to the move of supporting freedom worldwide that the United States had taken after the Second World War. 6â€Å"The United States policy during that period was based on a policy of containment-an effort to contain the influence of communism.† Despite embarking on the policy of ‘

Gothic Culture And Modern Fashions Cultural Studies Essay

Gothic Culture And Modern Fashions Cultural Studies Essay Towards the end of the seventies there emerged a new youth subculture that stemmed from the fragmenting Punk scene commonly referred to as Goth. Goth appeared to assume the trappings of Gothic literature and film which was primarily based on Baroque art. As such, members of the Goth subculture converted the characteristic features of this literature as well as film wherein they transformed them into a form of resistance to suburban Britain. Subsequently, this resistance by the Goth migrated to other regions including America as well as Australia which were presumably perceived not only to be small minded but also dull. The link between the Goth subculture and Gothic literature is not clear. This is because the translation of literature into street style has often been approached with bemusement or simply overlooked by a significant number of scholars. However, the two subjects draw a strong relation through the medium of fashion. In these respect, the designer Gareth Pugh has emerged out as one of the most interesting as well as unique figures in the world of fashion from London. Pughs style entrenched in Goth subculture quite clearly depends on a spectacular style or sets of styles from which the artist invents his identity. This primarily represents another characteristic feature of Gothics preoccupation with clothes and as such fashion. It is the presumption of this paper that the Goth sub-culture has had tremendous influence on fashion that has changed the way in which clothing is represented in Gothic discourses. Goth History A significant chunk of the Goth subculture and the resurgence of interest in this way of life emphasizes on the mutation of Goth into an autonomous youth subculture towards the close of the seventies. This explains the relatively young age of proponents such as Gareth Pugh who further the ideal of the Goth sub-culture through fashion. During the seventies, the Goth culture was led by post punk groups including the Birthday Party, The Sisters of Mercy, Bauhus, Siouxsie and the Banshees (Spooner and Spooner, 2004). The groups led other Goth adherents to the Goth style that combined the graveyard exorcism of 19th century mourning costume and perverse sexuality of fetish with the nihilism of Punk to create a macabre aesthetic. The garments that the adherents adorned were predominantly black. However, according to Spooner and Spooner, (2004)these were accessorised with memento mori motifs and vampire makeup as fig. 1 illustrates. Fig. 1 Gothic Fashion Although the main period of the popularity of the Goth Spanned in the eighties, the culture has proved to be remarkably long living as it has persisted both in the 1990s and ultimately into the twenty first century. In the mid eighties towards the late 1990s, there however emerged cultural figures that began heralding the revival of the Gothic culture by pointing out the increased number of bands that were largely influenced by the Goth subculture including Garbage, Marilyn Manson together with their black dressed acolytes (Spooner and Spooner, 2004). Commentators also often cited the resurgence of the Goth sub-cultural influence in haute couture, film, literary fiction, as well as fine art and other derived genres of music including hip-hop and techno. Toward the end of the twentieth century, critical discourses that surrounded the Goth subculture illustrated a significant shift away from psychoanalytical methods towards historicism. In this regard, this discourse exhibited an increased level of self-consciousness in relation to the processes of textual and fashion production. Baldwick and Minghall, (2000) pointed out a trend in which 20th century theorisations of the Goth subculture focused on the irrational, the spiritual as well as the subversive at the expense of accurate historical analysis. Such a strategy frequently constitutes a kind of idealisation whereby Gothic subculture is privileged with whatever contravening roles generally associated with the critic. Arguably, such a process of canonical rehabilitation as well as critical appropriation has recorded an increase with the advent of millennium celebrations (Stevens, 2000). Gothic art has developed a trend in which it resurfaces at the fin de sià ¨cle whereby as the fin to end all siecles approaches swiftly, the fervour of the subculture reaches a peculiar climax (Spooner and Spooner, 2004). This aspect was captured well by Grunenberg, (1997) who postulated that the modern society exists in a particularly dire time. This period according to Grunenberg constitutes the Gothic period of fear, moral disintegration, horror as well as the perverse indulgence in extreme pleasures. Gothic fashion as such, has evolved to be a quid pro quo for disturbing and sombre moods, events and places as well as cultural by products of the contemporary society in America (Steele and Park, 2008). Despite the fact that a low number of individuals carried with them the expectation of the world ending at the turn of the 21st century, a true fin-de sià ¨cle feeling wrought with elements of cultural pessimism as well as spiritual malaise permeated society at the time. This spirit persists in modern day societys fashion. The Goth Culture One problem that arises when discussing the Goth subculture is that it draws a profound connection to punk and also emphasizes on dramatic visual style (Spoooner and Spooner, 2004; Polhemus, 1995). Ultimately, this has resulted into the Goth subculture being regarded as a spectacular culture despite it being a fan culture as well. Fan communities have to a significant degree been regarded in relation to media texts for instance, the Star Trek series. However, there exist various similarities between communities described by Jenkins, (1992) and common practices usually associated with the Goth sub-culture. Fan communities actively develop their own ways of life from fragments and scrap that are usually scavenged from the media. Jenkins, (1992) describes this process of creative appropriation as textual poaching. Much in the same light, Goth fashion as an element of Goth subculture is particularly focused on consumption. This consumption does not only constitute clothing, but also incl udes cinematic and literary narratives, sub-cultural commodities and music. Much in the same way that television series fans like Doctor Who or Star Trek develop their identities through their love for the aforementioned series, Goth such as Pugh suture their identity from a complicated system of cinematic and literary affiliations through integrating several archetypes and characters they meet during their fantasy lives, ultimately realizing them through costume or fashion. While some Goths may come across as more literate compared to others in the overall tradition of Gothic representation, all have to either a lesser or greater extent constructed their identities, Frankenstein like, from the fragments and scraps of that way of life. This process of developing identity is demonstrated by Tim Burtons early short film by the name Vincent. In this production, Vincent Molloy, a seven year old boy imagined himself as taking the identity of another