Search results for ""Author Mark Taylor""

Making sense of the worst fire in the UK since 1945 can seem like an impossible task given the confusion observed in the media and in the courts since the fire. Tony Prosser and Mark Taylor together have nearly 80 years of experience in the fire and rescue service and bring an insiders' perspective to the challenges faced by firefighters on the night, and the reasons why such an event was allowed to occur. They consider how a fire safety regime which was one of the most sophisticated in the world failed to prevent 72 residents in a modern building from dying. They consider how legislation has changed, why firefighters are now marginalised by Government despite having reduced fire deaths in the home by nearly 50% in 15 years.

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Theories of the domestic stemming from the 19th century have focused on the home as a refuge and place of repose for the family, a nurturing environment for children and a safe place for visitors. Under this conception, domestic space is positioned as nurturing and private, a refuge and place of retreat which gave rise to theories of ‘home as haven’. While, arguably, some social conditions might suggest this is the case, Domesticity Under Siege exposes a different world, one in which the boundaries of nurturing domesticity collide with both outside and inside agents. Whether these agents are external military forces, psychological trauma or familial violence, they re-position meta-narratives of domesticity, not through identity politics or specialized subgroup experience, but relative to the actions of the world around an inhabited domain. That is, when home is constituted as a private realm, a place where individuals or groups can reside in ‘safety and comfort’, it is argued as a place in which the individual exercises control or power. However, there are many occasions when forces act upon the home and threaten aspects of safety and comfort, often through such things as ruination, violence, mortality, and infestation. Organised around four thematic sections, ‘Microbes, Animals and Insects’, ‘Human Agents’, Wars and Disasters as Agents’ and ‘Hauntings, Eeriness and the Uncanny’, chapters provide a range of approaches to the home which challenge notions of ‘haven’ and reflect major causes that have played an important role in undermining the modern home. Examples and case studies explore the domestic screen, hoarding, hauntings, violence and imprisonment in the home, wartime interior art, the Hanover Merzbau and Wolfgang Staudte’s 1946 film Die Mörder sind unter uns (‘The Murderers are Among Us’).

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Walter Benjamin observed in his writings on the interior that 'to live means to leave traces.' This interior design theory reader focuses on just how such traces might manifest themselves. In order to explore interior design's links to other disciplines, the selected texts reflect a wide range of interests extending beyond the traditional confines of design and architecture. It is conceived as a matrix, which intersects social, political, psychological, philosophical, technological and gender discourse, with practice issues, such as materials, lighting, colour, furnishing, and the body. The anthology presents a complex and sometimes conflicting terrain, while also creating a distinct body of knowledge particular to the interior. Locating theory on the interior through these multifarious sources, it encourages future discourse in an area often marginalised but now emerging in its own right. Within the reader individual excerpts are referenced to their place in the matrix and sequenced alphabetically. This organising strategy resists both a chronological and themed structure in order to provoke associations and inferences between excerpts. In this way the book offers the possibility of examining the interior from multiple vantage points: a disciplinary focus, the spatial and physical attributes of interiors, historical sequence, and topical issue based. Excerpts from Thomas Hope, Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edith Wharton and Charles Eastlake provide contemporary nineteenth century accounts as the profession emerges, whereas Barbara Penner, Penny Sparke, Charles Rice, Georges Teyssot and Rebecca Houze offer re-interpretations of this period. The complexities of the twentieth-century interior are revealed by Robyn Longhurst, Kevin Melchionne, George Wagner, John Macgregor Wise, Joel Sanders and many others.

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Culture will keep you fit and healthy. Culture will bring communities together. Culture will improve your education. This is the message from governments and arts organisations across the country; however, this book explains why we need to be cautious about culture.Offering a powerful call to transform the cultural and creative industries, Culture is bad for you examines the intersections between race, class, and gender in the mechanisms of exclusion in cultural occupations. Exclusion from culture begins at an early age, the authors argue, and despite claims by cultural institutions and businesses to hire talented and hardworking individuals, women, people of colour, and those from working class backgrounds are systematically disbarred.While the inequalities that characterise both workforce and audience remain unaddressed, the positive contribution culture makes to society can never be fully realised.

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This timely book emphasizes the importance of regulation in enabling and channelling innovation at a time when technology is increasingly embedded in healthcare. It considers the adequacy of current regulatory approaches, identifying apparent gaps, risks and liabilities, and discusses how these might be collectively addressed. The authors present possible solutions that balance the protection and promotion of public trust in healthcare against enabling technological progress and disruptive innovation.Offering both a theoretical and practical approach to challenges at the intersection of healthcare, law and technology, this thought-provoking book explores broad questions of regulation and innovation before analysing contextual applications of these topics. It moves from a wide-ranging consideration of the polycentric and changing nature of health regulation through to a more specific examination of topics including patient consent, the role of device representatives, privacy, artificial intelligence and big data.Providing an international perspective, Technology, Innovation and Healthcare will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of health law, innovation, technology law, law and development and law and society. It will also be of benefit to lawyers, healthcare professionals, technology developers and policy makers, seeking to better integrate technology with healthcare.

