Songs of the Seventeenth Century

"Songs of the Seventeenth Century" was published in-house and was the result of an innovative teaching/research project that brought together staff and students in history and music. The package was distributed in other universities and included documents, commentary and new musical recordings (made by QUB students and recent graduates).

The Modern Ordinary: Changing culture of living in Egypt’s traditional quarters at the turn of the twentieth Century

Having experienced social and political structures of the 19th century Europe, Western- educated Egyptian elite used public institutions to force legislative structures and procedures that ruled out traditional housing forms and spatial systems. This essay detects direct and indirect impact of these changes that informed the spatial change of modern living in Egypt in the first quarter of the twentieth century. It offers analysis of socio-spatial practices and change in ordinary Cairenes’ modes of everyday living, using social routine and interaction to explain spatial systems and changing house forms during the first quarter of the 20th century. In doing so, the essay utilized archival documents, accounts, formal decrees, and novels of the time as well as conducting survey of house forms and spatial organizations in Old Cairo.

Imaginative Mislocation: Hiroshima’s Genbaku Dome, Ground Zero of the Twentieth Century

The controversy that erupted in March over the publication of Charles Pellegrino’s account of the atomic bombings of Japan, The Last Train from Hiroshima, suggests that the historical legacy of the first military use of atomic weaponry is still fiercely contested in the USA. The spat is merely the latest conflict in a long war over the significance of the bombings, which resurfaces with each new book, exhibition or programme that appears. When the ruins of the Genbaku (Atomic Bomb) Dome – formerly the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall – were nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, the United States objected on the basis of concerns over a ‘lack of historical perspective’, arguing that the ‘events antecedent to the United States’ use of atomic weapons to end World War II are key to understanding the tragedy of Hiroshima’. The appeal to historical facts by both US diplomats and, more recently, military veterans contrasts with the dehistoricized emphasis of other Western cultural responses to Hiroshima. But what both kinds of reception share is an occlusion of the prehistory of capitalist liberalism, colonialism and imperialism which produces Japanese modernity,a prehistory which is itself built into the Genbaku Dome’s concrete structure, and an afterlife of nuclear pacification which produces the global context of terrorism as the continuation of war by other means.

Managerial strategies in canning industries: A case study of early twentieth century Portugal

Business History, Vol, 51 Issue 1, p45-58

Portuguese business groups at the beginning of the 21st century: Trends, characteristics and configurations

This study considers the literature on the persistence of business groups in developed economies and analyzes the Portuguese case. The reconstruction of the largest business groups assembles information relevant to define characteristics that enable them to thrive. Increasing internationalization, more specialization in core activities and family control define these types of big businesses. New sectors also emerge as a characteristic of these business groups when compared to the ones existing 40 years ago.

Educating for Community Resilience: How the Work of Thomas Homer-Dixon and JohnDewey's Pattern of Inquiry Can Help Us Prepare for the Ecological and Social Challenges of the 21st Century

Scientists have overwhelmingly concluded that global warming occurs as a consequence of human activities and that climate change, combined with the depletion of resources, could have catastrophic consequences for the human civilization later this century. However, in political circles and in the public sphere these conclusions are not taken seriously, or they are laid aside for future generations to deal with; at the same time, significant efforts are being deployed to discredit the scientific evidence. In this thesis I have studied the positions of climate scientists as well as those of climate change deniers, and I also examined how their points of view are likely to impact the interests and habits of corporations and citizens. The work of Thomas Homer-Dixon was used as an important source for analyzing the complex interaction between our natural, economic, and social systems, and John Dewey's pattern of inquiry provided the theoretical foundation for an analysis of the current crisis and its possible solutions. No concerted action to deal with climate change has yet been taken by the leaders of the Western world; I corroborated data from four reliable sources (Hansen, 2009; IPCC, 2007; Lynas, 2007; Steffen, 2011) regarding several development scenarios and their likely consequences on greenhouse gas emissions, and I concluded that a future temperature increase of more than 2°C appears now as unavoidable. In the light of this conclusion I argue that education for increasing the resilience of smaller communities is a realistic alternative that can offer some hope in dealing with the challenges ahead.