person, Vincent Price whereby he condu cted himself as Price would. This fan tribute to the oeuvre of Price does not draw any contradictions in relation to attitude and the kind of fan fiction produced around fantasy series and science fiction. However, this does not imply that Goth is a fan culture in any straight-forward way. This is because it is possible for an individual to be a fan of horror films or Gothic novels without necessary being a Goth. On the contrary, Goth is a combination of the elements of spectacular culture and fan culture ultimately creating a monstrous hybrid between the two ways of life. The resulting culture is one in which symbolic resistance is not only enacted through fashion or spectacular style but also embraces narratives that are generally perceived to be dangerous and as such, falling out of general societal conventions. The development of Gothic as an anti-canonical marginalised subgenre as such, propels the cultures sense of resistance to a cultural hegemony of the bland (Hannaham, 1997). Such acts of self-definition constitute the concurrent definition of a mainstream that has been developed as the other by its respective subculture. According to Thornton, (2008) this fantasised mainstrea m may or may not bear any link to what is real. However, it is the product of the subculture out of a desire for difference. Thornton contends that vague opposition can be outwardly stated to be that questioning the number of members of youth subcultures characterising their own activities. Significant to note is the fact that youthful discourses can not be taken literally. This is because these discourses are not mere transparent windows that reflect on the world. A significant number of cultural critics have been insufficiently critical of sub cultural ideologies. This trend is firstly attributed to the fact that they were diverted by the task of contesting and puncturing dominant ideologies and secondly owing to the fact that their biases have tended to agree with the anti mass society discourses of the youth sub-cultural groups they study. This is to say, while the formulations of power in given subcultures are potentially fertile topics for research, investing in subcultures that have been known for their transgression as well as subversion has often proved to be problematic. This is because research in addition to leading to a better understanding of the phenomenon under study, also highlights such phenomenon from obscurity. This implies that aspects that were overlooked in the past owing to the low degree of societal subscription to such doctrines have the potential of becoming famous. This new-born fame is often attributed to researchers. Due to the fact that society loathes aspects of subversive and transgressing elements, researchers have the tendency to steer away from such elements and cultures including Goth. Holmes, (1997) illustrates this element in Gothic culture in his essay coming out of the coffin. He contends that punk and Goth cultures in contrast to exhibiting stability as many would like them to, exi st by way of suturing both the anti-canonical and the canonical as well as the high and low, the romantic and cynical in addition to the straight and the queer. Embracing these aspects in most circumstances is through the Gothic tradition in general as well as through one of the cultures prominent figures, the vampire (Fig 2) (Auerbach, 1995; Goddzu, 2007). In many ways, this is an accurate evocation of Goth, capturing the complexity of its several poses. Fig 2. Barnabas Collins, Vampire: Jonathan Frid in the television series Dark Shadows Costume Gothic fashion is a form of clothing that is usually associated with members of the Goth subculture. It is a dark form of art which sometimes tends to be highly insensitive and morbid with some quarters terming it as an eroticised form of fashion or style of dress. In its typical form, Gothic fashion is characterised with black hips, dyed black hair, and black clothes (Grunenberg, 1997). Additionally, both male and female members of the Goths subculture wear dark fingernails as well as dark eyeliners. The function of clothes within Goth subculture is largely dependent on who is wearing them (Spooner and Spooner, 2004). It was custom for the 1980s middle class individuals to enact rebellion only through implicit and stereotyped ridiculous dress codes while the avant-garde classless individual of the modern day fashion like Gareth Pugh is stylishly subversive of convention. Gareth Pugh as a new generation figure is both glamorous and confident. Pugh is constructed as an individual that is always aiming for the top and forward as opposed to relying on the past to provide him with a referral page for his design. In fact, his world of design is framed in a way that it conforms to utopian principles where both intellectual and irrational forces intermingle in the creation of form. When Gareth Pughs work is perceived under a lens with such an understanding, it takes on a new significance for the designers fans. The implication here is that other designers subscribe to conventional lines of thought and as such, design. An individual that adorns Pughs design on the contrary is stylish and belongs to the new variety. In other words, wearing Pughs design has the capability of transforming an individual from a conventional person to a Gaultier Goth (Spooner and Spooner, 2004). Design in itself is an artistic impression integrated with certain tastes that the artist fancies as ideal (Gardner, Kleiner and Mamiya, 2005). These impressions as expressed in garments draw from a wide history in the long established tradition of art. As such, artists such as Pugh have the tendency to look back at elements that were embraced in the past to which they base their form of art. Subsequently, art and design integrate, ultimately combining inflatable garments, black and white colours as well as geometric shapes in addition to materials such as PVC and plastics (Fargis, 1998). These forms are characteristic of classical Gothic and baroque art. Fig. 3 Conclusion In conclusion, the complexity of Gareth Pughs images is accompanied by an increasing sense of Gothicism in the design themselves. The designer has deliberately courted the Gothic in his work frequently returning to themes of automata, prosthesis and automata (Spooner and Spooner, 2004). While garments that were featured in earlier images in the 90s would be reasonably wearable by most of consumers in the mainstream, most of Pughs are increasingly perverse and esoteric Fig. 3. These later images however particularly resonate Gothic themes. These are not only limited to the characteristic features of imprisonment, vampirism and torture but upon a closer scrutiny also resonate with the kind of structural conventions Eve Sedgwick identifies as characteristic features of Gothic literature (Spooner and Spooner, 2004). Vampirism as portrayed in these images is ostentatiously a surface effect implying no illusion of realism. By conflating the penetrating gaze with the penetrating fangs, Pugh s designs seem to have undergone what Sedgwick referred to as contagion or the manner Gothic literature contends that aspects of a given element are transferred to another. List of figures Fig. 1. Gothic Fashion., Otherclothing.co.uk, online Fig. 2 Barnabas Collins, Vampire: Jonathan Frid in the television series Dark Shadows by William Patrick Day (2002), p.37 Fig.3. Vogue.com (2008) Wicked with a capital W by Gareth Pugh in Vogue Magazine Autumn/Winter 2008-9, online

