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Bohemian Soho

Laurie Taylor considers a cultural history of the Colony Room Club. Also, Melissa Tyler discusses her study of sales workers in Soho sex shops.

Bohemian Soho - Laurie Taylor talks to the writer, Sophie Parkin, about her book on the Colony Room Club, a private members bar whose doors opened in 1948 and shut in 2008. The only criterion for membership was that you weren't dull. For 60 years it played host to an assortment of offbeat and colourful characters from the fashionable to the criminal: the artist, Francis Bacon, rubbed shoulders with the gangster Kray twins. Eccentrics and misfits congregated and drank in a smoky, shabby room with sticky carpets. But what place does the Colony Room have within a wider history of Bohemian life? Professor of Cultural Studies, Elizabeth Wilson, joins the discussion.

Also, Melissa Tyler discusses her study of sales workers in Soho sex shops.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.

Available now

28 minutes

Melissa Tyler

Reader in Management, University of Essex

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Abstract: doi: 10.1177/0950017012458173
Work Employment & Society December 2012 vol. 26 no. 6 899-917

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Abstract: doi: 10.1177/0018726711418849
Human Relations November 2011 vol. 64 no. 11 1477-1500

Sophie Parkin

Writer and artistΜύ

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The Colony Room Club 1948-2008: A History of Bohemian Soho
Publisher: Palmtree Publishers
Language: English
ISBN-10: 095743541X
ISBN-13: 978-0957435414

Elizabeth Wilson

Professor of Cultural Studies

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Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts
Publisher: Tauris Parke Paperbacks
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1860647820
ISBN-13: 978-1860647826

Forthcoming on Thinking Allowed 23 October 2013

Interview with

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Event:Μύ

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Speaker: Professor Karima BennouneΜύ

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Date and time: Wednesday 23 October 2013 , 6.30-8pmΜύ


Venue: Old Theatre, Old Building, The London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London
WC2A 2AE

Tel: +44 (0)20 7405 7686

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Suggested twitter hashtag: #LSEBennoune

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β€œKarima Bennoune carried out nearly 300 interviews over three years with people from nearly 30 countries, from Afghanistan to Mali, to document peaceful, local human rights struggles against fundamentalism. These are some of the most important, and most overlooked, human rights struggles in the world today. From Pakistani peace activists to Tunisian feminists, from Chechen journalists to Algerian victims of terrorism, Bennoune will share their stories and provide a human rights analysis from these many frontlines.”

Ethnography Award

Thinking Allowed in association with the British Sociological Association announces a new annual award for a study that has made a significant contribution to ethnography: the in-depth analysis of the everyday life of a culture or sub-culture.

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ο»ΏAre you involved in social science research and completing or will have completed an ethnography this year? The Award is open to any UK resident currently employed as a teacher or researcher or studying as a postgraduate in a UK institution of higher education.

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An entry should be a completed ethnography, a qualitative research project which provides a detailed description of the practices of a group or culture. Any sole authored book or peer reviewed research article published during the calendar year of the award will be eligible.

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The judges for the Award are Professor Dick Hobbs, Professor Henrietta Moore, Dr Louise Westmarland, Professor Bev Skeggs. The Chair is Professor Laurie Taylor. (Please do not contact any judges directly).

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Broadcasts

  • Wed 11 Sep 2013 16:00
  • Mon 16 Sep 2013 00:15

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