Consumer Cultures, Political Discourse and the Problem of Cultural Politics

Also CSST Working Paper #86.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/51248/1/482.pd

The queer (spatial) economies of The Lavender Hill Mob

This essay provides a new reading of the popular Ealing comedy 'The Lavender Hill Mob' (Charles Crichton, 1951) by rethinking its relationship to wider cultural developments in Britain at the time of its release. The immediate post-war period was marked by an investment in town planning ideologies as a means to repair the devastation of the Blitz and to build a more cohesive social order through the reformation of the built environment. During the reconstruction, various pedagogical initiatives sought to infuse an idea of national citizenship within a certain mode of inhabiting, moving through and reading urban space. The early-1950s were also marked by a sudden press attention to the problems of ‘male vice’ in London and, in particular, the way queer men had their own illicit urban choreographies and ways of engaging with the city. Such queer geographies were vilified for their anti-social nature and demonised as an attack on the normative spatial dynamics being propagated elsewhere. This essay argues that 'The Lavender Hill Mob' offered a sly celebration of precisely those illicit queer geographies that were becoming problematic at the time of its release. Not only is the film deeply queer in both its characterisations and its manner, but its central narrative revolves around a displaced articulation of the ‘crime’ of homosexuality as it was being imagined in the early-1950s. Through this, the film invites its audience to participate in a range of queer engagements with the city, not as a source of social anxiety but one of comedic delight

The Ursinus Weekly, February 21, 1966

Mrs. Pancoast speaks for traditional Color Day • M-singers plan concert tour • Curtain Club to give 3 one acts • Winter IF Weekend greatest ever • Chem. Dept. offers guest lecturers • Dean\u27s list • Y-SAC presents Pfeiffer Players • The rush is on • Editorial: Freeland a go-go, a retrospection • Letter to the editor • 78% would forgo weekend migrations to socialize at Freeland on Fridays: Poll shows a-go-go tops in minds of UC students • 800 eager students thrilled by thunderous Olatunji show • Dominican ambassador to brief model UN panel • Lantern seeks new contributors among swinging, lazy students • Intramural corner • Courtmen win thriller in overtime battle • Grapplers win two; Bring log to 5-2 • Ursinus women splash their way to victory • Indoor track meet • Badminton roundup • Greek gleanings • Veterinary group gives book to Ursinus library • Dr. Eugene H. Miller is author of new case bookhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1217/thumbnail.jp

The Ursinus Weekly, February 21, 1966

Mrs. Pancoast speaks for traditional Color Day • M-singers plan concert tour • Curtain Club to give 3 one acts • Winter IF Weekend greatest ever • Chem. Dept. offers guest lecturers • Dean\u27s list • Y-SAC presents Pfeiffer Players • The rush is on • Editorial: Freeland a go-go, a retrospection • Letter to the editor • 78% would forgo weekend migrations to socialize at Freeland on Fridays: Poll shows a-go-go tops in minds of UC students • 800 eager students thrilled by thunderous Olatunji show • Dominican ambassador to brief model UN panel • Lantern seeks new contributors among swinging, lazy students • Intramural corner • Courtmen win thriller in overtime battle • Grapplers win two; Bring log to 5-2 • Ursinus women splash their way to victory • Indoor track meet • Badminton roundup • Greek gleanings • Veterinary group gives book to Ursinus library • Dr. Eugene H. Miller is author of new case bookhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1217/thumbnail.jp

The Profumo affair in popular culture: The Keeler Affair (1963) and ‘the commercial exploitation of a public scandal’

This article demonstrates that the Profumo affair, which obsessed Britain for large parts of 1963, was not simply a political scandal, but was also an important cultural event. Focussing on the production of The Keeler Affair, a feature film that figured prominently in contemporary coverage of the scandal but which has been largely overlooked since, the article shows that this film emerged from a situation in which cultural entrepreneurs, many of them associated with the satire boom, sought to exploit the scandal for financial gain. Many Profumo-related cultural products found an audience, and thus formed an integral part of, and helped to shape public attitudes towards, the Profumo affair. However, these products did not go uncontested, and resistance to them, and especially to the idea that Keeler might benefit materially from her role in the scandal, speak to concerns about cultural mediations of sex, politics and humour in early-1960s Britain

