Thomas Heywood: just in time

The scholarly study of the dramatic works and career of Thomas Heywood has increased significantly in the last fifty years but still lags far behind that of his contemporaries Shakespeare and Jonson. Labelled the ‘prose Shakespeare’ by Charles Lamb in the early nineteenth century, Heywood seems to have been considered by scholars and publishers to be a ghostly figure who haunted the early modern theatrical world. In fact, recent research using archival records shows the ways in which Heywood is at the centre of an extensive and highly networked professional industry.

The Liberal Way of War? French representations of the Allies, 1944-2008

This chapter looks at the ways in which Anglo-American participants in the Liberation of France have been represented in French narratives in the decades since the Second World War, through the developing French historiography of Allied participation in the War, and through the various roles assigned to the Allies in key postwar memorialisation ceremonies in France.

Scales and voices in World Historical Archaeology

This paper briefly sets the scene for the articles that follow, introducing some key debates that have characterized the recent practice of historical archaeology. The definition of historical archaeology is explored according to parameters of chronology and methodology, drawing a distinction between New World traditions that define the subject as 'post-Columbian' and Old World approaches that establish broader connections with the 'documentary archaeology' of all literate societies. Current issues in European and American historical archaeology are highlighted, including the gradual breakdown of the medieval/post-medieval divide and the call for a global 'modern-world archaeology' to address the 'grand historical narratives' of the period, such as capitalism, economic improvement, and consumerism. The resistance to this global research agenda is explored with reference to archaeologies of diaspora and postcolonialism, which demand local perspectives to explore diversity and meaning. Finally, the innovative use of community archaeology and multi-vocality is introduced, with particular reference to the experimental narratives pursued by American historical archaeologists, in their new role as 'storytellers'.

Introduction: scales and voices in world historical archaeology

This paper briefly sets the scene for the articles that follow, introducing some key debates that have characterized the recent practice of historical archaeology. The definition of historical archaeology is explored according to parameters of chronology and methodology, drawing a distinction between New World traditions that define the subject as 'post-Columbian' and Old World approaches that establish broader connections with the 'documentary archaeology' of all literate societies. Current issues in European and American historical archaeology are highlighted, including the gradual breakdown of the medieval/post-medieval divide and the call for a global 'modern-world archaeology' to address the 'grand historical narratives' of the period, such as capitalism, economic improvement, and consumerism. The resistance to this global research agenda is explored with reference to archaeologies of diaspora and postcolonialism, which demand local perspectives to explore diversity and meaning. Finally, the innovative use of community archaeology and multi-vocality is introduced, with particular reference to the experimental narratives pursued by American historical archaeologists, in their new role as 'storytellers'.

Sustainable building solutions: a review of lessons from the natural world

The realisation that much of conventional. modern architecture is not sustainable over the long term is not new. Typical approaches are aimed at using energy and materials more efficiently. However, by clearly understanding the natural processes and their interactions with human needs in view, designers can create buildings that are delightful. functional productive and regenerative by design. The paper aims to review the biomimetics literature that is relevant to building materials and design. Biomimetics is the abstraction of good design from Nature, an enabling interdisciplinary science. particularly interested in emerging properties of materials and structures as a result of their hierarchical organisation. Biomimetics provides ideas relevant to: graded functionality of materials (nano-scale), adaptive response (nano-, micro-. and macro-scales): integrated intelligence (sensing and actuation at all scales), architecture and additional functionality. There are many examples in biology where emergent response of plants and animals to temperature, humidity and other changes in their physical environments is based on relatively simple physical principles. However, the implementation of design solutions which exploit these principles is where inspiration for man-made structures should be. We analyse specific examples of sustainability from Nature and the benefits or value that these solutions have brought to different creatures. By doing this, we appreciate how the natural world fits into the world of sustainable buildings and how as building engineers we can value its true application in delivering sustainable building.

Cybernetics – the modern science of systems

This article has been written in memory of Norbert Wiener and is dedicated to him. Takes a look at how cybernetics provides an extremely useful framework for the control and operation of real-world systems. With the true advent of computers and simple communications, many more processes can and will be viewed from a systems standpoint. Examples are given of how cybernetics can be applied to industrial processes and how it is seen as an important, integral part of future systems science.

