Confronting the Geopolitical Aesthetic: Fredric Jameson,The Perfumed Nightmare and the Perilous Place of Third Cinema

This essay explores the conceptual limitations within Fredric Jameson's notion of the geopolitical aesthetic through an analysis of Jameson's now classic reading of The Perfumed Nightmare; this film is central to his concept of the utopic character of film more generally and, moreover, to his argument on the embeddedness of Third World representations within a global, capitalist system. We suggest that, although Jameson acknowledges the underlying constructed and relational character of ontological categories such as film (despite their reification under capitalism), his theory of historical materialism demands that they also be understood as formed with regard to a socio-economic totality. And, because the recognition of a totality requires a master narrative within which all can be understood and framed within a logic of equivalence, Jameson must by default conceive of epistemology as fundamentally divided between a true and a false consciousness. Taking our own cue from recent developments in anti-essentialist thought, we conceive of such cultural forms as the temporarily fixed embodiment of broader-scale discourses that continually construct and deconstruct the world as we know it, including our understandings of the ‘real’ as well as the ‘economic’, the ‘political’ and the ‘cultural’. In our own re-imagining of The Perfumed Nightmare, we provide a partial response to this, noting how these realms are constituted from the temporary ‘fixing’ of a series of people- and place-based identities, such as those constituted under the rubric of ‘gender’. Accordingly, we re-work the term ‘cognitive mapping’ as the attempt to outline the web of significations within which objects are embedded as well as the concomitant lines of fracture and contradiction that allow for such objects to become meaningful in a host of other contexts.     

The Effect of Making a Voluntary Labour Market Programme Compulsory: Evidence from a UK Experiment

This paper investigates the effects on employment and benefit receipt of making a voluntary active labour market programme compulsory. This policy change, which targeted long‐term unemployed people over the age of 50, was piloted in a number of areas within the UK and evaluated by individual random assignment of the requirement to participate. The results show that mandating participation resulted in a sustained increase in employment and a corresponding reduction in benefit receipt. The results were driven at least in part by a deterrent effect.     

U.S. male generational cohorts: Retail format preferences,desired retail attributes,satisfaction and loyalty

Reports in the academic and popular press acknowledge the growing importance of male shoppers from a retail perspective (Albright, 2010) yet to date most studies have only compared men to women or when examining fashion products (Shim and Kotsiopulos, 1991). No research has been done to segment males in order to provide retailers with a better understanding of male shopping behavior (Bakewell and Mitchell, 2003, Meredith et al., 2007). This exploratory study surveyed 560 U.S. males examining retail format preferences, desired retail attributes, satisfaction and loyalty using Generational Cohort Theory (GCT). Results suggest significant differences between male generational cohorts in terms of retail format preferences with males from the Silent Generation preferring the category killer format more than males in the Millennial Generation and both 13th Generation and Millennial Generation males preferring internet-only retailers than did Silent Generation Males. Silent Generation males were also found to be more satisfied with retailers in their area, when compared to the younger Baby Boomer and 13th Generation males. No significant differences were found in desired retail attributes or store loyalty. Additional research investigating U.S. and non-U.S. males using GCT is suggested.