Perisylvian white matter connectivity in the human right hemisphere

Background By using diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) and subsequent tractography, a perisylvian language network in the human left hemisphere recently has been identified connecting Brocas's and Wernicke's areas directly (arcuate fasciculus) and indirectly by a pathway through the inferior parietal cortex. Results Applying DTI tractography in the present study, we found a similar three-way pathway in the right hemisphere of 12 healthy individuals: a direct connection between the superior temporal and lateral frontal cortex running in parallel with an indirect connection. The latter composed of a posterior segment connecting the superior temporal with the inferior parietal cortex and an anterior segment running from the inferior parietal to the lateral frontal cortex. Conclusion The present DTI findings suggest that the perisylvian inferior parietal, superior temporal, and lateral frontal corticies are tightly connected not only in the human left but also in the human right hemisphere

Original Climax Films: historicizing the British hardcore pornography film business

This article presents findings from my research into the British hardcore pornography business. Porn studies has given little coverage to the British pornography business, with much of the academic literature focusing on the American adult entertainment industry. Recently, there has been a rising interest in the historical framework of porn cinemas both in popular culture and in academic work. This article contributes to this debate, taking both a cultural and an economic approach to explore the conditions that led to the emergence of British hardcore production as an alternative economy in the 1960s. In this economy, entrepreneurs make use of new technologies to produce artefacts that are exchanged for an economic benefit, while circumventing laws to distribute their artefacts. To historicize this economy, I draw on ethnohistorical research, which includes interviews with people involved in the British hardcore business and archival research. I argue that a combination of glamour filmmaking, a relaxation of political and cultural attitudes towards sexuality, the location of Soho, London, and emerging technologies for producing films collectively contribute to the emergence of an alternative economy of British hardcore production. I focus specifically on the practices of two entrepreneurs within this economy, Ivor Cook and Mike Freeman, considering how their actions inadvertently created the British hardcore film business, and played a significant role in the development of hardcore production outside of the United Kingdom

‘Oh you pretty thing!’: How David Bowie ‘unlocked everybody’s inner queen’ in spite of the music press

The 1967 Sexual Offence Act decriminalised homosexual acts between men allowing gay men to discuss their sexuality in public. Few prominent popular musicians came-out until 1972 when David Bowie claimed that he was bisexual in an interview with Melody Maker. Music papers and Bowie had substantial cultural power: Bowie was a rising star and music papers recruited journalists who discussed and perpetuated social change. The subsequent conversation, however, reinforced negative stereotypes in constructing the queer subject and tried to safeguard commercial concerns due to the assumption that the market for popular music avoided queer music. This undermined arguments that associate permissive legislation with a permissive media and society, but, to some, representation alone empowered people and destabilised preconceptions about queer identity.Published versio

Reframing gender and feminist knowledge construction in marketing and consumer research: missing feminisms and the case of men and masculinities

Gender has been theorised and studied in many ways and across different disciplines. Although a number of these theorisations have been recognised and adopted in marketing and consumer research, the significance of feminism in knowledge construction has largely remained what we would call ‘unfinished’. Based on a critical reframing of gender research in marketing and consumer research, in dialogue with feminist theory, this article offers theoretical and practical suggestions for how to reinvigorate these research efforts. The analysis highlights dominant theorisations of gender, relating to gender as variable, difference and role; as fundamental difference and structuring; and as cultural and identity constructions. This reframing emphasises various neglected or ‘missing feminisms’, including queer theory; critical race, intersectional and transnational feminisms; material-discursive feminism; and critical studies on men and masculinities. A more detailed discussion of the latter, as a relatively new, growing and politically contentious area, is further developed to highlight more specifically which feminist and gender theories are mainly in use in marketing and consumer research and which are little or not used. In the light of this, it is argued that marketing and related disciplines have thus far largely neglected several key contemporary gender and feminist theorisations, particularly those that centre on gender power relations. The potential impact of these theoretical frames on transdisciplinary studies in marketing and consumer research and research agenda(s) is discussed