"Now and Then": contemporary issues in early modern context

Collin Lieberg and Claire Wooldridge, ‘Music, Festivals and Celebrations’

David Beck — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:54:17 GMT

Collin Lieberg & Claire Wooldridge are both graduate students at Warwick University. Their discussion looks at festivals in early modern Venice and how they related to the re-emergence of festivals in 1960s and 1970s, such as Woodstock and the Isle of Wight. It examines the importance of music and identification of a ‘lived’ experience by analysing the make-up of singers/bands and crowds. In addition, Collin and Claire reflect on the vicarious experience of those who did not attend festivals, and discuss whether the new media available in the 1960s made for a qualitatively different experience of festivals from outside.

David Hitchcock - A ‘Rogue’s Eye View’: The cultural force of homelessness

David Beck — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:19:16 GMT

David Hitchcock, a final year PhD student in the History Department at Warwick University, talks about the strange diffusion of modern narratives of homelessness, and the odd disconnect between modern notions of social justice, and the (lack of) agency of modern homeless people. He compares this narrative to the ‘great and terrible cultural force’ of rogues and vagabonds in the period 1650-1750, in which contemporaries were pre-occupied with reforming and ‘improving’ the poor in order to prevent a slide into vagrancy and crime, but they also figured the vagabond as a cultural figure of unique power and significance.

Corruption- Parliament in Crisis

David Beck — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:38:32 GMT

In the current Parliamentary crisis many commentators are invoking the historical context and calling for a new 'Great Reform Act' to clean up politics. But what was Parliament like before 1832? Is the contemporary discussion on the behaviour of MPs unprecedented? What about the behaviour of the speaker, Michael Martin? Professor Mark Knights, Dr Joe Hardwick and Dr Sarah Richardson discuss these issues and consider the historical context of today's parliamentary crisis. For more information see the Thinking Aloud page here.