Image: Joan Bakewell  © Sukey Parnell

Chris Beckett, Cataloguer in Contemporary Literary Archives at the British Library, writes:

Joan Bakewell’s autobiography, The Centre of the Bed (2003), begins in a white room – a room as white as ‘a fresh sheet of paper’ – at the top of the house in which she has lived for many years. Boxes and packets of papers long-forgotten have been retrieved from cupboards and shelves. They hold evidence of the past, prompts for the play of memory. Can memory sew the fragments together, make good the gaps in the physical record? But Bakewell is conscious that memory is a construction of the present – a reverie of now – that that can deceive as well as illuminate:

‘Stacks of little diaries, a scattering of entries, a few oblique clues. School reports, a clutch of Cambridge bric-a-brac, invitations to sherry parties, a few enigmatic letters – who was Jonathan, who was Ben? And some from people I still know – Karl, Peter, Freddie. Serious boxes house the weightier matters – though just as transient – of a career in journalism and television.’

Those same boxes – the Cambridge ephemera and the ‘weightier matters’ (‘just as transient’) – have now made their way to the British Library, and their contents will soon be available to readers in another room, the Manuscripts Reading Room. ‘Karl’ is Karl Miller, ‘Peter’ is Sir Peter Hall, and ‘Freddie’ is Frederic Raphael (‘with whom I played tennis on long sunny, Cambridge afternoons’), three university contemporaries among many who quickly rose to become, like Bakewell herself, familiar figures in the British cultural landscape.

Joan Bakewell has been an enduring presence on British television for some fifty years, from the trail-blazing topical discussion programme ‘Late Night Line-Up’ (BBC2, 1964-72), which tumbled through the 1960s embracing the excitement and the risks of live transmission, to the retrospective and reflective interviews in ‘My Generation’ (BBC2, 2000).

Her television break began in a predictable place, in the limited daytime slots scheduled for housewives in the early 1960s, in programmes like ‘Table Talk’ and ‘Home at Four Thirty’. However, the conversation was not always about housework and babies: ‘one afternoon it fell to me to interview an eager young doctor with a shock of unruly black hair [….] In three minutes on air he outlined his theory that a dysfunctional family might be a prime cause of schizophrenia.’ The young doctor was R. D. Laing, author of The Divided Self. In the autumn of 1964, two evening appearances as chair of the BBC2 discussion programme ‘The Second Sex’ provided Bakewell with a further opportunity to demonstrate her range, and presaged an invitation to join the (otherwise all-male) ‘Late Night Line-Up’ team.

Since most of ‘Late Night Line-Up’ was transmitted live, few recordings have survived. Occasionally, items were pre-recorded, but even those have generally not been saved. In January 1969, Bakewell and camera crew spent a week in Lausanne, filming a series of interviews with Georges Simenon. Although the programme is lost, we have, in some small compensation, Bakewell’s Simenon notepads which provide a glimpse of the (fastidious and orderly) author of ‘Maigret’ at his Swiss home.

 

Image above: Red note book cover

Image above: Simenon notes, reproduced with the kind permission of Joan Bakewell.

At Cambridge (1951-54), Joan Rowlands, as she was then called, was heavily involved in the theatrical productions of the Cambridge Mummers. The archive includes posters, programmes and photographs from several plays, including (1952) The Importance of Being Earnest, in which Miss Rowlands played Cecily Cardew.

It was at Cambridge that Joan Rowlands met her first husband, Michael Bakewell, who preceded her at the BBC, quickly establishing himself a highly-regarded radio and television drama producer, champion of the new theatre of Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, John Hopkins and David Mercer. Although acting was not to be Bakewell’s profession, certainly the art of performance – and the construction of a robust public persona – have been integral to her remarkable television career.

Bakewell’s autobiography is keyed to a larger narrative, to events and trends in the social and cultural history of her time. Her diaries include a number of yellow ‘post-it’ notes, marking where her memory has been prompted. The pocket diary for 1960, for example, includes the following highlighted entries: 18 April (Aldermaston Protest, Trafalgar Square); 27 April (Arts Theatre, Pinter, The Caretaker); 28 June (Wesker, Roots); 1 August (opening in Stratford of Michael Bakewell's production of Faustus).

