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FACULTY OF ARTS & HUMANITIES

POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE

ABSTRACTS

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Contents

PARALLEL PANELS - SESSION 1 5

PANEL A – GENDER STUDIES 5

1. RAGHDA HARERI (ECA, EDINBURGH) 5

The Power of Women and the Design of Domestic Living Spaces. 5

2. REBECCA JONES (STIRLING) 5

Devalued Empathy and the Logic of Domination: An Ecofeminist Analysis of Power and Patriarchy. 5

3. ZAHID KHAN (GLASGOW) 6

Linguistic Sexism in Print Media in Pakistan: A Case Study of Two Leading Urdu Language Newspapers. 6

PANEL B – SOCIAL STUDIES 7

4. CATHERINE DAVIDONES (STIRLING) 7

The impact of power within the governance of Community Safety Partnerships in Scotland. 7

5. LUCA ANTONAZZO (STIRLING) 7

Recovered factories in Italy: towards new configurations of power relations within firms. 7

6. DALENE SWANSON, EMMA GUION AKDAĞ, MOSTAFA GAMAL (STIRLING) 8

Constructing the nation: nationalist popul(ar)ism, symbolic power, and the possibilities of critical global citizenship. 8

PANEL C – ENGLISH STUDIES 9

7. AILEEN LOBBAN (STIRLING) 9

The power of poetry as social commentary; a study of Jamaican poet Louise Bennett. 9

8. MARTIN CATHCART FRODEN (GLASGOW) 9

We make spaces and spaces make us: An exploration through creative writing of the relationship between literature and carceral spaces. 9

9. LEONOR RUIZ-AYÚCAR (STIRLING) 10

Blood Surrogates. Race and Power in Twentieth-Century Vampire Fiction. 10

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PARALLEL PANELS – SESSION 2 11

PANEL D – FILM STUDIES 11

10. ANDREW SEAGER (DUNDEE) 11

‘You’re asking all the wrong questions’: Alan Sharp’s Night Moves and the emergence of a ‘post -truth’ world. 11

11. CHRISTOPHER GERRARD (DUNDEE) 11

The Artillery Shell and the Councilman: Multi-layered Imagery as Political Metaphor in Avant-garde Film. 11

12. SAMEER AHMED (GLASGOW) 12

For England James! James Bond and imperial nostalgia in the age of Brexit. 12

PANEL E – LAW AND POLITICS 13

13. NAZAR AMEEN MOHAMMED (STIRLING) 13

The Power given to the UK government in giving effect to distance selling directives in the UK. 13

14. SARAH JOHNSON (STIRLING) 13

Legal Research, the Evolution of ‘State Sovereignty’ and International Law. 13

15. CECEP MUSTAFA (STIRLING) 14

“She/ he strives for social justice that will be beneficial to the offender, although it will abandon legal certainty somewhat”: Judicial Perspectives on the sentencing of minor drug offenders in Indonesia. 14

PANEL F – ENGLISH STUDIES 15

16. LORNA WALLACE (STIRLING) 15

“He hath abus’d your powers”: Political Power and Personal Identity in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. 15

17. ROSS MALLON (GLASGOW) 15

“Stop talking words that create nothing”: Amos Tutuola and the Limitations of Dominant Discourse. 15

18. MEGHAN MCAVOY (STIRLING) 16

“Cared-for was blatantly taking the piss”: The Welfare State as Locus of Power in Jenni Fagan’s The Panopticon. 16

PARALLEL PANELS – SESSION 3 17

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PANEL G – SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES 17

19. FIONA CLAPPERTON (SHEFFIELD) 17

Duty, Dependence and Denarii: Philanthropic Gifts & Payments to Servants by Members of the Cavendish Family between 1908-1950. 17

20. HEATHER ANDERSON (STIRLING) 17

The Power of Outrage: The Rhetoric of Anger in Contemporary Politics. 17

21. ANTONIA PALMER (QMU) 18

Becoming confident and informed. 18

PANEL H – SCOTTISH STUDIES 19

22. DUNCAN HOTCHKISS (STIRLING) 19

Subverting the power of the historical novel? The short story as a ‘dissident form’ in early nineteenth -century Scotland. 19

23. MARIA SIGL (STIRLING) 19

Apparel as means to communicate power: A comparison of the Scottish kilt and the Bavarian lederhose. 19

24. RORY SCOTHORNE, (EDINBURGH) 20

Romanticising Radicalism, Civilizing Nationalism: Scottish hegemony and the myth of ‘radical Scotland’. 20

