In Search of a Trade Mark: Search Practices and Bureaucratic Poetics

Trade marks have been understood as quintessential ‘bureaucratic properties’. This article suggests that the making of trade marks has been historically influenced by bureaucratic practices of search and classification, which in turn were affected by the possibilities and limits of spatial organisation and technological means of access and storage. It shows how the organisation of access and retrieval did not only condition the possibility of conceiving new trade marks, but also served to delineate their intangible proprietary boundaries. Thereby they framed the very meaning of a trade mark. By advancing a historical analysis that is sensitive to shifts, both in actual materiality and in the administrative routines of trade mark law, the article highlights the legal form of trade mark as inherently social and materially shaped. We propose a historical understanding of trade mark law that regards legal practice and bureaucratic routines as being co-constitutive of the very legal object itself

Mucedorus: the last ludic playbook, the first stage Arcadia

This article argues that two seemingly contradictory factors contributed to and sustained the success of the anonymous Elizabethan play Mucedorus (c. 1590; pub. 1598). First, that both the initial composition of Mucedorus and its Jacobean revival were driven in part by the popularity of its source, Philip Sidney's Arcadia. Second, the playbook's invitation to amateur playing allowed its romance narrative to be adopted and repurposed by diverse social groups. These two factors combined to create something of a paradox, suggesting that Mucedorus was both open to all yet iconographically connected to an elite author's popular text. This study will argue that Mucedorus pioneered the fashion for “continuations” or adaptations of the famously unfinished Arcadia, and one element of its success in print was its presentation as an affordable and performable version of Sidney's elite work. The Jacobean revival of Mucedorus by the King's Men is thus evidence of a strategy of engagement with the Arcadia designed to please the new Stuart monarchs. This association with the monarchy in part determined the cultural functions of the Arcadia and Mucedorus through the Interregnum to the close of the seventeenth century

Understanding construction reform discourses

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Construction Management and Economics on 8th May 2014, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01446193.2014.909049Attempts to drive change and reform of the UK construction industry have been an ongoing concern for numerous stakeholders, both in government and across industry, for years. The issue is a seemingly perennially topical one which shows little sign of abating. Scholarly analyses of the reform agenda have tended to adopt a Critical Theory perspective. Such an approach, however, lacks a certain nuance and perhaps only reveals one layer of social reality. What is arguably lacking is a more fundamental exposition concerning the historical, social and cultural explanatory forces at play. While it is illuminating to expose vested interests, ideology and power, what has led to the development of various views? How have they come to achieve such high accord in discussions? Drawing on the works of Max Weber, Georg Simmel and Barbara Adam, this paper seeks to develop a broader theoretical lens. It considers the wider socio-cultural structures and forces that influence behaviour, shape and constrain these views. This approach will contribute to a much needed broader philosophical and theoretical debate within the construction management community (and beyond) on the need to better engage with, and understand, the sources influencing the issue of policy formulation and diffusion. © 2014 Taylor & Francis

Leicester's literary patronage A study of the English Court, 1578-1582

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D38556/81 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Leicester's literary patronage

During the Duke of Alençon's second courtship of Queen Elizabeth the Earl of Leicester emerged as the leading opponent of the marriage. At the same time he began to patronize a circle of writers which included Gabriel Harvey, Edmund Spenser and Philip Sidney, who helped to create the 'golden 1 literature of the English Renaissance. In this thesis I investigate their relations with Leicester and by a detailed examination of their main works, such as the Spenser-Harvey Letters, the Old Arcadia, theShepheardes Calender and theFaerie Queene, and their development, show how they reflect the Earl's intellectual and political concerns. I argue that Alençon was a notable patron and that his growing knowledge of his rival's academic interests encouraged Leicester to maintain his own literary faction. One of his aims was to show the French that English culture was not provincial and he demon- strated this in the entertainment The Four Foster Children of Desire for which he was largely responsible. Having outlined the background of the crisis of the courtship I evoke Leicester's life and circumstances during this period, particularly his relationship with the Queen and patronage at Oxford. I then describe the distinctive interests of his circle in law, history, politics and poetry and go on to establish that Alençon took part in the French academic movement and that his courtiers included distinguished poets and thinkers. The second half of the thesis is a series of detailed studies of Harvey, Spenser and Sidney in relation to Leicester, and their writings during the Alençon court- ship. Finally I examine the court entertainments of this period and argue for the Four Foster Children as a turning-point in Elizabethan literature. My conclusion is that Leicester was a more loyal and discriminating patron than he is usually said to have been and that he played a significant part in introducing the 'golden' age of Elizabethan literature.</p