Sex in the city: the rise of soft-erotic film culture in Cinema Leopold, Ghent, 1945-1954

Since the 1990s, film studies saw a disciplinary shift from approaches favoring a textual and ideological analysis of films to a broader understanding of the socio-cultural history of cinema under the banner of new cinema history. This turn not only allowed for ‘niche’ research domains to flourish such as film economics or cinema memory research, or for new empirical and critical methodologies to be applied to film and cinema history. This change in researching and writing film/cinema history also shed light on previously marginalized, neglected or uncharted film cultures and histories, burgeoning scholarship in for instance (s)exploitation cinema. This contribution examines a peculiar part of post-war local film culture in the Belgian city of Ghent, more precisely the one around the city-center soft-erotic cinema Cinema Leopold (1945-54). The research is based on a programming and box-office database compiled from archival sources and contextualized by other data (internal and external correspondence, posters,…) coming from the business archive of Octave Bonnevalle, Cinema Leopold’s founding pater familias (material kept in the State Archives of Belgium; RAB/B70/1928-1977). The database now contains information on 625 film titles shown between 1945 and 1954, out of which 233 were unidentified (due to lack of information). Although the database is at times crippled by source inconsistencies, it is extremely rich in documenting the everyday practices of a cinema that gradually turned into a soft-erotic movie theater. The database allows for some remarkable findings concerning shifts in the origin of films, their production years, genres, censorship and popularity. The key finding is that Cinema Leopold started out after the Second World War with a child-friendly, mainstream Hollywood-oriented film program, as did most cinemas in Ghent, but its profile slowly tilted towards more mature audiences and provocative film genres. These included French ‘risqué’ feature films containing some forms of nudity like Perfectionist/Un Grand Patron (Ciampi, 1951) and documentaries on venereal diseases like the successful Austrian Creeping Poison/Schleichendes Gift (Wallbrück, 1946), but also auteur movies such as Bergman’s Port of Call/Hamnstad (1948) were shown. It is interesting how Leopold walked a fine line between innovative, bold European art-house cinema, soft-erotic ‘didactic’ movies and flat-out commercial soft-porn. By 1954, Leopold had gathered a loyal crowd, which kept the cinema alive until 1981 despite the several law suits and trials. This micro-history offers a remarkable example of the post-war flourishing of alternative, yet profit-driven cinema circuits, riddled with media controversies and censorship

Systematic Review of the Literature on Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in Sport and Physical Recreation

The Carnegie Research Institute was commissioned by Sporting Equals and the Sports Councils to conduct an independent systematic review of the literature on participation in sport and recreation by Black and minority ethnic (BME) communities. The brief was to focus on UK material from the past ten years, to compile an electronic, bibliographic database and use that evidence to assess the policy significance of existing knowledge in the drive to widen and increase participation. Although the field might still be considered under-researched over 300 items were identified. Judgements were made on the quality of the research on the basis of the methodological and theoretical soundness and the credibility of the link between the conclusions and the data. The various items were collated in an electronic, bibliographic database and coded as: substantive research of good quality; related public statistics and policy documents; and other related materials of interest. The research, policy and practice contained in this body of work is set within an expanding national and international framework of policy and legislation concerned with human rights and principles of equality. The Sports Councils and Sporting Equals have played a significant part in this through initiatives like the Equality Standard. They have not been acting in isolation, but have received support from other sports bodies with initiatives both to challenge discrimination and inequality and to promote participation and inclusion. Nonetheless, there still seems to be a measure of disconnection between research, sports policies and equality policies. Indeed, sports policies are sometimes based on limited representations of racism and so are inhibited in the way they address racial equality

Making sense of public administrative leadership in the Republic of Ireland: an interpretive research project