Image: Aldermaston diary entry

Bakewell later recalled: ‘The Easter I was pregnant with Harriet we joined the Aldermaston marchers as they came into Trafalgar Square. Our near neighbour, the American poet W. S. Merwin, had walked all the way. His plimsolls were frayed and his feet blistered, but his wife, Dido, offered us supper that night with another young couple who’d recently moved into the area, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.’

In recent years, Bakewell has taken to writing fiction as another way of re-imagining the past, weaving new narratives from her archive. All the Nice Girls (2009) takes it cue from a World War II initiative (unimaginable today) that encouraged schools to ‘adopt’ a merchant navy ship and their pupils to exchange letters with sailors, raising pupil awareness and sailor morale. The Ship Adoption Scheme, as it was known, is recorded in the magazines of Stockport High School for Girls, which played an active part; there is a set of school magazines in Bakewell’s papers (again with ‘post-it’ notes attached). All the Nice Girls is – like the novel that followed, She’s Leaving Home (2011) – a story of love and changing sexual mores. CND marches feature in She’s Leaving Home, and so does the vividly remembered detail of Bill Merwin’s frayed plimsolls. A potent emblem from the past that has clearly lodged in Bakewell’s memory, the worn shoes make an anonymous but recognizable reappearance in a brief snatch of dialogue (p. 130): ‘I saw one bloke whose plimsolls had shredded by the time we got to Trafalgar Square’.

The comprehensive archive of Joan Bakewell at the British Library testifies to a pioneering career in television journalism and records a remarkable personal and professional journey, from pre-war Stockport to the post-millennial corridors of the House of Lords.

Rachel Tavernor is a Media and Cultural Studies PhD Researcher at the University of Sussex. In this post, she discusses her PhD Placement at the British Library.

At the start of 2016, I did not imagine that I would be finishing the year at the British Library. For the last three months, I have been based in their Research Development team, as part of their new PhD Placement Programme.

My placement focused on exploring twentieth and twenty-first century anti-poverty activism in the British Library Collections. After a preliminary mapping of the archives, and discovering how much material was available, I narrowed the focus of my placement to housing activism. Struggles for decent and affordable housing, with secure and fair tenancies, are at the forefront of many anti-poverty movements and are often led by women. I developed two strands of the project to explore the ways in which radical, feminist, and at times illegal, protest actions are archived.

Firstly, I traced housing activism, including rent strikes, squats and housing cooperatives, across the British Library Collections. Working with diverse materials, including oral histories, manuscripts, music and news media, I was able to map the differing voices in the archive. In particular, investigating the tensions between protesters, mainstream media and government narratives. A guide to the materials found in the collections will be available on a new project website, Archiving Activism (launching in Spring 2017), which will include images of relevant collection items.

Secondly, I developed a small research project on the practices of archiving activism. To understand and propose ways to archive activism, I conducted a series of nine interviews. Many very enjoyable hours were spent listening to campaigners, feminist archivists and academics who engage with archives of activism. The interviews informed an internal report that I produced for the British Library on potential ways to archive contemporary activism.

 
  Image: The gates of the British Library.   

We will be discussing archives, activism and feminism movements on 8 March 2017 with a panel discussion on Rebels in the Archives. One of the privileges of working with the Library was the opportunity to invite inspiring feminists, Jill Liddington, Abi Morgan, Heidi Safia Mirza and Deborah Withers, to contribute to this event (booking now open).

I recently presented my research project to PhD students at the annual CHASE conference, Encounters, and to British Library staff as part of the British Library Bitesize Talk Series. Both events gave me the opportunity to share my research and reflect on my time at the British Library. For those of you considering applying for a PhD Placement in 2017, here are my reasons for taking part:

• Research Skills: you get a chance to use the skills that you’ve learnt conducting your PhD research in a new environment. You will also learn new research skills by working on a short-term project with industry outputs.
• Rich Resources: you get the time to explore the rich resources of the British Library Collections. You also get to find out about the resources that are yet to be made public or are soon to be acquired… watch this space for some exciting new acquisitions.
• Public Engagement: you get to engage people with your research and the British Library Collections. You may have the opportunity to create your own event, possibly presenting your research or supporting the Library with their large events programme.
• Colleagues and Collaborators: you get to work with some fantastic colleagues who are passionate about the British Library and research. You also get to be part of a cohort of PhD Placement researchers and learn about a wide range of research that is conducted at the Library.
• Inspiration: finally, the British Library is packed with inspiring people, both past and present. I return to my PhD research this week with new ideas, skills and experiences.

