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Dr Sarah Hellawell (Lecturer in Modern British History, University of Sunderland) The first School of Culture Research seminar of the academic year will take place on 14th November 2018. Dr. Sarah Hellawell 's paper is entitled ‘A strong international spirit’: the Women’s Co-operative Guild and Interwar Internationalism’. Established in 1883, the English Women’s Co-operative Guild (WCG) was a mass membership association of working-class housewives and mothers. During the First World War, the Guild was an outspoken critic of militarism and maintained an absolutist pacifist response during the interwar years. Internationalist ideals and activities relating to peace, co-operation and the citizenship of women influenced the WCG during the 1920s and 1930s. Yet, the impact of internationalism upon the Guild has previously been overlooked by historians. This paper examines the dynamic between the international, national and local dimensions of the WCG.  The seminar will start at 4 pm in...

Professor Angela Smith will be giving a talk in the School of Culture research seminar series. Her focus is Channel 4’s Naked Attraction . This is a show that opens with the assertion that ‘Online dat ing has been a complete nightmare […] with the status symbols we wear getting in the way of finding our perfect mate.’  With full nudity, lingering close-ups and graphic descriptions, many viewers took to Twitter to express dismay that the show had made it to mainstream television, and led to the Guardian referring to it as symptomatic of the dystopian media landscape of 2016. Angela's paper will explore how the shock of graphic nudity is ameliorated by the linguistic strategies of positive politeness that all participants seem to collude with. Such amelioration would appear to be a defence against accusations of voyeuristic and pornographic content on mainstream television. Wednesday 21 March 2018 Reg Vardy 104A, 4pm-5pm Light refreshments and Q&A after the talk