facility:oxford brookes university

Discussion sur twitter autour du fait que la #Oxford_Union ("students society") de l’#université de #Oxford ont invité #Steve_Bannon à donner une conférence...
voici l’annonce :

https://i.imgur.com/iJ58nzx.jpg

Voici une première réaction sur twitter :

@OxfordUnion has invited Steve Bannon to speak this Friday-16th November. You guys can’t find anyone better than an anti Semitic, racist, domestic abuser to speak? Stop normalizing fascists @UniofOxford #Oxford

Et la réponse de l’université de Oxford :

Hi Samira, The Oxford Union is independent of the University of Oxford, and Oxford Brookes University, and as an organisation we have no power to regulate their activities.

Et dans un deuxième tweet :

While the University has no involvement, we appreciate opinions often differ on the speakers invited and would add that students can attend these talks to challenge speakers, rather than agree with them.

▻https://twitter.com/UniofOxford/status/1062681958612897792

Et la réaction de #Polly_Wilkins :

This seems to be a theme whereby universities take no responsibility for the hate speech and normalisation of fascism resulting from the platforms given to racists, anti-Semites, and misogynists when these people are invited by students.

If a university will not stand up against rising fascism then it suggests it has no interests in defending itself. There is no possibility for academic freedom under fascism.

▻https://twitter.com/PollyWilkins/status/1062687717774028800
#liberté_d'expression #fascisme #normalisation #banalisation #xénophobie #racisme #liberté_académique

Special Issue: Architectural Projections of a ‘New Order’ in Interwar Dictatorships, 2018.
▻http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/22116257/7/1

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/upload/22116249.jpg

The genesis of this special issue lies in the initiative of Rita Almeida de Carvalho, post doctoral research fellow in cultural history under Salazar at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ics) to visit Roger Griffin (History, Oxford Brookes University) in May 2013 after reading his Modernism and Fascism. Though that volume was concerned predominantly with making an elaborate case for seeing the totalitarian experiments of Fascism and Nazism within the wider context of socio-political and aesthetic ‘modernism’, as a specialist in the inter-war period of her own country, Rita immediately grasped its potential relevance to a radical reappraisal of the nature of cultural production under Salazar’s dictatorship. His regime was assumed by many scholars in Portugal and beyond (often working with Marxist premises) to be fascist and by the same token reactionary, and hence hostile to the ethos of modernity and any sort of ‘progressiveness’. Almeida de Carvalho, on the other hand, saw Salazarism as too rooted in traditional social and Catholic visions of society to be fascist, and yet at the same to be attempting in its own way to institute an alternative modernity, and secure the institutional bases for a stable, productive and uniquely Portuguese future.

this project will encourage other scholars working in fascist studies to turn their minds to work collaboratively on fruitful case studies in the significant areas of overlap, continuity, and communication that existed between fascisms, conservative revolutions, modernizing parafascisms, and reactionary conservatisms that arose before 1945 in diverse political, social, and cultural spheres. As more students of fascism adopt this approach, there is bound to be a growing appreciation of the histoires croisées and dynamic transnational borrowings, interactions and influences which characterize the relationship between individual fascisms and other radical right-wing and left-wing policies of the time generated as responses to the deepening structural problems of liberal democracy as a viable form of economic system and political governance, an apparently global crisis which caused so many at every level of society to look for a way out of the cul-de-sac and even postulate the dawning of a ‘new era of humanity’. 4

The final rationale, which became particularly evident when the first drafts of all six articles were read together, is that they demonstrate the potential value to comparative studies in fascism, modernity, and cultural innovation of the concept ‘rooted modernism’. Certainly, it is a concept that seems to apply to the hybrids between tradition and modern architecture that proliferated under all six regimes. Much time is devoted to making the case for this concept in Griffin’s article on the architecture of the Third Reich, so space does not need to be devoted to its exposition here, except to suggest that a deep psychological significance and a distinctive cultural statement can be read into the frequent recourse of fascist and parafascist regimes to stripped classicism or to other, more idiosyncratic attempts to blend allusions to icon building-styles, designs, or techniques from the nation’s real or mythic past with ultra-modern elements. They epitomize an age collectively disoriented and traumatized by war, social-economic collapse, the spectre of global civilizational decline, and the threat of Bolshevism, and in need of affective reference points and cultural bearings. While throughout the ‘West’ elites in every sphere of creativity and reform did their best to point to a path along which their nation could move forwards into what Winston Churchill called ‘broad, sunlit uplands’, many among them, along with their public, were anxious to keep in sight the reassuring panorama of the lowland valley of the past that stretched beneath, even if its sight was now partially blocked by ominous clouds.

Neanderthals were killed off by diseases from modern humans | Daily Mail Online
▻http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3021779/Neanderthals-killed-diseases-modern-humans-gave-resistance-illnesses-fi

Modern humans have been blamed for killing off the Neanderthals by out competing them, breeding with them and even outright murdering them.