The British Library have just published a new call for applicants for 2017/2018 British Library PhD Placements. Included in the programme are placements on:

1. Independent, DIY, and Activist BAME Publishing, in Print and Online, in 21st century Britain
2. 21st Century British Comics
3. Researching the EU Referendum Through Leaflet and Web Archive Collections

If you have any questions about the placements, contact [email protected]

Rachel Tavernor, a British Library PhD Placement Researcher, writes about an upcoming event ‘Rebels in the Archives’ that will be held at the British Library in 2017.

On 8 March 2017, to celebrate International Women’s Day, the British Library will host a panel conversation on the power and potential of archiving feminist movements. Rebels in the Archives is an evening dedicated to stories of sexism, sisterhood and struggle.

Our speakers include Jill Liddington, Abi Morgan, Heidi Safia Mirza and Deborah Withers. Margaretta Jolly, project director of Sisterhood and After: An Oral History of the Women’s Liberation Movement, will chair this panel of influential feminists as they debate questions of politics, representation and preservation.

Our panel will be sharing stories of the rebels and rebellion that inspire them. Discussing their own engagement (as historians, screenwriters, researchers and curators) with archives of activism. As well as debating the ways in which collecting, curating and communicating activism can be a radical practice.

Photograph copyright of Theo McInnes and reproduced here with their kind permission.

Jill Liddington is a writer, historian and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Leeds. She has researched and written on votes for women since the 1970s, when she first visited the Fawcett Library (now Women’s Library). Her latest book Vanishing for the Vote: Suffrage, Citizenship and The Battle for the Census, tells how suffragette organizations urged women, all still voteless, to boycott the census on 2 April 1911.

Abi Morgan is a BAFTA and Emmy Award winning writer and producer. Abi is the screenwriter of Suffragette, the first ever mainstream film about the British campaign for equal votes. The story focuses on the lives of working class women involved in the movement. Radicalised and turning to violence as the only route to change, they were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality – their jobs, their homes, their children and their lives.

Heidi Safia Mirza is a visiting Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmith’s College, University of London and Professor Emerita in Equalities Studies at the UCL Institute of Education. Heidi advises English Heritage on diversity and established the Runnymede Collection at the Black Cultural Archives (BCA), a race-relations archive documenting the late 20th Century civil rights struggle for Multicultural Britain. She is author and editor of several books, including Young Female and Black, Black British Feminism and Black and Postcolonial Feminism in New Times: Researching Educational Inequalities.

Deborah Withers is a writer, curator, researcher and publisher. Their new book Feminism, Digital Culture and the Politics of Transmission: Theory, Practice and Cultural Heritage, asks: what does it mean to say that feminism has cultural heritage? The book explores how digital technologies have enabled impassioned amateurs to make ‘archives’ within the first decade of the 21^st century. In 2010, Deborah founded HammerOn Press, a grassroots publishing label rooted in feminist / queer do it yourself culture. They are also an active trustee of the Feminist Archive South, and have curated two Heritage Lottery Funded exhibitions Sistershow Revisited and Music & Liberation.

Margaretta Jolly is a Reader in Cultural Studies and Director of the Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research at the University of Sussex. Her current book-in-progress is Sisterhood and After: An Oral History of the UK Women's Liberation Movement (forthcoming). Her book, In Love and Struggle: Letters and Contemporary Feminism explores feminist relationships as they have been expressed in letters and emails since the 1970s and was awarded the 2009 Feminist and Women's Studies Association Book Prize.

Booking for Rebels in the Archives is now open. We hope you are able to join us and are able to contribute to this discussion.