Thomas Batemans Ten Years Diggings :: Archaeology Archaeological Essays

Thomas Bateman's Ten Years' Diggings Thomas Bateman at Brushfield, Derbyshire, 1850 On the 3rd of August, we opened a finely shaped barrow near Brushfield, upon Lapwing Hill, overlooking Cressbrook valley, measuring seventeen yards across and four feet high in the centre, composed of earth, with a few stones in the middle, where a shallow grave, about a foot deep, was sunk in the rock. In it lay extended the remains of a human body, so very much decayed as to be almost undistinguishable, but which we ascertained to have been deposited with the head to the west. Beneath the remnants of bone were many traces of light-coloured hair, as if from a hide, resting upon a considerable quantity of decayed wood, indicating a plank of some thickness, or the bottom of a coffin. At the left of the body was a long and broad iron sword, enclosed in a sheath made of thin wood covered with ornamented leather. Under the hilt of the sword, which like most of ancient date is very small, was a short iron knife; and a little way above the right shoulder were tow small javelin heads, 4 1/2 inches long, of the same metal, which had lain so near each other as to become united by corrosion. Among the stones which filled the grave, and about a foot from the bottom were many objects of corroded iron, including nine loops of hoop iron about an inch broad, which had been fixed to thick wood by long nails; eight staples or eyes, which had been driven through plank and clenched; and one or two other objects of more uncertain application, all which were dispersed at intervals round the corpse throughout the length of the grave, and which may therefore have been attached to a bier or coffin in which the deceased was conveyed to the grave, possibly from some distant place. The only specimen of a Saxon sword, which was the weapon of the thegn, previously found in this part of Derbyshire, was singularly enough found with the umbo of a shield on the same farm in 1828; thus indication the connection of a noble Saxon family with Brushfield in the age of Heathendom, the name of which is perpetuated in a document of the 16th century, preserved in the British Museum. On the same afternoon, we examined a mutilated barrow nearer Brushfield, called the "Gospel