PANEL I – COMMUNICATION, MEDIA AND CULTURE 21

25. SAADIA ISHTIAQ NAUMAN (STIRLING) 21

The Power of Media in the Digital Age. 21

26. WAFA KHALFAN RASHID (GLASGOW) 21

Social Media: Whose Power? 21

27. NORMAHFUZAH AHMAD (GLASGOW) 22

Dominant no more: Immersing digital technologies and journalistic challenges within broadcast television news industry. 22

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PARALLEL PANELS - SESSION 1

PANEL A – Gender Studies

1. Raghda Hareri (ECA, Edinburgh)

The Power of Women and the Design of Domestic Living Spaces.

This research offers a ‘Non-Western’ understanding of the relationship between gender and domestic living space interior design in Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia. Who is shaping the interior design of the living space in Jeddah homes? Can we identify gender trends regarding who is involved in space furnishing?

What is interesting in this research is how women participate in creating the present home environment of Jeddah. The decision-making roles played by Saudi women emerge in their participation in choosing the neighbourhood of their homes, constructing the home, choosing the living room’s position in the home, the full job of selecting the pieces of furniture for the room, arranging the furniture and objects within the living space, and completing the image of the interior design of the living space by adding décor touches and accessories, as well as making alterations in the living room design during the time they use the space.

Recently, the Saudi woman's role has changed along with her work and educational status. The Saudi socialist Nora Almosaed (2008) declared that work has given women the opportunity to have power in the family and to take part in household decision-making. Thus, we can see the relationship between domesticity and femininity that casts the role of women as the creators of domestic interiors. In this case, however, while women saw themselves as responsible for maintaining the household in practical and aesthetic terms, her identity appears within this context. This research attempts to understand contemporary Saudi society and sheds light on women as a new authority in Saudi homes.

2. Rebecca Jones (Stirling)

Devalued Empathy and the Logic of Domination: An Ecofeminist Analysis of Power and Patriarchy.

Ecofeminist theory offers unique insights into human relationships with nature and animals, contextualising and challenging the hierarchical 'defaults' and logic of domination which underpin patriarchal power and oppression.

From Carol Adams' studies of the link between masculinity and meat, the feminisation of animals and the animalisation of women, to work by Josephine Donovan, Deane Curtin and Marti Kheel on a feminist care ethic for the treatment of animals, ecofeminists from a range of theoretical positions hav e illustrated that where empathy is dismissed as a feminised, emotional counterpoint to a supposedly more rigorous masculinised ‘reason’ in socio -political discourse, its vital role in shaping human perceptions of our interpersonal relationships and our pl ace in the world 'beyond the human' is ignored.

This paper will examine a selection of key ecofeminist theories, interrogating the feminisation of empathy and the appropriation of reason as a cypher for masculine power and the human 'right to dominate' na ture and animals. It concludes by asking what ecofeminist responses to the logic of domination and the objectification of nature and the animal as a resource for human consumption can tell us about what empathy (and its absence) mean for socio -political discourse today.

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3. Zahid Khan (Glasgow)

Linguistic Sexism in Print Media in Pakistan: A Case Study of Two Leading Urdu Language Newspapers.

This study tries to determine and analyze whether print media in Pakistan contain or promote sexist language, the various forms in which linguistic sexism take place in Pakistani print media and the effects of usage of sexist language on women.

Content analysis method was used to find out linguistic sexism in the sample collected from the two widely circulated newspapers. Coding was performed by two well-trained Urdu speaking coders, in the first place, the two coders looked into whether a story contains a sexist language or not and the stories with sexist stories and non-sexist stories were tabled accordingly, these coders also identified four themes in which sexist language portrayed and described women.

To probe into the effects of sexist language contained in media over women, 15 women from different segments of the society were interviewed, besides, extensive interviews with media, gender, and language experts.

The results obtained during this study showed that Urdu press and print media in Pakistan contain a noticeable amount of sexist language. The sexist language used in newspapers portray women in four prejudi ced themes identified in this study, these themes are portrayal of women as traditional, modern or westernized, sex symbol, and cheats.

Many interviewees viewed this stereotypical and prejudiced portrayal, as an attempt to relatively devalue women in the society, majority of the women interviewed during this study, believed that the usage of sexist language by media does affect Pakistani women. The experts interviewed, also opined that the frequent use of sexist language and the sexist portrayal of women in media make women to accept male dominance in every field and develop a mindset that thoroughly accepts the notion that men are superior to women.