Jonnie Robinson, Lead Curator of Spoken English, writes:

So congratulations to Andy Murray on his well-deserved victory at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) awards, one of countless ceremonies that take place at this time of year as clubs, societies, institutions and industries recognise the outstanding people, events or phenomena of the previous twelve months. In a year dominated by political upheaval it’s perhaps not surprising that linguists at Oxford Dictionaries chose ‘post-truth’ as their Word of the Year 2016 from a list of candidates that included several items reflecting contemporary societal challenges – Brexiteer, glass cliff and alt-right. Here then, in similar spirit, are my ten nominations for the 3^rd unofficial British Library Sports Word of the Year (SWOTY) selected from examples of interesting English usage in the British sporting press and media in 2016:

January (Lawrence Ostlere on Jade Clarke signing for Loughborough Lightning, Guardian Sport): The mid-courter values her time abroad and wants to see more young players experience the ANZ Championship

January (Richard Williams on the treacherous Hahnenkamm downhill slope in Kitzbühel, Guardian Sport): This week’s new snow will enable the skiers to tackle the Streif’s whole length, from its near vertical start to the fiendish icy traverse of the final schuss

March (Eddie Jones on the Welsh RFU’s vacillation regarding Joe Marler’s alleged description of Welsh prop Sampson Lee as ‘gypsy boy’, Radio 5 Live) They don’t know whether they’re Arthur or Martha

May (Robert Kitson on Saracens wing Chris Ashton, Guardian Sport) The player who used to appear several scones short of a tea party has matured and learned from his mistakes

June (Neil Lennon on Wales v Northern Ireland at Euro 2016, Radio 5 Live) The game’s a bit eachy-peachy

June (Barney Ronay on England’s humiliating Euro 2016 defeat to Iceland, Guardian Sport) For the next few months a post-Royxit vacuum beckons

July (Andy Sullivan on how to hit a fade shot, Sky Sports 1) I […] just open my stance up to hit that little lemonade

August (Aaron Bower quoting Gareth Ellis in the build-up to the Challenge Cup Final, Guardian Sport) Last year I was limping around with a pot on [my foot] and now I’m leading Hull out at a cup final

August (Emma John on the women’s Olympic hockey final, Guardian Sport) The first four shuffles had gone begging before the Dutch keeper Joyce Sombroek was ruled to have deliberately fouled Sophie Bray

November (Simon Hughes on the wicket for India v England 2^nd Test): [It’s unlikely to be] a raging Bunsen straightaway

As in previous years the list is drawn from the usual suspects – football and rugby union (two entries each), rugby league, cricket and golf (one each), but this year includes netball, skiing and hockey for the first time. The ten nominations have been chosen as they demonstrate a range of linguistic phenomena from jargon, slang and dialect to loan-words and neologisms. Having spent several years teaching German I’m particularly pleased to include the skiing term schuss [= a straight downhill descent] as a rare example of a sporting loan-word. English dominates sporting discourse for a number of reasons – not just the current status of English as a global language, but also the influential role played by the British in codifying many (but by no means all) international sports. Thus loan-words are relatively rare, but alpine sport, understandably, is a notable exception as illustrated by e.g. piste, après-ski (both from French), langlauf (like schuss, from German), slalom and, of course, the word ski itself (both from Norwegian). Loan-words surface from time to time in other sports – in recent years football has appropriated rabona, tiki-taka and last year’s SWOTY winner, gegenpressing, for instance – but unlike schuss these tend to appear italicised or within speech marks in print, reflecting their novelty or status as exotic, potentially temporary terms. Schuss is an example of sporting jargon – a technical term used by participants, coaches and fans and universally understood within those circles to describe a particular action, skill or element of the sport. The other examples of jargon here are shuffle [= a system used to determine the winner of a drawn contest in hockey in which an attacker has 8 seconds to score a goal in a one-on-one situation against the goalkeeper] and mid-courter [= netballer who specialises in playing centre, wing defence or wing attack]. Thankfully, GB goalkeeper, Maddie Hinch, cemented her reputation this summer as the world’s best at penalty shuffles and anyone familiar with netball (or basketball) will know the value of a versatile mid-courter.