Convergence and Divergence of Communication

Nico Brown COJO 1030 October 25, 2012 Convergence and Divergence Essay Intentionally or intuitively, we constantly use convergence and divergence in our daily communication routine. While the process itself is automatic; the manner of not doing either does not exist, because one of the two is always being chosen. Convergence is the process of adapting ones speech style to match others they want to identify and divergence is the use of linguistic mannerisms that emphasizes a person’s differences from others.A person would be able to understand these two concepts through personal examples by comparing and contrasting the differences in each term, discussing what aspects of these communicative techniques were conscious and which were unconscious, and explaining the relational consequences. When thinking of the meaning of convergence, it takes me back to when I was in fourth grade. I had been going to this school for three years; I knew everyone and everyone knew me. All of my fri ends would come to my house after school and we would hangout until the sun went down. Everything we did, we did it together.Whether it was getting into trouble by stealing the neighbor’s cat or celebrating each other’s birthday; there wasn’t an hour when you could see us apart from each other. Then one day we moved out of the neighborhood, which also meant I moved schools, but worst of all, my friends. Being that it was the middle of the second semester, I didn’t automatically fit in with the kids at my new school. The fact that I was now three towns from where I grew up and what my former friends and I did for fun was now considered lame led me to have less chances of acquiring new friends.After a week or two of eating, playing and sitting alone I figured to give it a shot; that whatever they are doing, and even though it might be different than what I do, it may be fun. The next Monday during the morning recess I walked up to a group of kids and asked to play with them. A week later I had three new friends and with that I picked up a few new words. This is an example of convergence. The fact that I changed the way I did things while being accepted by others. An example of divergence would be the time I moved from the state of Kansas to the Lone Star State of Texas.Being in a new state was a lot different than being in a new town that is a few miles down the road. Every Texan I came in contact with would ask me the same questions and say all the same things. Have I ever been in a tornado, does it rain a lot in Kansas, does Kansas have a lot of tornadoes, I talk weird, I sound funny, I have an accent. Personally that was the first time someone told me I had an accent or talked funny, and I got them both in the same day. I remember when I asked a guy what his favorite pop was. He looked at me with a confused face and asked what it was. Example of illustrators, a Non-verbal behavior that accompanies and supports verbal message). When I told him some people call it soda he laughed at me and said he thought I was talking about champagne. When I joined the football team the coaches would tell me to do certain things and when I never did they would argue that I was doing everything wrong. Then when they saw me do something good, they asked where I learned it from and my answer was would always be Kansas. Everything I did I made sure that everyone knew that I was from Kansas.Whether it was the way I walked, the way I talked, the things I said, or the things I did. Thinking back, motivations I used when I was in the fourth grade would have come from all those days of sitting alone as well as eating alone. The thought of not being able to be around my old friends pushed me to get more friends. As to when I moved to Texas the reason I wanted to stand out from being the same as everyone else was because Kansas was all I knew. Everything I had ever known at that point I learned in Kansas and the sudden change just made m e want make a statement that I was not a Texas native.I would say that the wanting to standout from everyone in Texas was unconscious. The reason being because everyone did certain things that I would have never done if I were back home in Kansas and what I did they considered it to be â€Å"different† and something was wrong with it. But as much as they pointed out what I did differently I couldn’t help it because hose were things I was used to. It was more of a reflex because I was so used to doing and saying things in a certain way. Trying to change it would be conscious because I would focus more to what I was saying and how I would need to make it different.When I changed schools and finally decided to make new friends was conscious communication techniques. Because I had to think about it before it happened. I also changed the way I behaved and I would say things in different ways than how I would usually say them. Instead of all of this automatically happening I had to think about things that I said and remember what was what so I would be accepted within the group. These two innocent situations that I experienced had unaware consequences on the involved relationships. The first one being that I changed the way I did things and I got new friends.The second being I was able to be myself and I was considered different. And even though I was not the same as everyone else, I still managed to have friends that accepted me for who I was. Convergence and divergence both impacts and have an effect on our lives and the truth they always will. While we will use convergence to help us get closer to people and divergence to keep us distant from the ones we don’t want to be around. They two terms will continually be used throughout our lives determining the types of relationships we have. Whether it’s intentional or not, we will always use one concept or the other.

How the bill of rights have been violated Essay

Summary Since September 11, 2001 the fear of terrorism has eroded the rights and liberties that define American society. There have been egregious violations of Constitutional rights and international law related to the government response to the attacks of one year ago. The Executive branch of the Constitution has taken control of the whole situation regarding the war on terror by using the Executive Orders and not compromising with the other two branches resulting in seriously compromised constitutional guarantees of both citizens and non-citizens. Example of Bill of rights The previous example pertained to the first, fourth, fifth and sixth amendment rights of the citizens and non citizens, mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Amendment V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime,  unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. Amendment VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. Rights – Enforced / Denied In this situation the previous rights have been denied. â€Å"From the USA Patriot Act’s overbroad definition of domestic terrorism, to the FBI’s new powers of search and surveillance, to the indefinite detention of both citizens and non-citizens without formal charges, the principles of free speech, due process, and equal protection under the law have been seriously undermined.† (from the article attached!)