“Draw thy rapier,for we’ll have a bout”: duelling on the early modern stage

In Early Modern England, duelling was a serious business. Or so it would seem. Not so, I would suggest, for early modern playwrights, for whom the conventions of duelling and the newly established honour culture that underpinned it provided material for all kinds of comedy, from slapstick silliness to piercing satire and bitterly ironic scorn. Through close-readings in dramatic texts of the period, I suggest that dramatists laugh at and encourage their audiences to laugh at duelling and duellists throughout the period 1599–1630, and that they use duels which are inappropriately staged as a way of interrogating duelling practices and theories, and the values which lie behind them.     

‘An Alternative to Imperialism’: Leonard Woolf,The Labour Party and Imperial Internationalism, 1915–1922

This article examines writings by the British Labour Party theorist Leonard Woolf on international government, imperialism, and the League of Nations. Woolf was a leading member of a group of party officials who supported a deepening commitment to the League of Nations in the immediate post First World War period. Woolf, and his colleagues in the Labour Party, argued that transforming the practice of economic imperialism in European colonies would help to ease tensions between the European powers. The result of such arguments was to present empire as a canvas for displaying an improved sense of European virtue. In particular, abandoning the practice of economic imperialism could instead allow colonial powers to meet their responsibility to ready colonial peoples for self-government and full participation in the global economy. The reforms proposed by Woolf and his Labour Party colleagues could be considered a last gasp of early twentieth century British imperial internationalism.     

Petrodatabase: an on-line database for thin section ceramic petrography

This paper presents an on-line database for the petrographic analysis of pottery and other ceramic artefacts (www.petrodatabase.com). It outlines how the system can be used by the archaeological community and anticipates its potential for greater comparability in thin section ceramic petrography.     

Hope and everyday crisis: Young adult experiences in COVID-free Tasmania

The COVID-19 pandemic is characterised by more than mass viral spread. Interviews with young adults in the Australian island-state of Tasmania narrate how COVID-19 is shared socially, economically, and biologically, but not equally. During the time interviews were done, border policies separated Tasmania from mass infections experienced elsewhere, giving us an opportunity to understand how separation does not equate with a lack of socio-material and emotional impact from the pandemic. Recognising spatially diverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic means becoming more reflexively aware of the structural inequalities informing how it has been experienced, particularly in the early period of the pandemic. We warn against exclusionary narratives of the pandemic that do not value impacts on those without high physical risk or exposure to the virus. Responding to such exclusionary narratives involves promoting a form of hope that is reflexive, self-aware, and critical. We develop on these aims by reference to the themes of COVID-19 as a syndemic, the temporal narrative of a boom-bust cycle, and COVID-19 as a crisis in everyday life.     

Loyal to the Crown: shifting public opinion towards the monarchy in Australia

Over the past half century, the Australian public has remained divided on the issue of whether Australia should retain the monarchy or become a republic. Clive Bean found that there had been remarkable stability on the issue and evidence of a long-term trend away from support for the monarchy with a sudden decline in 1992. This article adopts Bean's longitudinal cross-sectional methods to examine the social and political basis of public attitudes. This article analyses the Australian Election Study (1993–2013) to compare Bean's results and re-analyse earlier data from the National Social Science Surveys and Australian National Political Attitudes surveys (1967–90). Public opinion has been fluid and is now at a crossroads between the 1980s high and the 1990s lows. Cohort analysis suggests socialisation impacts long-term opinions. Gender and ethnic nationalism also influences opinion.