This research is a research into the perceptions of senior public administrative leaders in the Republic of Ireland regarding their own leadership at the time when Ireland was facing a significant socio-economic crisis. The research examines the senior Irish administrative leaders’ own perspectives on how leadership should be exercised, and explores how they perceived the environment they were in and on how they made sense of their own leadership responses to the perceived environment. The research takes the Republic of Ireland as a national case study, and focuses on the public administrative leadership, which is the leadership of the implementation of public policies, rather than on the political leadership, which is the leadership of the selection of public policies (Montesquieu 1748, Ostrom 1973, Osborne and Plastrik 1997, Alimo-Metcalfe and Alban-Metcalfe 2003, Van Wart and Dicke 2008). The research is preluded by a conceptual discussion on leadership, morality, ethics and values (Chau 2007b); a qualitative research on leadership values in the Irish public services (Chau 2008); and a quantitative research on public service delivery perspectives in Ireland (Chau 2009). The research interviews were conducted amongst the top two echelons of public administrative leaders, with participation drawn from the Secretary General or Assistant Secretary levels of the Irish civil service, or their equivalent amongst the State Agencies

Linking Research and Policy: Assessing a Framework for Organic Agricultural Support in Ireland

This paper links social science research and agricultural policy through an analysis of support for organic agriculture and food. Globally, sales of organic food have experienced 20% annual increases for the past two decades, and represent the fastest growing segment of the grocery market. Although consumer interest has increased, farmers are not keeping up with demand. This is partly due to a lack of political support provided to farmers in their transition from conventional to organic production. Support policies vary by country and in some nations, such as the US, vary by state/province. There have been few attempts to document the types of support currently in place. This research draws on an existing Framework tool to investigate regionally specific and relevant policy support available to organic farmers in Ireland. This exploratory study develops a case study of Ireland within the framework of ten key categories of organic agricultural support: leadership, policy, research, technical support, financial support, marketing and promotion, education and information, consumer issues, inter-agency activities, and future developments. Data from the Irish Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Teagasc), and other governmental and semi-governmental agencies provide the basis for an assessment of support in each category. Assessments are based on the number of activities, availability of information to farmers, and attention from governmental personnel for each of the ten categories. This policy framework is a valuable tool for farmers, researchers, state agencies, and citizen groups seeking to document existing types of organic agricultural support and discover policy areas which deserve more attention

A Multilevel Analysis of Implicit and Explicit CSR in French and UK Professional Sport

Research question: This paper examines the ways in which French and UK professional sports clubs implement and communicate their CSR policies. In addition to identifying similarities and differences between CSR practices in the two countries, our analysis extends and adapts the implicit-explicit CSR framework to the field of sport. Research methods: We used a mixed methods approach to analyse qualitative and quantitative data on the CSR strategies of 66 professional rugby union (Top 14, Aviva Premiership Rugby) and football (Ligue 1, Premier League) clubs over the 2017-2018 season. Results and findings: We found major differences in CSR communication between France and the UK. Communication by French clubs tends to highlight sport’s values, involve few media channels, whereas communication by UK clubs explicitly vaunts their social responsibility and involves numerous channels. In the case of CSR implementation, there are similarities between French and UK clubs, especially in the fields their CSR initiatives cover (e.g., health, diversity), as well as differences. However, the scope of initiatives varies more between sports than between countries, with football demonstrating a more international outlook than rugby. Implications: This article expands Matten and Moon’s (2008) implicit-explicit CSR framework by identifying the influence of interactions between sectorial/field-level factors and national/macro-level factors on CSR practices, and by distinguishing between CSR communication and CSR implementation. Our results throw light on the shift from implicit to explicit CSR in French professional sport

Ethnicity and Women's Status: An Exploratory Bibliography

Article

What lies beneath? Framing the principles for post-16 education in Scotland

This article explores the guiding principles from an informal education /youth work perspective. If the proposals include, even marginally, some of the work carried out under the auspices of CLD, then we argue it is valid that these principles are explored from such perspectives. As the CLD configuration also includes ‘achievement through learning for adults and ‘achievements through building community capacity’, perspectives will also be included from these traditions. The way that the document uses various concepts from a wider range of theory, both formal and informal education, we argue that the frame being used is intended to speak to a wide range of professionals and interested parties but at the same time narrow the focus to mirror a political ethos