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PANEL B – Social Studies

4. Catherine Davidones (Stirling)

The impact of power within the governance of Community Safety Partnerships in Scotland.

Partnership working within the domain of the UK Public Sector has been the subject of academic exploration in modern times with respect to tensions around: governance; accountability within a fragmented service de livery (Powell and Exworthy, 2002); and power differentials within partnerships. This Thesis explores the concept of partnership working by looking at the governance of community safety in Scotland; principally through Community Planning/Community Safety Partnerships during a period of significant Public Sector reform. Using a case study approach - data was obtained during a twelve-month period (2013) within three distinct localities.

Drawing on theories around governance/partnership working, power and social capital: key themes began to emerge around tensions between central and local policy; power differentials within Partnerships – relating to organisational culture and resource dependency; fiscal retrenchment and the de-prioritisation of community safety; Police reform and the impact on localism; and accountability issues relating to participatory democracy, blurred boundaries, and accountability to local communities within the governance of community safety. This thesis concludes that despite the rhetoric of localism within local governance – local communities and Local Government have less voice/power compared to Central Government, in relation to the governance of community safety, and in relation to the loss of accountability within local policing.

5. Luca Antonazzo (Stirling)

Recovered factories in Italy: towards new configurations of power relations within firms.

Recovered factories are a social and economic process that presupposes the existence of a prior enterprise that worked under the traditional model of a private capitalist enterprise whose bankruptcy, emptying or unavailability prompted the workers to fight for a change and for self-management. Recovered factories may be considered as socio-economic resilience practices and, at the same time, experiences of active resistance, aimed at re-thinking property, power relations and the growth paradigm that guides conventional capitalist economic policies. What recovered factories propose is a model of democratization of the economy centred on the produ ction of jobs aimed at the re-production of lives, through collective and horizontal participation. Recovered factories represent an attempt to put in motion a change of the economic paradigm, focused on democratic values and on a direct relationship between work and welfare. This paper intends to propose a theoretical analysis of the phenomenon, drawing on Fligstein and McAdams’ theory of Strategic Action fields (2012). With reference to an Italian case study, the aim of this contribution is to highlight conditions, processes and mechanisms that allow the workers to mobilize in order to change from within the firm the traditional capitalist power relations, eventually moving towards a new model of production.

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6. Dalene Swanson, Emma Guion Akdağ, Mostafa Gamal (Stirling)

Constructing the nation: nationalist popul(ar)ism, symbolic power, and the possibilities of critical global citizenship.

In its anti-pluralist stance, popul(ar)lism calls to reassert the primacy of the national country in its citizens. Its discourses mobilise fear and regulation, the threat of elimination/deportation, and specific technologies for assembling the virtuous citizen by classifying, labelling and problematising others constituted as objects of hatred and fear (Isin, 2002). This “moralizing and monist” popul(ar)ism (Muller, 2016) shifts the register of citizenship by calling for its disentanglement from relationalities occasioned by “geographical wondering” (Drabinski, 2013). Against this background, some more critical international isation and international education discourses within Higher and Further Education and schooling invoke a vision of liberalised borders, inclusion and equality, and some go further to demand for a critical, reflexive, politically-responsive and historically-informed global citizenship (Stein, 2015; Swanson and Pashby, 2016).

This paper addresses the ways in which celebratory nationalist popul(ar)ism may be mobilised in educational policy in the Scottish context. It explores the ways in which Scottish HE, FE and schooling discourses may carry particular framings of populist ideologies perpetuated through institutional and curricular strategies and policies that construct a particular notion of Scottish “nationness” as nativist or a “unitary collective experience”. Arguably, such “nationness”, as an apparatus of symbolic power (Bhabha, 1994, p.140), may be fuelled by calls for independence from the UK, appearing as ‘progressive’ on one level, but otherwise aligning unproblematically with neoliberal governance logic inherent in various governmental and institutional policies, thus conflating contradictory ideological discourses. This is evident, as an example, in the ‘global citizenship’ discourses in Education Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence. The paper argues that in order to counter the deleterious effects and symbolic power of nostalgic and popul(ar)ist nationalism, critical engagement with postcolonial/decolonial theorisations and actions supported by ethical commitments to work towards global justice, d emocracy and equality have become increasingly necessary in opening up possibilities for sustainable political alternatives.

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PANEL C – English Studies

7. Aileen Lobban (Stirling)

The power of poetry as social commentary; a study of Jamaican poet Louise Bennett.

