Don't Buy The Stereotype: White Working-Class In England Are Not All Against Multiculturalism

By Harris Beider, Coventry University

Once upon a time white working-class people were seen as a political problem. Now they are back in fashion – celebrities such as Adele and David Beckham are proud to talk about their working-class roots and politicians are falling over themselves to win their support.Their votes have also been a key battleground in the Oldham by-election.

Political parties and politicians – albeit for different reasons – are keen to win the support of white working-class communities. This is partly the result of the rise of the right-wing UK Independence Party (UKIP) as a political force – despite only having one seat in the House of Commons, the party managed to secure 3.8m votes – and a disproportionate amount of coverage – in the May 2015 general election.

#COP21 - Al Gore: 'The Will To Act Is A Renewable Resource In Itself'

Al Gore lays some facts on the COP21 meeting. Reuters/Jacky Naegelen

By Ralph Sims, Massey University

With the main negotiations getting bogged down in such issues as whether to include a 1.5℃ target along with the accepted 2℃ goal (St Lucia and small island states say yes; Saudi Arabia and oil-exporting countries say no), much of the interest is found at the many side events going on at the same time.

One of them was today’s appearance by Al Gore – climate campaigner, former US vice-president, and winner of a Nobel Peace Prize shared with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Hitler At home: How The Nazi PR Machine Remade The Führer's Domestic Image And Duped The World

Walter Frentz photographed Adolf Hitler strolling with German diplomat Walther Hewel in the Berchtesgaden Alps, near the dictator’s mountain home. ww2gallery/flickr, CC BY-NC

By Despina Stratigakos, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

On March 16, 1941 – with European cities ablaze and Jews being herded into ghettos – The New York Times Magazine featured an illustrated story on Adolf Hitler’s retreat in the Berchtesgaden Alps.

Adopting a neutral tone, correspondent C Brooks Peters noted that historians of the future would do well to look at the importance of “the Führer’s private and personal domain,” where discussions about the war front were interspersed with “strolls with his three sheep dogs along majestic mountain trails.”

For more than 70 years, we have ignored Peters’s call to take Hitler’s domestic spaces seriously. When we think of the stage sets of Hitler’s political power, we are more apt to envision the Nuremberg Rally Grounds than his living room.

Yet it was through the architecture, design and media depictions of his homes that the Nazi regime fostered a myth of the private Hitler as peaceable homebody and good neighbor.

In the years leading up to World War II, this image was used strategically and effectively, both within Germany and abroad, to distance the dictator from his violent and cruel policies. Even after the war began, the favorable impression of the off-duty Führer playing with dogs and children did not immediately fade.

UK Parliament Voted To Bomb Islamic State In Syria – So, What Will That Mean Internationally?

RAF Tornados. Reuters/Russell Cheyne

By Scott Lucas, University of Birmingham

The British parliament has approved a government plan to join the international alliance bombing Islamic State targets in Syria. After more than 10 hours debating, the motion in favour of action passed with 397 votes for and 223 votes against the government.

Ahead of the vote, British newspaper columns had been filled with discussion of a new “war”, while those opposed to the airstrikes drew parallels with the catastrophe of the intervention in Iraq in 2003.

Both of these are exaggerations. Britain’s bombing will not be significant and it certainly will not be part of a coherent strategy against the Islamic State, let alone a reasonable approach to Syria’s 56-month conflict.

This is no more than a political sideshow, a diversion from the core issue – namely the continuing civil war between president Bashar al-Assad and his opponents.

Academy Award® Nominee David O. Russell Set to Receive the Cinematic Imagery Award at the Art Directors Guild Awards

Filmmaker David O. Russell on the set of JOY (PRNewsFoto/Art Directors Guild)

Oscar®-nominated filmmaker David O. Russell, whose films have consistently reflected the highest quality of production design, will receive the prestigious Cinematic Imagery Award, from the Art Directors Guild (ADG) at its 20th Annual Art Directors Guild's Excellence in Production Design Awards, presented by DXV from American Standard, it was announced today by ADG Council Chair Marcia Hinds and Awards Producer Thomas Wilkins.  

Set for January 31, 2016, the ceremony, at The Beverly Hilton Hotel, hosted by Owen Benjamin, will honor the prestigious spectrum of Russell's extraordinary award-winning work.

Could The Hunger Games Turn Your Teen Into A Revolutionary?

By Tom van Laer, City University London

The Hunger Games novels and films have fascinated me for more than seven years.

And I’m not alone.

The popular books by Suzanne Collins are the most visible example of a genre of stories today’s teens are reading voraciously: young adult dystopian fiction.

Dystopian fiction is set in a world where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives. Typically, these worlds are environmentally degraded or governed by totalitarian regimes.

My favorite example is George Orwell’s 1984, a hugely ambitious novel that deals with themes of both personal threat and universal oppression. Orwell’s vision is expressed in phrases like Big Brother, doublethink and Thought Police that are now part of everyday speech.

Even though they may have read 1984 as kids, some of today’s parents worry their teens' obsession with dark fiction means they’ll grow up and overthrow the government – like Katniss Everdeen in Hunger Games or Tris Prior in Divergent.

How real is this concern?