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After Copenhagen: climate change and international politics

Wednesday 21 April 2010

Keith McCabe and Professor Inderjeet Parmar will look at the changing debate on climate change and international politics from Kyoto to Copenhagen and if we're all heading for the proverbial iceberg, chaired by Hilary Salt.

Keith McCabe will concentrate on what has changed about the language and content of the discussion on Climate Change from Kyoto to Copenhagen, and since. Keith will also outline how engineers have been responding to the challenges posed by the way the discussion on reducing carbon and other man made emissions is formulated. Alongside Keith will be Professor Inderjeet Parmar who will look at the way in which US Foreign Policy has changed over a similar time period, outlining some key arguments aired in the new book he's jointly edited entitled 'Soft Power and US Foreign Policy: Theoretical, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives'.

The rise of widespread negative attitudes towards US foreign policy, especially due to the war of aggression against Iraq and the subsequent military occupation of the country – has brought new attention to the meaning and instruments of soft power. Soft power, described by Inderjeet, is the use of attraction and persuasion rather than the use of coercion or force in foreign policy. It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals and policies, whereas hard power develops out of a country's military or economic might. The discussion will also be an opportunity to question Inderjeet over the essays in the book by an outstanding line up of contributors providing the most extensive discussion of soft power to date.

Freedom and fun: how 'including' the public leads to their exclusion

Monday 17 May 2010

Dan Travis will look at how restiction zones in Brighton, that formally attempt to improve social cohesion, inherently lead to increasing mistrust and alienation, chaired by Hilary Salt to include Mancunians in the discussion.

Dan Travis will look at examples from Brighton that has been a test ground for 'Lifestyle Bans' - try them out in Brighton and roll them out nationally is the line from central government. After direct experience in campaigning against the Bans with the Manifesto Club, then co-founding the 'Free Brighton' group, Dan Travis will look at how initial bans on rap music escalated into bans on Flyering, then photography and then most dramatically, on booze.  

Dan will argue that the Ban itself is a new mechanism that relies on the exclusion of the public in any discussion. This new mechanism is beyond law and most worryingly relies on the subjective interpretation of wrongdoing by the police and their proxy PCSO,s. Ironically, however, the ban culture could be sowing the seeds of it's own destruction by giving us the opportunity to challenge them directly and have them overturned.

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Whodunit: what's the big deal with crime novels?

Wednesday 14 July 2010

Stephen Bowler and Angelica Michelis will air their views on why the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson are so popular, whilst Dave Bowden chairs the discussion to work out whodunit.

Stephen will focus on the crime novel as a genre whilst Angelica will then focus on the Millennium Trilogy crime novels by Steig Larsson in particular. It might be said that crime does not pay but writing crime fiction certainly does! Topping recent and current bestseller lists crime narratives in all their different variations seem to capture the imagination of readers from nearly every social background and across all generations. However, as its history from the nineteenth century onwards shows, crime fiction has always been much more than purely light entertainment: its main genres such as, classic detective stories, hard-boiled crime fiction, the police procedural, novels focusing on serial killer and forensic pathology, lesbian crime fiction and the historical crime novel, to name but the best known, have always related to wider cultural practices and therefore been able to keep their readers hooked.