Louise Bennett is an iconic national hero of Jamaica and one who affords a unique commentary on Jamaica’s social history pre and post-independence. Poet, story teller and performer, Bennett wrote exclusively in the Creole. This paper will first examine the subversive nature of this linguistic choice. Bennett absorbs the matriarchal language and so subverts the language of the coloniser, destabilising the perceived structure of colonial power. Secondly a close analytical reading of her poetry shows how Bennett encompasses the intersectionality of race, gender and class as she writes about local issues in the time sweeping up to Independence including the economic hardships faced in wartime. She uses different personae, reflecting the voices of the m arket women and others to give a vibrant and eclectic social picture over this period. This technique arguably disinvests her own authorial voice but equally creates a non-judgemental, opaquely propagandist vehicle through which she can highlight and conf ront topical problems within Jamaican society. The paper will further illustrate her use of proverbs as the voices of generations of wisdom within her poetry which carry with them the historical weight of cultural attitude and illuminate the power of the spoken/written word in the collective memory of a “submerged” nation.

8. Martin Cathcart Froden (Glasgow)

We make spaces and spaces make us: An exploration through creative writing of the relationship between literature and carceral spaces.

The Prison and the Airport – a creative perspective on power dynamics in space

When asked about his design ideals Eero Saarinen, the architect of the TWA terminal in New York, said that the three main functions of a successful airport are: ‘Circulation, Process, Containment ’.

On reflection, it seems there are similarities between the airport and the prison: both manifold environments, full of rules and unspoken power dynamics. They are environments of a state and existing beyond the state, operating in a liminal space. Neither constitute a destination, but we have decided that both are necessary for our way of life. To transport or to hold. To augment or suspend the perception of freedom.

Pursuing doctoral research that encompasses criminology, architecture and creative writi ng I have been intrigued by the friction and the relationship between these two very different sets of ideas represented in concrete. I propose to present a paper that centres around a piece of short fiction but that draws in wider questions of power relationships as expressed in architecture.

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9. Leonor Ruiz-Ayúcar (Stirling)

Blood Surrogates. Race and Power in Twentieth-Century Vampire Fiction.

As Nina Auerbach has argued, each generation has its own vampire, its own monster and, because of the vampire’s ability to change and adapt itself, it is still one of the most popular and reiterated gothic trope (Auerbach vii). In this paper, I will explore the ways in which a selection of twentieth century vampire fiction uses blood and blood surrogates as metaphors for controlling and, in a sense, enslaving both humans and vampires alike.

In order to show this power relation through blood and blood substitutes, I will explore their presence in films such as Michael and Peter Spierig’s Daybreakers (2009), the telev ision series True Blood (2009), and in the narrative of George R R Martin’s often overlooked vampire novel Fevre Dream (1982). This analysis will start by drawing from and studying Aspasia Stephanou’s essay ‘The Sunset of Humankind is the Dawn of the Bloo d Harvest’: Blood Banks, Synthetic Blood and Haemocommerce’ (2014) and later connect her ideas relating to blood banks and haemocommerce with the power hidden behind blood in the fictions under analysis. I contend that blood and its surrogates are used as currency and as a means of manipulation and control. In turn, vampire fiction’s representation of blood may be read as interrogating the power dynamics at work in capitalism more broadly.

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PARALLEL PANELS – SESSION 2

PANEL D – Film Studies

10. Andrew Seager (Dundee)

‘You’re asking all the wrong questions’: Alan Sharp’s Night Moves and the emergence of a ‘post-truth’ world.

Scottish screenwriter and author Alan Sharp (1934-2013) penned a series of screenplays in the 1970s notable for capturing the cynical cultural zeitgeist of post-Watergate America. Among these, Night Moves (1975) is perhaps the most overtly political, entwining a film noir story with dialogue that explores the pessimism that gripped American society following the Nixon presidency. This paper will argue that Night Moves subverts detective story motifs to present a society increasingly incapable of divorcing fact from fabrication, prefiguring notions of a ‘post-truth’ era. Utilizing Dundee’s unique access to the “Alan Sharp Archive”, this paper combines previously unread correspondences from Sharp, early drafts of Night Moves, and even excerpts from unpublished novels to trace a continued interest in Sharp’s career in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era, and its effects on notions of objective truth.

11. Christopher Gerrard (Dundee)

The Artillery Shell and the Councilman: Multi-layered Imagery as Political Metaphor in Avant-garde Film.