Six entries reveal sporting discourse as a particularly rich repository of vernacular forms. Three items might reasonably be categorised as dialect: eachy-peachy [= phrase equivalent to ‘six of one, half a dozen of the other’]; pot [= plaster cast]; and not know whether one is Arthur or Martha [= to be in a state of confusion]. The other three might be classified as slang: several scones short of a tea party [= slightly, albeit endearingly, mad]; lemonade [= rhyming slang for ‘little fade’, i.e. a golf shot that is directed intentionally left of the target and drifts right in the air before landing]; and Bunsen [= rhyming slang for ‘Bunsen burner: turner’, i.e. a wicket likely to be advantageous to spin bowlers]. Finally, Royxit [= the resignation of former England football manager Roy Hodgson] demonstrates the enthusiasm with which the media latched on to neologisms formed by analogy with Brexit – a blend of <British> and <exit> that quickly established itself as universal shorthand for the UK’s decision to leave the European Union following this June’s referendum. Politics, of course, has always had an impact on language so it will be interesting to see if forms like Brexit prove as prolific as the infinitely productive suffix <-gate> that originated in the Watergate scandal of the 1970s which prompted the resignation of US President Richard Nixon. In July 2016, for instance, Coiffeurgate trended on Twitter following revelations of French President François Hollande’s allegedly extravagant hairdressing bill, and, during television coverage of this summer’s Olympic marathon, Steve Cram urged fellow BBC commentators, Brendan Foster & Paula Radcliffe, to end a long-winded discussion of Bahrainian athlete Alemu Bekele’s frequent stops to tie his shoelaces with the phrase enough of Lacegate. Guardian journalist Sean Ingle’s use of Chexit and Lexit to refer, respectively, to Chelsea’s and Liverpool’s current absence from European football competition demonstrates how such light-hearted wordplay appeals to our sense of linguistic creativity.

Not surprisingly, Brexit merits an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, unlike Royxit, which, as a neologism, is unlikely to meet criteria for inclusion. Many of this year’s candidates are recorded in authoritative reference works, but some have yet to reach the attention of lexicographers, so their presence in the British Library’s newspaper collections, web and sound archives is an invaluable resource for language scholars monitoring the continued evolution of English. The Oxford English Dictionary, for instance, includes mid-court and schuss, Collins English Dictionary categorises not know whether one is Arthur or Martha as ‘Australian and New Zealand informal’, while the Dictionary of the Scots Language records eachy-peachy from the 1960s. The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2006 edition) includes several examples of NOUN short of a NOUN (e.g. sandwich short of a picnic) and the BBC Voices survey (2004/5) captured numerous similar variants (e.g. slice short of a loaf and brick short of a load) confirming this is an extremely productive metaphor for mild eccentricity, although neither features scone short of a tea party. I’ve been unable to find the others in print glossaries, although the Cockney Rhyming Slang website suggests Bunsen burner is established rhyming slang, albeit for ‘earner’, i.e. easy/quick profit, not for ‘turner’. Proof of their authenticity, however, can be found in specialist reference works and publications: Martin Williamson’s glossary of cricket terms includes Bunsen in the sense recorded here and a Golf Digest article confirms the use of lemonade in this sense and both forms bear witness to our enduring fascination with, and affection for, rhyming slang. Wikipedia explains the importance of shuffles in hockey, while pot is captured in a recording submitted to the Library’s Evolving English WordBank.

And so to this year’s winner … given the incomprehensible absence of female athletes in this year’s SPOTY top three and comparative lack of representation in the nominations here drawn from women’s sport – a reflection of the glaringly disproportionate prominence of men’s sport in the mainstream media – combined with the presence of glass cliff in the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year nominations I’m going for shuffles in honour of the extraordinary achievement of GB women’s hockey team securing their first Olympic Gold. Fingers crossed for an increased profile for women’s sport and continued success in women’s hockey in 2017 – especially @DUHC1 Women’s 1^st XI and @southgateHC Ladies 2^nd XI.

Gill Ridgley, Lead Curator Contemporary Archives, introduces a new archive acquisition for the Library

An early international match programme

Women’s football is a popular participatory and spectator sport throughout the world, yet in football’s country of origin: Great Britain, women and girls were discouraged from playing the game for many years.

This was not always the case, because football matches between women are recorded from at least the 19th century; and during the First World War female munitions workers famously organised a number of games for the purpose of raising money for war charities. These were extremely well attended; in fact at one point the women’s game looked set to become more popular than the men’s.