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Talk-show confessions, online rants, stand-up routines, inspirational speeches, banal reflections and calls to arms: we live in an age of solo voices demanding to be heard. In The Contemporary American Monologue Eddie Paterson looks at the pioneering work of US artists Spalding Gray, Laurie Anderson, Anna Deavere Smith and Karen Finley, and the development of solo performance in the US as a method of cultural and political critique. Ironic confession, post-punk poetry, investigations of race and violence, and subversive polemic, this book reveals the link between the rise of radical monologue in the late 20th century and history of speechmaking, politics, civil rights, individual freedom and the American Dream in the United States. It shows how US artists are speaking back to the cultural, political and economic forces that shape the world. Eddie Paterson traces the importance of the monologue in Shakespeare, Brecht, Beckett, Chekov, Pinter, O'Neill and Williams, before offering a comprehensive analysis of several of the most influential and innovative American practitioners of monologue performance. The Contemporary American Monologue constitutes the first book-length account of US monologists that links the tradition of oratory and speechmaking in the colony to the appearance of solo performance as a distinctly American phenomenon.

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Constituting the first comprehensive look at Ruth Maleczech’s work, Jessica Brater’s companion is a landmark study in innovative theatre practice, bringing together biography, critical analysis, and original interviews to establish a portrait of this Obie-award winning theatre artist. Tracing Maleczech’s background, training, and influences, the volume contextualizes her work and the founding of Mabou Mines within the wider landscape of American avant-garde theatre. It considers her performances and productions, revealing both her interest in making ordinary women important onstage, and her predilection for resurrecting extraordinary women from history and finding their resonances within a contemporary theatrical context. Brater considers Maleczech’s investment in redrawing the boundaries of what women are allowed to say, both on stage and off, and shows how her commitment to radical artistic and production risks has reshaped the contours of a contemporary theatrical experience. Highlights of the volume include discussion of productions such as Mabou Mines’ Lear, Dead End Kids, Hajj, Lucia’s Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, Red Beads, and La Divina Caricatura, as well as a close look at Maleczech’s final work-in-progress, Imagining the Imaginary Invalid.

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What do we mean when we describe theatre as political today? How might theatre-makers’ provocations for change need to be differently designed when addressing the precarious spectator-subject of twenty- first century neoliberalism? In this important study Liz Tomlin interrogates the influential theories of Jacques Rancière to propose a new framework of analysis through which contemporary political dramaturgies can be investigated. Drawing, in particular, on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Lilie Chouliaraki and Judith Butler, Tomlin argues that the capacities of the contemporary and future spectator to be ‘effected’ or ‘affected’ by politically-engaged theatre need to be urgently re-evaluated. Central to this study is Tomlin’s theorized figuration of the neoliberal spectator-subject as precarious, individualized and ironic, with a reduced capacity for empathy, agency and the ability to imagine better futures. This, in turn, leads to a predilection for a response to injustice that is driven by a concern for the feelings of the subject-self, rather than concern for the suffering other. These characteristics are argued to shape even those spectator-subjects towards the left of the political spectrum, thus necessitating a careful reconsideration of new and long-standing dramaturgies of political provocation. Dramaturgies examined include the ironic invitations of Made in China and Martin Crimp, the exploration of affect in Kieran Hurley’s Heads Up, the new sincerity that characterizes the work of Andy Smith, the turn to the staging of the spectators’ ‘other’ in Developing Artists’ Queens of Syria and Chris Thorpe and Rachel Chavkin’s Confirmation, and the community activism of Common Wealth’s The Deal Versus the People.

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'OMG! This book is SO me! The tips and stories shared by Ed, Mark and Nicky will help you live a life filled with more fun, joy and enthusiasm!' ALISON HAMMOND, TV Presenter 'Kids are so authentic and there's no reason for us to lose that when we're older. Kids see the wonder and awe in the smallest things every day. Be More Kid reminds us how important it is to bring out the best in ourselves and how we can do that in way that also brings out the best in others.' BEN SHEPHARD, TV Presenter 'This book gives you the tools to bring the belief, energy and passion you had as a child into your current life with transformational results.' SARAH STIRK, TV Presenter, Sky Sports & Entrepreneur THIS ISN'T JUST ANOTHER SELF IMPROVEMENT BOOK. Have you ever felt there must be more to life? Do you feel unfulfilled? Have you felt stuck, not knowing how to move forward and found yourself settling for less than you deserve? AND IT ISN'T ABOUT HAVING TO CREATE A NEW YOU. Since childhood you've had all of the resources that you need to create the life that you want, and over time you've simply lost touch with them. Now is the time to find them again. With expert guidance from broadcaster and entrepreneur, Ed James and behaviour and relationship experts, Mark & Nicky Taylor, you'll rediscover your sense of purpose, reconnect with what is important to you and find out how to unlearn unhelpful habits and behaviours. Employing simple tools and techniques you can use each day, Be More Kid shows you how to: Enjoy a meaningful and fulfilling life Stop overthinking and build resilience in a challenging world End the conflict of putting everyone else before your own needs Rediscover the contentment, enthusiasm and zest for life you had as a child If you are ready for a new approach to your happiness, relationships and your future, Be More Kid will guide you through the journey, one step at a time.

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Designing the French Interior traces France's central role in the development in the modern domestic interior, from the pre-revolutionary period to the 1970s, and addresses the importance of various media, including drawings, prints, pattern books, illustrated magazines, department store catalogues, photographs, guidebooks and films, in representing and promoting French interior design to a wider audience. Contributors to this original volume identify and historicise the singularity of the modern French domestic interior as a generator of reproducible images, a site for display of both highly crafted and mass produced objects, and the direct result of widely-circulated imagery in its own right. This important volume enables an invaluable new understanding of the relationship between architecture, interior spaces, material cultures, mass media and modernity.

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