In the 1920s Europe was going through tumultuous changes: rising right-wing movements, economic depression and gross inequality. There was also however, a great amount of freedom and experimentation in the visual arts. As a filmmaker and researcher, I wish to focus on the Avant-garde film movement. Over the decade they rebelled again the industrial mainstream productions, creating work to challenge and intellectually engage the audience. These films used many experimental techniques, including superimpositions, distorted images, prism kaleidoscopes and even objects literally pasted on the film stock.

The majority of these works however were more interested in aesthetic possibilities and exploring the human mind and heart, than tackling the political issues of the day. My talk will explore where the 1920s Avant -garde filmmakers succeeded and failed. It will then look at how the modern digital filmmaker can take their aesthetics and utilise them in the current political climate in a social conscious way, building on their successes and adding an edge of cultural critique.

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12. Sameer Ahmed (Glasgow)

For England James! James Bond and imperial nostalgia in the age of Brexit .

‘Take back our borders’ is a phrase that represents the literal and figurative exercise of power where cultures are increasingly seen to be under threat from ‘outsiders’. Such expressions are shaped by and resonate in popular cultural artefacts. I study two recent Bond films, Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015) as f ormidable cultural interventions in the debate concerning British identity. Britain’s ability to exercise power within her realm is challenged by a cyber terrorist of obvious Hispanic descent in Skyfall. I demonstrate how the idea of British -ness here is reliant on imperial nostalgia and the threat of the ‘other’. In Spectre, Britain’s identity and independence of action in the world of espionage are threatened through merger with an EU-style intelligence-gathering conglomerate poised to replace the MI6. Correspondingly, the film proposes resistance in the face of efforts intended to efface Britain. Taken in this context, both Skyfall and Spectre participate in the creation and perpetuation of a grammar of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Simultaneously, they encourage Bri tain to ‘take control again’ by literally exercising power in the political domain. In a world that seems to grow insecure with each day, I argue that the answer James Bond suggests for England is for her to be what she has always been; wary of cultural ‘o thers’.

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PANEL E – Law and Politics

13. Nazar Ameen Mohammed (Stirling)

The Power given to the UK government in giving effect to distance selling directives in the UK.

Emergence of distance selling legislation was not an outcome of a pure national attempt made by the UK Government. Rather, it was a result of collective negotiations done across European member states. The idea goes back to 1992 when the first – draft proposal was published by the European commission. In 1997 the negations led the European parliament and council to adopt the EU Directive 97/7/ EC which was implemented into the UK by distance selling regulations 2000. In 2011, the European parliament and cou ncil replaced the 97 directive by Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/ EU and subsequently was implemented into the UK by consumer rights (information, cancellation, and additional charges) regulations 2013. Meanwhile, this paper will try to explain the power given to EU member states in their ways to give effect to such directives at level of national laws. In particular, if we know that such power has changed over nearly one decade from a minimum harmonisation policy which was of a considerable level of freedom to the member states, to a fully harmonisation policy which is of less freedom to the member states.

14. Sarah Johnson (Stirling)

Legal Research, the Evolution of ‘State Sovereignty’ and International Law .

The relationship between state sovereignty and international law is a debated issue within law. The power attributed to states in the form of state sovereignty has been pivotal in shaping this relationship, and has not remained a stationary concept. This paper will explore how the development of international law has affected the traditional notion of state sovereignty, and the impact of this when considering a legal research topic.

This exploration will begin by discussing the traditional legal concept of state sovereignty, focusing on its origins on a domestic level, its purpose and role. The development of an international legal framework will then be considered, where it is argued that sovereignty does not relate to a state’s power, but rather to its freedom from the power of a higher authority.

Some of the existing theories of state sovereignty within international law will then be discussed. For example, some view state sovereignty as providing states with a positive territorial identity within international law, whilst others perceive it as negative, for example where it is perceived as an obstacle to international human rights law, and even an outdated and no longer relevant term.

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15. Cecep Mustafa (Stirling)

“She/ he strives for social justice that will be beneficial to the offender, although it will abandon legal certainty somewhat”: Judicial Perspectives on the sentencing of minor drug offenders in Indonesia.