But new research suggests it may actually have been infectious diseases carried by our modern ancestors as they migrated out of Africa that finished them off.

Scientists studying the latest genetic, fossil and archaeological evidence claim that Neanderthals suffered from a wide range of diseases that still plague us today.

They have found evidence that suggests our prehistoric cousins would have been infected by diseases such as tuberculosis, typhoid, whooping cough, encephalitis and the common cold.

But anthropologists from Cambridge University and Oxford Brookes University say that new diseases carried by modern humans may have led to the downfall of Neanderthals.

They speculate that pathogens like Heliocbacter pylori, the bacteria that causes stomach ulcers, were brought to Europe by modern humans from Africa and may have infected Neanderthals, who would have been unable to fight off these new diseases.
However, Neandethals may have also helped modern humans by passing on slivers of immunity against some diseases to our ancestors when they interbred.

Dr Simon Underdown, a principal lecturer in anthropology at Oxford Brookes University and co-author of the study, said: ’As Neanderthal populations became more isolated they developed very small gene pools and this would have impacted their ability to fight off disease.
’When Homo sapiens came out of Africa they brought diseases with them.
’We know that Neanderthals were actually much more advanced than they have been given credit for and we even interbred with them.
’Perhaps the only difference was that we were able to cope with these diseases but Neanderthals could not.’
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that Neanderthals were not as different from modern humans as was originally thought.

The future of personal mobility - Oxford Brookes University

▻http://www.brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/events/the-future-of-personal-mobility

Events

The future of personal mobility

Wednesday, 02 October 2013, 18:00 to 19:00

Location

Main Lecture Theatre, Clerici, Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane site
Details

The total of land transport miles travelled in the UK in 2010 was around 500 million, double that of 1970. Greenhouse gas emissions from domestic transport account for 25% of the UK total. The car accounted for 64% of land-based trips and 79% of distance travelled in 2011, and the number of cars has increased by one third since the mid-1990s. The very future of personal mobility must now be examined and challenged.

#transport #mobilité

Discrimination awaits #Palestinians fleeing the Syrian conflict

Leah Morrison, MA student in Development and Emergency Practice at Oxford Brookes University, is an advocate for refugee rights. She is currently writing her dissertation on discriminatory treatment towards Palestinians fleeing the Syrian conflict.

Among those who have fled the conflict in Syria are tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees who have been uprooted once again. Their statelessness makes Palestinians doubly vulnerable to the horrors that have characterised the situation in Syria.

While the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) retains the core responsibility for Palestinian refugees in host states, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is mandated to protect Syrian refugees elsewhere. The difference in the treatment of Syrian refugees and Palestinians from Syria is evidence of new levels of discrimination against Palestinian refugees.

Although the border to Jordan remains partially open to Syrian refugees, it has been closed to Palestinian refugees from Syria since August 2012. The Palestinian refugees admitted before the closing of the border were sent to the Cyber City, an industrial complex near Ramtha, and are only permitted to leave if they are returning to Syria. The government of Jordan fears that an influx of Palestinian refugees may tilt the demographic balance in Jordan even more towards the Palestinians, who already comprise the majority of the population. Samih Maaytah, Jordanian government spokesman, noted that the matter of Palestinian refugees from Syria is ‘purely political, before discussing any humanitarian aspect.’

Similarly, Lebanon has allowed free entry to Syrian nationals. Palestinians from Syria, on the other hand, are only free to enter if they have relatives residing in the country. Syrians are free to work, stay for six months, and renew their work permits without cost in Lebanon. Palestinians from Syria must pay 17 USD for a permit, which must be renewed every three months even though there are no public services for Palestinians and their ability to work is extremely limited.

Space has been allocated for Syrian refugees, while Palestinians fleeing the Syrian conflict have been forced to reside in the already overcrowded Palestinian camp of Burj al-Barajneh in south Beirut, home to tens of thousands packed into a slum measuring one square kilometer. There is a widespread fear among the Lebanese that granting Palestinians more rights would lead to the disruption of the country’s balanced system of sectarian politics.

In Egypt, the situation is even worse. UNRWA is mandated to assist Palestinians refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Egypt has not been a ‘host country’ for UNRWA for decades; therefore Palestinians should be protected by the mandate of UNHCR. Proposals made over the past several months for the recognition of Palestinian refugees under the ambit of UNHCR’s mandate have been rejected by the government of Egypt. It will not permit UNHCR to take this responsibility. While Syrians are being given food through ATM cards provided by the World Food Programme, the Palestinians from Syria are not permitted to receive assistance.

Turkey remains the only host country in the region that has not discriminated against Palestinians from Syria.

▻http://frlan.tumblr.com/post/54334245587/discrimination-awaits-palestinians-fleeing-the-syrian

#Syrie #palestiniens #discrimination #réfugiés #asile #guerre