What opportunities does COVID-19 present for ending homelessness? David Christie argues that the achievements of New Labour’s Rough Sleepers Unit can provide a starting point for progressive policy building in the wake of the pandemic.
Recent Posts
The National Charter Association and its legacy, 180 years on
In July 1840 a convention of twenty-three delegates met at the Griffin Inn, Great Ancoats Street, Manchester. Elected by Chartist bodies from across Britain, their purpose was to put together a plan for reorganising the movement following a year of repression, in which much of their leadership had been imprisoned, transported, or forced into exile. On July 20 the delegates agreed a plan for a permanent organisation of all the Chartist groups across the country within ‘one Society to be Called “The National Charter Association of Great Britain”’. With this they made history: the formation of the first working-class, mass-member political party in the world.
Reading and Writing Friendship: Ruth Slate and Eva Slawson
Barbara Caine recounts a powerful friendship between two working women in early 20th century Britain. Eva & Ruth found friendship in their shared love of books – in the words of George Eliot & Charlotte Brontë – but most importantly in each other, as they sought and struggled to create new and fuller lives.
Catching the Activist Archivist Fever
The archive has been portrayed by historians for many years as a ‘magical’ place of neutral enquiry. In fact, it has historically been used in the perpetuation of many abuses by the state and continues to play a role in privileging some narratives above others at the expense of disadvantaged groups within society. Increasingly, a new breed of activist archivists are paying attention to what can be done to correct the imbalances within the archival record.
COVID-19 and Facemask Diplomacy
The COVID-19 pandemic sheds light on the history of “facemask diplomacy”, in which contagion and epidemic become prisms through which power rivalries, tensions and aspirations are conducted – international politics wearing a facemask.
‘Treble Hearted’: Queer Intimacies in Early Modern Britain
Early modern women and men possessed complex capacities for friendship, love, and devotion, and the nuances of these partnerships defy and challenge our received assumptions about early modern heterosexual and heterosocial relationships. Amanda E. Herbert explores radical friendship in 17th century Britain…
Rock Star Individualism?
Where have rock stars gone, asks Will Rees in this examination of a pop cultural movement’s philosophical underpinnings.
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