This study explores the perceptions of Indonesian Judges in sentencing minor drug offenders. The judge holds a central role in the sentencing process, because of an international system of judicial discretion, and it is because of this limited discretion that it is important to understand how judges come to their decisions. To develop this understanding, a total of 31 participants were interviewed. Of the 31 participants, 9 were female and 22 were male. The rich data were collected through observations and interviewing District Court and Supreme Court Judges on a semi-structured basis. I carried out face-to-face interviews with the Urban Court participants, whereas interviews with the Rural Court participants were carried out by means of a combination of telephone interviews. The data demonstrated the ways in which judges attempted to influence the judicial process, as well as how the interplay of power relations become evident in such interactions. Within the current context in Indonesian courts, which are primarily retributive and drug prohibitionist policies, the judges were exercising their discretion to avoid negative impact to the offenders.

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PANEL F – English Studies

16. Lorna Wallace (Stirling)

“He hath abus’d your powers”: Political Power and Personal Identity in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.

I will present a paper which will discuss power and identity as it is shown in William Shakespeare’s Coriolanus (1605-8). This will be an extension of ideas produced in my Masters dissertation, which I completed in 2016. I will focus on how Coriolanus’s personal identity interacts and conflicts with the political power he is awarded because of his heroic acts as a military general. To attain this power, he is required to abandon his warrior role and flatter the people as a public figure but he believes this will corrupt his sense of self. His inability to mould himself into this new role and the tribunes turning public favour against him leads to his banishment and consequently the near destruction of Rome. While his misuse of power in favour of protecting h is rigid and fragile identity may seem selfish, his personal integrity shines bright in comparison to other characters, particularly the tribunes and Aufidius. These characters demonstrate an abuse of their political roles in their quest for greater power. Against their self-serving nature, Coriolanus’s strict adherence to honour appears noble. Ultimately however, Coriolanus’s inability to reconcile his identity with the political demands made of him leads to his death.

17. Ross Mallon (Glasgow)

“Stop talking words that create nothing”: Amos Tutuola and the Limitations of Dominant Discourse.

This paper draws on the work of French philosopher Jacques Rancière to explore the rebellious nature of pre -independence West African magical realist fiction. Using Amos Tutuola’s early novels as case studies, I focus on Rancière’s notion of dissensus and aim to demonstrate how Tutuola’s work can be considered a form of aesthetic (as well as ontological and political) dissensus.

In my account of Tutuola, I outline three features of his writing, specifically his use of tautologies, modifications and deletions, which place it at odds with standard text and speech. This, I suggest, seeks to undermine dominant discourse and illustrate its limitations as well as the possibili ties offered by other forms.

This paper explores Tutuola’s first two novels (The Palm-Wine Drinkard, 1952 and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, 1954) and is centred around Rancière’s writing on dissensus, in particular The Politics of Aesthetics (2004), Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics (2010) and The Politics of Literature (2011). Additionally, it will be complemented by insights from Frantz Fanon (1961) and Jürgen Habermas (1984).

Ross Mallon is a first-year Ph.D. candidate in English literature at the University of Glasgow. His work explores the political aspects of postcolonial and contemporary West African magical realist fiction. In addition, he is a research assistant at the University of Glasgow on a project that examines depictions of trust in spy memoirs.

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18. Meghan McAvoy (Stirling)

“Cared-for was blatantly taking the piss”: The Welfare State as Locus of Power in Jenni Fagan’s The Panopticon.

The dominant critical narrative in Scottish studies connects Scottish state politics with its literary politics (Craig 1999; Crawford 2000), seldom acknowledging the divergence between the radical politics of Scotland’s literature and the more conservative, containment strategies of devolution and Scottish state policy (Hames 2012). This paper focuses on the role of the welfare state in this divergence, positing Jenni Fagan’s acclaimed debut novel The Panopticon (2012) as an example of how contemporary Scottish writing critiques the welfare state. The novel characterises the welfare state as inadequate, at least in its current form, in its inability to accommodate what Kirsten Innes (2007) has termed the ‘fundamentally incongruous’ plurality of differences w hich characterise identities in contemporary Scottish literature. Where recent Scottish government policy seeks to preserve the welfare state, this impulse towards preservation replicates the strategies of an archaic British state according to Tom Nairn (1977), which seeks to contain social and political change. In contrast, The Panopticon explores a radically unstable, uncontainable identity which views the welfare state as a malevolent power. This paper argues that the novel anticipates and demonstrates a need for fundamental welfare reform, which contrasts sharply with both Scottish and British government policy.

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PARALLEL PANELS – SESSION 3

PANEL G – Social, Political and Cultural Studies

19. Fiona Clapperton (Sheffield)

Duty, Dependence and Denarii: Philanthropic Gifts & Payments to Servants by Members of the Cavendish Family between 1908-1950.

