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Geoff Nash and Mike Pearce are pleased to announce that the first issue of the Journal of Intercultural Inquiry   has been published online. It presents the work of scholars from the USA, Russia, Hungary, Lebanon and the UK. Readers will encounter a variety of articles on intercultural themes, including a study of a Neo-Latin inscription on a gravestone on Lindisfarne, an essay about a community of poets based in the Faculty of Asian and African Studies at the State University of St. Petersburg, and an analysis of linguistic codeswitching between Mandarin and English in a US university. The journal has received generous financial support from Scientia Educational Services .

Easington Colliery 1984. Photo by Keith Pattison Dr Peter Hayes has published a chapter entitled 'Riots in Thatcher's Britain' in Crowd Actions in Britain and France from the Middle Ages to the Modern World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). He takes a fresh look at three violent confrontations during Margaret Thatcher's period as Prime Minister: the inner city riots, the Miners' Strike and The Poll Tax Riot.  The chapter suggests that Thatcher's response to the inner city riots was not one of mere condemnation as she recognised that racist policing and unemployment were contributory factors. It explains how the decision not to hold a strike ballot caused some of the violence in the Miners' Strike, and contributed to its failure. Finally it considers how the Poll Tax Riot reflected the broader unpopularity of the tax.  This was not only because the poll tax was seen as being unfair but also because local governments had deliberately set the new charge ...

Dr Geoff Nash’s article 'Aryan and Semite in Ernest Renan and Matthew Arnold’s Quest for the Religion of Modernity' has just been published in the latest issue of Religion & Literature . His article shows how Renan and Arnold’s search for a suitable religion for modernity found a focus in Gobineau’s writings about Persian Shi’ism and Babism. Each descried in these manifestations of religious feeling  solvents for the agnostic scientism of Europe, even while their observations remained meshed into the Victorian conflation of race and modernity.

Nicholas Wood (1795-1865) Topics as diverse as islamophobic political discourse, the Great Northern Coalfield, and the subversion of female sexuality are the subject of articles to be found in the latest edition of Codex: A Journal of Undergraduate Research and Scholarship in the Humanities . This online journal, now in its third volume , showcases some of the best undergraduate work in the Department of Culture produced by our final year students. Click here .

In July, PhD student Maria Fotiadou attended the 8th International Corpus Linguistics Conference ( CL2015 ) at Lancaster University. She gave a poster presentation entitled 'Have you developed your entrepreneurial skills? Looking back to the development of a skills-oriented Higher Education.' You can read the poster abstract here .

Dr Angela Smith has published an article which explores the influential role played by the media in perceptions of political leaders. Since the latter part of the twentieth century, leaders’ personalities have come to play an increasing role in their appeal, in particular their gendered performances. In her article, Angela explores Barack Obama's 2008 election campaign through a gendered lens, contrasting it with the construction of male political leaders in other parts of the world, particularly that of Vladimir Putin in Russia. Building on work carried out in relation to the mediatisation and personalisation of politics in the last 50 years, Angela shows how gendered performances can be seen to mirror changes in society. Smith, Angela (2015) 'Mediated political masculinities: the commander-in-chief vs. the new man.' Social Semiotics . 

Sophie Raine Sophie Raine, who holds a BA in English and Creative Writing and an MA in English Studies from Sunderland, has been awarded a scholarship at Lancaster University to pursue doctoral studies. Her project is entitled 'The Body Currency: Consumer Culture as the Catalyst for Exploitation in Victorian Gothic Literature' and it will explore the role of commodity fetishism and consumer culture in a wide range of popular and canonical texts, analysing their role in both the oppression and liberation of marginalized groups.