Wittgenstein had been a completely unexpected commission which Derek Jarman, despite his failing health, had rapidly and brilliantly converted into 'A Derek Jarman Film' through his usual intense personal identification with his subject. By contrast, his final film Blue was the outcome of nearly twenty years of creative thinking. Although the combination of an unchanging blue screen and a soundtrack which included many reflections upon the physical ravages inflicted on him by AIDS seems to indicate a self-consciously terminal document, the film evolved from an idea he first had in 1974. Blue was one of a cluster of films addressing the issue of AIDS which were released in the early 1990s, the period when 'HIV/AIDS was at the height of its public visibility'. Although Jarman has put himself at the centre of his film, his use of personal pronouns is frequently calculatedly ambiguous and inclusive.

The period of Lance Comfort's most sustained achievement, when he comes nearest to being an autonomous cultural producer, begins with Great Day in 1945 and cuts off sharply with the commercial failure of Portrait of Clare in 1950. These two and the four intervening films, Bedelia, Temptation Harbour, Daughter of Darkness, and Silent Dust are all melodramas of one kind or other. Great Day is a film which belongs on the cusp of peacetime British cinema. If Great Day is only melodrama in part of its action, two further pieces centred on the activities of 'wicked women', Bedelia and Daughter of Darkness, epitomise the mode in full cry, their protagonists exemplifying Comfort's interest in the melodrama of obsession. Like Daughter of Darkness, The Silent Dust is based on a play on which it considerably improves: The Paragon, by Roland and Michael Pertwee, first produced in London in 1948.

This introduction provides a rationale for querying and queering the way state citizenship functions. Beginning from a reading of Indigenous author Thomas King’s 1993 short story, ‘Borders’, the introduction offers a justification for rethinking citizenship. Drawing on border studies, queer theory, and political developments at North American borders since 9/11, the introduction shows how reading can translate into civic action that foregrounds recognition, rights, and representation in North America.

1986 proved to be a pivotal year in Derek Jarman's life. If Caravaggio, with its carefully scripted storyline, professionally acted character parts, precisely lit studio set-ups, and use of 35mm, was Jarman's nearest approach to the procedures of mainstream cinema, then The Last of England represents a return to his less formal super-8 films, this time augmented by editing techniques derived from his work on music videos. The film which emerged from the editing process is a rich and powerful one but one which makes considerable demands on its audience, given that it runs for eighty-seven minutes with no obvious storyline, no named characters, no dialogue, and only intermittently synchronised sound. Yet major academic critics like Michael O'Pray, John Hill, and Annette Kuhn have been eloquent in their praise of The Last of England.

This chapter explores how Émile Zola’s ekphrastic writings about Édouard Manet’s paintings functioned as a template on which the writer imposed his evolving theories of the naturalist novel. It argues that, while Zola championed Manet in his critical reviews of the artist’s works, he did so in the name of naturalism and the scientific objectivity and analysis naturalism promoted. Moreover, it seems likely that Manet would have read Zola’s 1868 preface to Thérèse Raquin, where the author first mandated his naturalist theories. The chapter asks what Manet would have thought about Zola’s subjugation of painting to writing and his refusal of meaningful content in his art. It proposes that Manet painted Zola’s portrait in 1868 as a response to the critic’s misinterpretation of the painter’s artistic method. Manet’s portrait of Zola also reveals how the artist, in turn, appropriated the writer and his writing to his own artistic agenda, the subsequent manifestations of which culminate in Manet’s final masterpiece, A Bar at the Folies Bergère (1882).

While immigration policy making has traditionally been the sole prerogative of nation-states, recent research has documented increased instances of migration policy making at sub-national levels across migrant receiving societies. These findings have begun to bring attention to the ways in which immigration policy is now being set through the actions of lower levels of government. This chapter extends these findings, arguing for attention to the role of sub-national actors in defining the politics of contemporary processes of migration, settlement, and incorporation. The chapter engages with these broader issues by discussing a group of sub-national actions, the implementation of migrant labour market regularisations (LRs) in the US. LRs are discrete arenas of policy making at the sub-national level that affect aspects of migrant workers' status and include laws and ordinances related to anti-solicitation, language access, local enforcement of federal immigration law, and employment verification. The chapter thus builds on findings from individual case studies, through an analysis of a unique national dataset of over 3,000 LRs passed in US counties and municipalities between 2001 and 2015. In doing so, the chapter provides a national perspective on the social, economic, and political processes influencing the adoption of LRs over time and across space.

Prime Minister Wilson’s decision to hold a referendum on Common Market membership in 1975 had a huge impact not only on both the Labour and Conservative parties, but also on individual members of the political elite. Events leading up to the referendum are analysed: these include the general elections of 1974 and the crucial House of Commons three-day debate on the Labour government’s recommendation that Britain remain a member of the EEC. This chapter explores Wilson’s motives for holding a referendum, and despite a clear verdict from the public, demonstrates how the issue was to be far from settled. This was a period of particular significance for several leading players in the European debate. As such, analysis is provided on the reasons why some members of the political elite changed their positions on Europe, and the highly significant consequences for the parties and individuals following the 1975 referendum.

This chapter explores Dominican-American author Junot Díaz’s 2007 novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Reading the novel as a Caribbean text that offers a revisionist history of the Dominican Republic, the chapter theorises how Diaz crafts a ‘dictator-narrator’ in protagonist Yunior, whose presence allows readers to reflect not only on the dangers of dictatorship but also on the transformative possibilities of multilingual, hemispheric citizenship. At its core, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao allows readers to reflect on the hybridity of contemporary American literature, offering routes to conceiving of citizenship as an archipelago of rights and responsibilities, as well as readerly, participatory, and queer.

The practice of distinguishing between those wounded or sick in land and sea warfare resulted in the adoption of distinct Conventions at Geneva in 1949, but Protocol I, 1977, deals with the wounded, sick and shipwrecked collectively. For other prisoners of war, the Conventions relating to the care of the wounded, sick and shipwrecked are under the scrutiny of the Protecting Power and do not detract from the general humanitarian activities of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). In a land engagement, agreement may be reached between opposing commanders for the exchange, removal and transport of the wounded in the field. Whenever possible, similar arrangements should be made for the removal of the wounded and sick by land or sea from any besieged or encircled area and for the passage of medical personnel or chaplains proceeding to such an area.

One of the defining issues in British politics and the central focus of economic policy between 1974 and 1979 was inflation. This was particularly true for the Conservatives, who invested a great deal in defining policies to deal with inflation and consistently emphasised the grave threat that it posed. This chapter details the development of these policies and suggests how they can best be understood. Many accounts have suggested that the Conservatives moved in a monetarist direction during this period. There can be little doubt that this is correct. Many of the leading disseminators of monetarist ideas were drawn towards the Conservatives, demonstrating the common ground between them. However, this chapter will show that their influence in policy terms may not have been direct and the Conservatives’ position was not revolutionised. Ideas closer to traditional prices and incomes policies remained stubbornly in play. A greater focus on monetarist ideas did not necessarily require a significant re-evaluation of Conservative philosophy, and pragmatic concerns were often just as significant as wider ideological forces.