According to theories developed by Marcel Mauss in The Gift, there is no such thing as a ‘free gift’. Rather, the practice of giving is driven by the themes of obligation, reciprocation, and power.1 Within the archives at Chatsworth House, there exists a great deal of evidence relating to philanthropic gifts and payments given by members of the Cavendish family to their domestic employees. Textual accounts of these exchanges can tell us much about the social roles and complex cross-class relationships which governed life upon estates such as Chatsworth, where servants were economically dependent on their employers, and masters had a ‘duty of care’ to their staff. By placing textual accounts of philanthropy within their historical context, this paper will attempt to ‘read’ into the practice of charitable giving within the Chatsworth estate, and allude to the various ways in which individuals from both upstairs and down were reacting to themes of obligat ion, reciprocation and power. Although the issues discussed within this paper refer to one particular estate, it will be argued that they were intrinsically linked to a broader culture of duty, dependence and denarii.

20. Heather Anderson (Stirling)

The Power of Outrage: The Rhetoric of Anger in Contemporary Politics.

The politics of the 21st century is the politics of anger. From virtue signalling and the culture of offence to the phobic language of far-right groups, outrage is the hallmark of contemporary political discourse across the globe. When combined with the politics of nationalism, anger is a powerful political weapon: it can overcome voter apathy, generate tremendous momentum, and bring about seismic political changes. With the rise of anger as a political force in Western democracies, this paper examines the link between electoral success and politicians' ability to simulate - and stimulate - voter outrage. By focusing on the rhetorical concepts of mimesis (simulation) and movere (the ability to emotionally manipulate an audience), I will explore the parallels between the rhetorical presentation of anger in the works of Shakespeare and the performance of outrage in the contemporary political stage in order to illustrate the potential danger a rhetoric of anger posed for a rhetorically naive audience. To mitigate the potentially damaging effects of this rhetorical strategy, I conclude by calling for the reintroduction of humanist rhetorical training to the secondary school curriculum.

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21. Antonia Palmer (QMU)

Becoming confident and informed.

My research looks at the ‘journey’ a disabled job seeker takes and the impact that creative thinking and doing has on their life. I would like to interpret the theme as ‘Empower’ as this the aim of my research. A turning point in my own life was being diagnosed with Cowden’s Syndrome, a genetic health condition, 11 years ago, I also lost a job through redundancy. These experiences launched the research I do now. My paper would be on empowerment through stories. People are ever-unfolding narratives and no one person’s experience is like another’s. It is impossible, and not very helpful to try, to attribute a common story, or an outcome, to a particular group of people. To do so only increases stereotypes. Experiences like job loss or a health diagnosis increase a person’s ability to adapt and understand, it makes us more able to take our own self -perception into a new place and allows us to create new stories.

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PANEL H – Scottish Studies

22. Duncan Hotchkiss (Stirling)

Subverting the power of the historical novel? The short story as a ‘dissident form’ in early nineteenth-century Scotland.

Walter Scott’s historical novels mark a key point in the cultural contestation of Scottish identity and the ‘imagined community’ of nineteenth-century Scotland. Scott has been portrayed as Tory, unionist, and imperialist, and readings of his novels have suggested that they embody both the underlying loyalty of societal relations and the stability of social forces in British Scotland – in other words, the maintenance of power through the historical novel. The short story, on the other hand, has been recognised as ‘a dissident form of communication’, with Frank O’Connor suggesting that the formal features of the short story lends itself tow ards marginalised voices and communities. This paper will discuss the relationship between power and fictional forms by exploring the early short story in Scotland with particular reference to the work of labouring-class autodidact James Hogg. It will argue that the form was able to subvert hegemonic ideologies, but not in a way that can be claimed by any neat category of cultural-political historicism. Hogg’s texts critique power by interrogating the processes of authenticating ideologies, and in doing so reveal the processes behind Benedict Anderson’s theory of the ‘imagined community’ as opposed to offering a ‘true’ insight into early nineteenth-century Scottish culture.

23. Maria Sigl (Stirling)

Apparel as means to communicate power: A comparison of the Scottish kilt and the Bavarian lederhose.

Scotland and Bavaria are often compared with each other as they appear to have much in common: both nations are former kingdoms, their landscapes feature great mountains and lakes, their people speak with a distinct accent and are known to cherish their national identities. These parallels invite a comparison of the two nations, in fact their social, linguistic and political features have been studied and contrasted in the past. Their national garbs however, have not, although there are striking similarities in the messages that they convey: both the kilt and the lederhose are used to express (national) identity, they create a sense of belonging (or exclusion), are perceived as truly masculine, and indicate political opinion, social status and power.