Unfortunately, as a result of a ruling by the Football Association in 1921, women were banned from playing the game, a prohibition which lasted until December 1969.  The ban was stringently applied: parks and football clubs were not allowed to let female players use their pitches, and registered referees were banned from officiating at women’s matches. Not surprisingly, the lack of such facilities made it impossible to sustain the sport.

Despite this, some women’s teams – such as the Manchester Corinthians and Dick, Kerr’s Ladies – continued to play, so the flame was kept alive to a certain extent, but it was England’s World Cup triumph in 1966 which really ignited public enthusiasm for all forms of the game. Using this impetus, a group of enthusiastic female footballers - with the help of a number of sympathetic men - created the Ladies FA of Great Britain in 1969.  Women’s teams from across the country were organised into leagues and a number of tournaments were held, including a knock-out cup sponsored by Mitre. Within a few years the sport was making real progress and the Ladies FA – now known as the Women’s Football Association (WFA) - was finally recognised by the FA in 1972 and affiliated to that body in the mid-eighties. 

The Mitre Challenge Trophy was the women’s equivalent of the FA cup. The tournament began in the 1970-1971 season and was won in this first season by Southampton.

Life was certainly not easy for the WFA in the early years. Despite increased sponsorship, money was short, and the association relied on the strong commitment of its volunteers and well-wishers. It is therefore a pleasure for the British Library to announce that the hard work of these pioneers of the women’s game can soon be examined in the archive of the WFA, which the Library has just acquired, and which is about to be processed. 

The archive contains the minutes of the WFA’s Council, Finance & General Purposes Committee; Officers meetings and AGMs; and also the deliberations of the WFA/FA Joint Consultative Committee which eventually oversaw the winding up of the Association and the handing over to the FA of the organisation of the women’s game.   There are newsletters & journals spanning 1972-1992, many of which the Library does not hold in its general collection (e.g., Women’s Football Information Sheet; Women’s Football; WFA News; Sunday Kicks) and a number of other fascinating items.

All of these materials will prove valuable additions to the British Library’s strong women’s history collections and they will rest on a foundation of unique materials that the Library already holds. One such is an interview in the oral history collections featuring Sue Lopez, who is one of the celebrated proponents of women’s football in the UK (this oral history forms part of the ‘Sisterhood and After’ project and can be accessed via the following page):
http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/sue-lopez-a-lifetimes-contribution-to-sport

Competition for an England place was strong; this is an England trials programme, featuring he final match between ‘Probables’ and ‘Possibles’.

Hopefully in the future the archive will form the basis for a number of Library projects which will enhance the collection itself and which will shine further light not only on the history of women’s football, but on the history of women themselves and their fight for equality.

On 24 October this year, the British Sociological Association and the British Library will hold their Sixth Annual Equality Lecture. The speaker, Professor Andrew Sayer, will talk to the topic ‘Why We Can’t Afford the Rich’ about which he has written a book, aimed at a public audience.

Professor Sayer is Professor of Social Theory and Political Economy at Lancaster University. Over the last 40 years, he has written on the philosophy of social science, industry and unequal development, political economy, divisions of labour and their economic and social implications, the causes of inequalities and their impact on individuals, and on dignity and ethics in everyday life.

In the last 15 years he has also worked on ‘moral economy’, examining the justifications of particular economic institutions and relationships, and the relationship between economic practices and morality in everyday life. This work has been extremely valuable to those interested in the complexity of everyday practices which enable inequalities to persist in our society.

The subject of ‘Why We Can’t Afford the Rich’ couldn’t be more topical. For instance, the tax affairs of the super-wealthy continue to receive regular press coverage in the UK. Meanwhile, some of the world’s richest companies have been reported as benefiting from complex and lucrative tax avoidance schemes, and there is much online speculation about the social ends to which this money might otherwise have been used.

Image: Professor Andrew Sayer © Andrew Sayer

The broad collections at the British Library are able to show aspects to this debate within its wider historical context. The relationship between wealth distribution, social responsibility and morality has been debated across time, and across cultures, within social, legal and religious writing as well as within famous works of fiction. For instance, Charles Dickens is well known for his explorations of wealth inequality, morality and human behaviour in Victorian society.

