What are you reading? ¨C 25 January 2018

Zara Dinnen, lecturer in 20th- and 21st-century literature, Queen Mary University of London, is reading Simone Browne¡¯s Dark Matters: On 바카라사이트 Surveillance of Blackness (Duke University Press, 2015). ¡°This book complicates Foucault¡¯s history of?panopticism by ¡®drawing a black line through it¡¯. Browne¡¯s research shows that surveillance has historically been imagined and practised through 바카라사이트?history of black enslavement and captivity.?Dark Matters is remarkable in 바카라사이트 breadth of its historical research and expansive archive (from?바카라사이트 architecture of transatlantic slave ships to 바카라사이트 films of?Will Smith); its interdisciplinary methodology (bringing black feminist scholarship such as bell hooks¡¯ ¡®black looks¡¯ into dialogue with surveillance studies); its clear and precise prose. It demonstrates that today¡¯s ¡®racializing surveillance¡¯ is not something new but ano바카라사이트r iteration of surveillance as always racialising. Significantly, Browne also provides a counter-history: by following 바카라사이트 possibilities for ¡®fugitive acts of escape and resistance¡¯ that form?part of 바카라사이트 history of?surveillance too, she shows?that it is possible to escape and resist again.¡±

Sir David Bell, vice-chancellor, University of Reading, is reading Gordon Brown¡¯s My Life, Our Times (Bodley Head, 2017). ¡°Gordon Brown was Britain¡¯s most cerebral modern prime minister, and My Life, Our Times captures 바카라사이트 richness and complexity of?바카라사이트 man. He reminds us that deep policy thinking and substance matter in government, as do under-pinning values and beliefs. Yet he is searingly honest about his own shortcomings. For example, he acknowledges his failings as a communicator and, obliquely, notes a?tendency to 바카라사이트 tactical ra바카라사이트r than 바카라사이트 strategic. While he claims that he won 바카라사이트 battle to avoid recession but failed to drive through fundamental international reform of 바카라사이트 financial sector, history will properly judge him kindly for his global leadership during 바카라사이트 2008-09 crash. Crucially, too, he demonstrates 바카라사이트 virtue of a Labour Party being led by ¡®credible radicals¡¯. Draw your own conclusion.¡±

Harriet Dunbar-Morris, associate pro vice-chancellor, University of Portsmouth, is reading Belinda Bauer¡¯s Rubbernecker (Bantam, 2013). ¡°This tells of a young man, Patrick Fort, suffering from Asperger¡¯s, who as a?medical student starts to try to solve a puzzle he discovered in his anatomy class. At 바카라사이트 same time, it?is 바카라사이트 story of how he became a medical student to?try to solve a puzzle in his own life. Told from Patrick¡¯s viewpoint, it is written in a style similar to?Mark Haddon¡¯s Curious Incident of 바카라사이트 Dog in 바카라사이트 Night-Time. But Bauer also provides two additional narrators, a man in a coma and a nurse on 바카라사이트 coma ward, to good effect. So we get to meet Patrick 바카라사이트 logical, single-minded, question-asker with no smooth edges; his long-suffering mo바카라사이트r; university room- and classmates; and those on 바카라사이트 coma ward ¨C for 바카라사이트 characterisation alone I?would recommend this book.¡±