Building a left coast: the legacy of the California Popular Front and the challenge to Cold War liberalism in the post-world war two era

The Cold War in the late 1940s blunted attempts by the Truman administration to extend the scope of government in areas such as health care and civil rights. In California, the combined weakness of the Democratic Party in electoral politics and the importance of fellow travelers and communists in state liberal politics made the problem of how to advance the left at a time of heightened Cold War tensions particularly acute. Yet by the early 1960s a new generation of liberal politicians had gained political power in the Golden State and was constructing a greatly expanded welfare system as a way of cementing their hold on power. In this article I argue that the New Politics of the 1970s, shaped nationally by Vietnam and by the social upheavals of the 1960s over questions of race, gender, sexuality, and economic rights, possessed particular power in California because many activists drew on the longer-term experiences of a liberal politics receptive to earlier anti-Cold War struggles. A desire to use political involvement as a form of social networking had given California a strong Popular Front, and in some respects the power of new liberalism was an offspring of those earlier battles.

Modern lovers

Modern Lovers was a survey show of contemporary art practices in dialogue with modernism, bringing together established and emerging artists based in London and international artists from Berlin, Jerusalem and Zagreb. The show features video, film, installation, sculpture, music and performance work that addresses the legacy of the avant garde and the survival of its aesthetics within contemporary culture. In 1976, as punk rock was busy smashing the cultural rubble left behind by the second world war and rejecting the consumer society that had emerged from the ruins, one band bravely announced that it wanted no part in this destruction. Jonathan Richman's Modern Lovers sang about how they still loved the old world. Neither parents nor girlfriends could understand, but the decaying inner city with its false promises of progress still held a fascination for Richman, who claimed he wanted to keep his place in this arcane landscape. Punk's assault on culture was the logical conclusion of modernism's linear narrative of art as a force of innovation that must reject preceding artistic movements to establish new ones. Echoing the negations of Dada, it set out to put an end to this narrative, an end to culture. It is partly because of this inherently destructive and totalising side of Modernism that it has come under harsh critique in the post modern era. Nevertheless, we are still caught up in the same dialectic of progress, revolution and destruction. Post modernism has failed to unseat our desire for the revolutionary moment, even as it has been co-opted to the degree of meaninglessness by the discourses of marketing and Capitalism. But, like Jonathan Richman, the artists in the exhibition "Modern Lovers" keep returning to modernism for something else. Instead of taking it at its word when it proffers revolution, they turn to it in search of reform. Still loving the old world and desiring a dialogue with the past, perhaps as an antidote to the eternal present of Capitalism, they are willing to engage with its aesthetics and ideas on equal ground. Leaving behind the ironic deconstructions of post modernism, they find perspectives worth salvaging and juxtapose them with contemporary visual productions. Trading in the grand narratives of modernity for a more personal approach, they don't seek the purity of form that drove the avant garde movements that inspire them but rather revel in adulteration, dilution and contamination of the past by the present". A live performance by sala-manca was sponsored by the British Council and took place May 26th, 19:00. MODERN LOVERS was accompanied by a catalogue (14.80 cm x 14.80 cm) including essays by Avi Pitchon, the sala-manca group and the curators. A discussion panel about the exhibition themes, as well as the catalogue launch,took place at Goldsmiths College's cinema on the 27th of May at 14:00, chaired by Dr. Suhail Malik (Senior Lecturer & Course Leader Postgraduate Fine Art Critical Studies at Goldsmiths College) and with the participation of Tom Morton (curator, Cubitt Gallery, and regular contributor to Frieze magazine), sala-manca (artist group), Dr. Amanda Beech (artist, curator and senior lecturer at the Wimbledon School of Art), Matthew Poole (course director of MA Gallery Studies, dept. of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex).

Winners and losers from industry reforms in the developing world: experiences from the electricity and mining sectors

The reform of previously state-owned and operated industries in many Less Developed Countries (LDCs) provide contrary experiences to those in the developed world, which have generally had more equitable distributional impacts. The economic reform policies proposed by the so-called 'Washington Consensus' state that privatisation provides governments with opportunities to raise revenues through the sale of under-performing and indebted state industries, thereby reducing significant fiscal burdens, and, at the same time, facilitating influxes of foreign capital, skills and technology, with the aim of improving operations and a "trickle-down" of benefits. However, experiences in many LDCs over the last 15-20 years suggest that reform has not solved the problem of chronic public-sector debt, and that poverty and socio-economic inequalities have increased during this period of 'neo-liberal' economics. This paper does not seek to challenge the policies themselves, but rather argues that the context in which reform has often taken place is of fundamental significance. The industry-centric policy advice provided by the IFIs typically causes a 'lock-in' of inequitably distributed 'efficiency gains', providing minimal, if any, benefits to impoverished groups. These arguments are made using case study analysis from the electricity and mining sectors.