Triggered by political and economic developments, as well as globalisation in general, national dresses have been enjoying a rise in popularity and new meanings have been attributed to them in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare the kilt and the lederhose as means of communication with a focus on how power is being expressed through them. The resulting findings will shed light on the power of national dress on multiple levels in their respective territories and beyond.

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24. Rory Scothorne, (Edinburgh)

Romanticising Radicalism, Civilizing Nationalism: Scottish hegemony and the myth of ‘radical Scotland’.

This paper will explore the emergence and limits of ‘civic nationalist’ hegemony in Scotland by focusing on the idea of a ‘radical left’ aspect to Scottish political culture which has been common in recent academic and wider discourse. The paper will draw on doctoral research into radical left periodicals from the 1960s-1980s such as Scottish International, 7 Days and Radical Scotland alongside academic and journalistic work on Scottish history and politics from the last two decades. A marked conceptual vagueness characterises much of the usage of the term ‘radical’ even in academic literature, and this paper will connect that vagueness to the common presentation of ‘radical Scotland’ by political commentators as a ‘myth’ or ‘narrative’ to be deconstructed a nd overcome. By situating the term’s usage in the context of a gradual historical fusion between moderate versions of the Scottish nationalist and Labourist traditions which occurred from the 1970s onwards, this paper will argue that an idea of ‘radical Scotland’ is on the one hand a tradition largely invented by its own critics, and on the other hand the shadow of a real political tradition which has been marginalised and erased through selective incorporation into the now-dominant ideology of civic nationalism.

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PANEL I – Communication, Media and Culture

25. Saadia Ishtiaq Nauman (Stirling)

The Power of Media in the Digital Age.

There has always been a prominent insecurity about the role of the media, as its power was questioned from the beginning. Influential actors in society, such as the government or the elite, or anyone who wants to hold power in society or propagate certain ideologies or the advertisers who want to sell their products, for them, the power of the media, its reach and influence and its potential has always been a topic and tool of great interest. This has been, and still is, a strong motivation for academic researchers to monitor and investigate the role and potential of the media, but it has never been an easy task (Livingstone & Das, 2013). However, it is not surprising that academic researchers have not been very confident about media effects, as media has been in the midst of rapid technological development. That is why the debate over whether the media or the users have more p ower or control has remained current for quite some time. This paper presents the theoretical development about Media Power and suggests that ‘Mediatization theory’ is a supportive theoretical framework to analyze the power of media in the networked media age.

26. Wafa Khalfan Rashid (Glasgow)

Social Media: Whose Power?

When Al Gore’s notion of information superhighway was suggested more than two decades ago, the division of power was identified by the digital divide. Before turning into a global network, the Internet began as a connection between two computers. Later on, when it became more humanized and the World turned into a global village represented by users, citizen journalism was recognized, and power started to shift toward users who blog.

After the emergence of Facebook and Twitter, the term social media came to light. Although this term might show democratization of power and interconnectedness of individuals within society, the division of power does not necessarily follow this model. Those companies which were one day no more than startups are market giants, and their owners are recognized as businessmen or philanthropists. As well as ordinary users, governments represented themselves intensively on social media. In some countries, new laws and reg ulatory models were issued to regulate online interaction.

A chronological literature review of social media suggests that the recent history of online platforms witnessed changes in the influence of message producers online. This paper tries to forecast the power trends around social media by reviewing the past shift in influence between ordinary users, owners, and governments.

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27. Normahfuzah Ahmad (Glasgow)

Dominant no more: Immersing digital technologies and journalistic challenges within broadcast television news industry.

Technological developments through digitalisation enable speedy dissemination of information and consumption. Within broadcast television news organisations, digital media technologies altered top -down flow of information from news producers to consumers and enhanced two-way communication between them. Contemporary media technologies have altered dynamics of conventional journalistic practices and given voice to the voiceless. Existence and functions of legacy news media organisations continue to be challenged by highly audience-participatory attributes of new media through the use of user-generated contents. Application of user-generated contents through social media platforms and other emerging digital media widens channels of co mmunication between news producers and news consumers, simultaneously bringing in challenges to news industry to maintain its journalistic standards as news organisations begin to observe the increasing power of audience in shaping the journalistic discourse.