In previous years, the Annual Equality Lecture has covered topics including equality for people with disabilities; the meaning of liberty; egalitarian social capital; the value and of equality and; equality and wellbeing. The expert and passionate speakers we have been lucky enough to host have delivered thought-provoking lectures, many of which are available as podcasts and videos.

We hope that you can attend the event this year for an evening of intellectual discussion, followed by conversation in the bar. For further information about the event and booking details, please see our ‘What’s On’ pages.

Update! We won! Very pleased to say that our film won the Courseware and Curriculum Non-Broadcast award. Details are at http://bufvc.ac.uk/events/learningonscreen. Congratulations to Director Alec Millward, author and presenter Maiken Umbach and all involved. 

We're very excited to report that one of the films from our online course Propaganda and Ideology in Everyday Life has been nominated for a Learning on Screen award.

The Battle for Civilisation, British leaflet from Word War Two

The award, to be announced on the evening of 28th April, is in the category of Courseware and Curriculum non-broadcast production. Our film, 'From the "Just War" to the "Unjust Peace"', features in week 2 of our course, which addresses issues related to justice and protest. The film is presented by Maiken Umbach, Professor of History at the University of Nottingham and one of the lead educators on our course. Learners are asked to consider the problem of violence and justice, reflecting on an exhibition of photographs made by Lee Miller. The photographs document the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, including images of violence against the Nazi perpetrators of atrocities. For our course, the question is whether violent methods have a role to play in justice, and the role of war as a means of restoring justice.

The films in our course are designed to explain current thinking and research around issues that are often complex and contested. Bringing a range of perspectives on propaganda and ideology, they feature researchers from disciplines, including history, politics, sociology, media studies and psychology. Our course has 18 short films in total, four of which were made at the British Library and feature material from our collections of maps, Chinese posters, and British World War Two publications.

As with other learning steps on the course, the aim is to generate an informed and diverse debate on politically significant topics that have relevance to our everyday life. When we first ran the course last year, we attracted thousands of learners from over 20 countries around the world. Across the five weeks of the course, participants learned from each others' experience and opinions, and drawing on the leading-edge research presented in the learning steps.

We're very excited that a film from our course has been nominated for a Learning on Screen award, and wish Maiken, director Alec Millward, and the production team the best of luck for Thursday evening. Our course starts on 16th May, and you can register for free now at http://www.futurelearn.com/courses/propaganda

Our free online course Propaganda and Ideology in Everyday Life starts on 16th May 2016

Svoboda po-amerikanski (Freedom, American Style) by B Prorokov, 1971

Freedom, justice, community, place and choice: words which are politically-charged and fundamental in our experience of everyday lives. Over five weeks, our online course explores how words and images gain different meanings, how we interpret the symbols we encounter, and how these interpretations are sometimes 'quoted back' to us with a specific political intent.

Our course is developed and delivered with the Centre for the Study of Political Ideologies at the University of Nottingham. Learners can sign up for the course now, free of charge, at the FutureLearn website. Learning is structured across a small number of activities each week, which are broken down into simple steps. A step might be a short video presentation, or a reading or a question to discuss. Discussion is the most important part of our course, allowing us to learn from each-other's experiences and opinions. The nature of a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) means that we can explore our shared interests in comparative political study and the way in which our material worlds reflect and shape our political experience.

This is the second year in which we have run this course. In 2015, we had nearly 12,000 learners from 20 countries around the world. Our focus on learning through discussion meant that all participants, including those of us who developed the course, learnt through contributing to a lively debate that ran through all five weeks. Some of this learning has been incorporated into this year's course, including a focus on the experience of migration in expressions of identity, and how definitions of the 'unnatural' influences our political views. In preparation for this year, we have reviewed and updated course content, including the addition of four new films.     

A unique feature of our course is that we ask participants to share images either that they find online or of photographs that they have taken themselves. These images relate to the themes discussed each week, and are surprising in how they reveal our responses to concepts such as 'freedom', 'nature' and 'community'. Many of the images shared last year were of open spaces, representing nature as an expression of freedom but also as something threatened by unrestrained freedom or consumption. You can see a selection of images shared on our Flickr site.

We were incredibly impressed by the quality of interaction on our course last year, and learners were very positive about course content and the course leaders. We hope that you will join us from 16th May when the course restarts, and sign up today at www.futurelearn.com/courses/propaganda/