Fear of the city 1882-1967: Edward Hopper and the discourse of anti-urbanism

This paper traces the extent to which some of the major cityscape representations of the American 'Realist' painter, Edward Hopper, have contributed to the production and articulation of the discourse of anti-urbanism in American culture. Following an introductory background to this discourse, the paper discusses the development of Realism in American art, and how the urban representations that emerged were a response to the rapidly changing, early twentieth-century American city. A brief biographical account of Edward Hopper is presented to explore the intertextual influences behind his anti-urban sentiments, and how these translated into the unique form of Realism for which Hopper is renowned. This sets the stage for a reading of four key Hopper works that are suggestive of the anti-urban discourse: Night Shadows, Nighthawks, Approaching a City and Sunday . The powers of representation and the artist's popularity have fed into the discourse of anti-urbanism - a discourse that has a material effect on urban life in America.     

REPLY TO THE SOVIET REVIEW OF RADICAL GEOGRAPHY

A Norwegian geographer and Deputy Head of the International Northern Sea Route Programme (INSROP) Secretariat surveys past, present, and potential future Northern Sea Route (NSR) cargo flows. The route's economic potential and importance, both as an international transit route and as a transport corridor to and from the Russian Arctic regions, are discussed. An overview of the main NSR infrastructure components (icebreakers, ice-class cargo vessels, ports) also is made, with estimates of future capacity. Based on the survey of future cargo potential, future infrastructure requirements are calculated and compared with estimated capacity in order to identify possible future bottlenecks for NSR operations. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L90, O18, R40. 1 figure, 4 tables, 76 references.     

A multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental investigation of the findspot of an Iron Age bog body from Oldcroghan,Co. Offaly,Ireland

In 2003, the remains of an Early Iron Age bog body, known as ‘Oldcroghan Man’, were recovered during the cutting of a drainage ditch in a bog in the Irish Midlands. Only some fingernails and a withe fragment remained undisturbed in situ in the drain face, providing the sole evidence for the original position of the body. A detailed reconstruction of the depositional context of the body has been undertaken through multi-proxy analyses of a peat monolith collected at the findspot. The palynological record shows that the surrounding area was the focus of intensive human activity during the Later Bronze Age, but was largely abandoned during the Bronze Age–Iron transition in the mid-first millennium BC. In the mid-4th century BC, a bog pool developed at the site, evidenced in the stratigraphic, plant macrofossil, testate amoebae and coleopteran records. Plant macrofossil and pollen analysis of peat samples associated with the fingernails suggests that the body was deposited in this pool most likely during the 3rd century BC. The absence of carrion beetle fauna points to complete submergence of the body within the pool. Deposition occurred shortly before or around the time that the surrounding area again became the focus of woodland clearance, as seen in the extended pollen record from the peat monolith. This period corresponds to the Early Iron Age in Ireland, during which renewed cultural connections with Britain and continental Europe can be seen in the archaeological record and widespread forest clearance is recorded in pollen records from across Ireland. The palaeoenvironmental results indicate, therefore, that the demise of Oldcroghan Man took place at a pivotal time of socio-economic and perhaps political change.     

A Grand-Guignol legacy: Martin McDonagh's A Behanding in Spokane

This article examines Martin McDonagh's most recent play, A Behanding in Spokane (2010), through the lens of Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, deploying the scholarship of Richard J. Hand and Michael Wilson on this specific theatrical style. The article links discussions of Grand-Guignol with the amputation suffered by the drama's main character, Carmichael, played by Christopher Walken in the play's first production, and with the case of hands he brings with him on his journey around America. I draw on V.S. Ramachandran's work on consciousness, phantom limbs, and apotemnophilia in order to consider Carmichael's amputation in relation to self-defining narratives, loss, lack, excess and difference, with particular emphasis given to issues of race.     

The Myth of “Broken Britain”: Welfare Reform and the Production of Ignorance

Abstract: This article takes on the challenge of what Robert Proctor calls “agnotology” (the study of ignorance) to analyse the current assault on the British welfare state by think tanks, policy elites and conservative politicians. The assault is traced back to the emergence of the Centre for Social Justice think tank, founded in 2004 by the current Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan‐Smith. I argue that a familiar litany of social pathologies (family breakdown, worklessness, antisocial behaviour, personal responsibility, out‐of‐wedlock childbirth, dependency) is repeatedly invoked by the architects of welfare reform to manufacture ignorance of alternative ways of addressing poverty and social injustice. Structural causes of poverty have been strategically ignored in favour of a single behavioural explanation—“Broken Britain”—where “family breakdown” has become the central problem to be tackled by the philanthropic fantasy of a “Big Society”. My agnotological approach critically explores the troubling relationship between (mis)information and state power.