With the rise of neoliberal regimes in both the global North and South, the social dimension of capitalist reproduction has come under severe attack. This chapter explores some of the difficulties that result from making 'social reproduction' too qualitatively distinct from other elements of production and reproduction. It also explores Enzo Mingione's key work in Fragmented Societies, showing that the understanding of social reproduction is a great deal more complex than Nancy Fraser's, especially as we move beyond capitalism's core. The chapter addresses the problematic issue of the articulated scales of socio-economic reproduction. It argues that the dominance of finance does not mean the disappearance of other forms of capital, but rather modifications in the way in which they seek to garner surplus value.

This chapter considers some of the ways in which the representation of art from Northern Ireland can be seen in light of the wider contexts of production and distribution. The contingencies of the contemporary world provide the essential context for art, while also determining its questioning content and precarious forms. Northern Ireland's Venice 2005 exhibition The Nature of Things was a venture into 'new terrain'. The chapter looks at the aspects and implications of the art chosen for The Nature of Things by addressing in some detail the work of two artists, William McKeown and Darren Murray. The particular content of Murray's paintings can just as easily be drawn from the translation of these high-cultural visual vocabularies into low-cultural languages. The 'discernible drift' from the local, Murphy argues, 'goes against the grain of critical voices insisting on the centrality of Irishness as a marker of value in contemporary art practice'.

By 1945 post-Liberation France was too engrossed in discussion of domestic reconstruction, constitution-making and the closing stages of the war in Europe to pay much attention to matters of empire. The Second World War caused a profound crisis of empire for France. It was made even more traumatic by the fact that French imperial territory became the battleground of several interlocking conflicts of authority. In the major French colonial federations, the economic stress engendered by the war acted as a catalyst to unrest and, in some cases, persecution. Whether in the form of stagnant trade, forced labour exactions, harsh rationing or alarming price inflation, the Levant states, Madagascar, French North Africa and Afrique Occidentale Francaise (AOF) all faced incipient crisis by the time the Fighting French assumed control. Systematically drained of its resources by the Japanese, the economic situation in French Indo-China was still more appalling by 1945.

This section presents an annotated critical edition of ¿Entre qué gentes estamos? , one of the ‘artículos de costumbres’, a type of satirical sketch that was popular in nineteenth-century Europe, by the Romantic journalist Mariano José de Larra (1809–37).

This chapter focuses on the particular case of the Oireachtas and considers what improvements could be effected in its European Union (EU)-related role. The Sub-Committee focused on the broader role of the Oireachtas in European affairs, not the implications of the Lisbon Treaty. The Sub-Committee also recommended that the Seanad play an important role in the area of monitoring the transposition of EU Directives. The Sub-Committee looked at systems used in other states to achieve executive accountability in the field of EU law, hearing from witnesses concerning the British, Danish and German parliaments. The Sub-Committee focused on the broader role of the Oireachtas in European affairs, not the implications of the Lisbon Treaty. The Joint Committee on European Scrutiny should continue to consider the Annual Legislative and Work Programme in detail.

In the air of 1914, there was an ardent romanticism which had long been building up, distilled from many elements in Victorian life and culture. It carried with it an invincible belief in the superiority of all things British; hostility, tinged with fear, towards Germany seen as the great rival, upstart, efficient and unscrupulous; and an innocent vision of war as a great and gallant knightly adventure. In 1914 opposition, concentrated in Ulster, to the Liberal Government's home rule bill, seemed to be bringing civil war very close indeed. But for the outbreak of war with Germany many officers of the British army might have been refusing to support the British government or even fighting against it. Members of the ruling class of Victorian England were guilty of much that, since their time, has come to be considered reprehensible.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines Clive Barker's earlier fiction and its place within British horror fiction and socio-cultural contexts. It explores Barker's particular manifestations of 1980s British cultural anxieties, examining how selected tales from the Books of Blood are exemplary in their response to the frustrations and political radicalism of the period. The book also explores Barker's transition from author to filmmaker, and how his vision has been translated, captured, and occasionally compromised in its adaptation from page to the screen. It also examines Barker's works through the critical lenses of queer culture, desire, and brand recognition. The book presents Barker's contributions to positive queer representations in the horror film and the evident symbolic coding for monsters and otherness in Barker's films.

Starting from Enzo Mingione's work, this chapter illustrates the complex task of social science in dealing with the construction of concepts for comparing social situations cross-nationally and transnationally, in the domain of social policy and poverty, because of national traditions. It focuses on the very special role played by the European Union in this process of international comparison and circulation of concepts. Finally the complex task of the social scientist is illustrated by a case study of the use of the terms 'underclass', 'exclusion/esclusione' and 'marginalizzazione/marginalità'. In order to understand this difficult process we need to resort not only to English, but also to Italian and French. The chapter also focuses on the practice of sociology between its conceptual universalism and its radical embeddeness in an empirical practice marked by various national languages.