Foreword
Welcome to the fourth volume of the Queen’s Political Review. As a member of the
School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, I am delighted to see the
professionalism displayed by the student committee drawn from my own School and
related Schools at Queen’s. It is a pleasure to see that the Review has continued to
flourish in the four years since its establishment and once again maintained its high
standards of academic excellence and editorial rigour. It should be noted that the
Review is not limited to the production of this volume – an academic writing seminar
was held in December and several of the speakers will present their work to mark the
launch of the volume later this month. The committee have provided invaluable
opportunities for its authors and the wider student body.
I would like to thank Carolyn Augspurger for asking me to be guest editor and to
commend her for her role in giving momentum to the journal and I would also like to
thank our present editor Ruairí Cullen for his dedicated work on this volume. As our
former guest editor Professor Vincent Geoghegan remarked last year, first
publications are ‘doors out of the dark’ in a scholar’s work, and we hope that some of
those who have contributed here will go on to become important scholars and writers.
They can look back to an exciting time in their lives when their work went from the
realm of the private out into the public world in this volume.
The articles cover a wide range of topics grouped into certain overarching categories:
Northern Ireland, Great Britain and Ireland; Europe and International; Political
Theory; and Social Issues. Eight of the ten authors are students or graduates of
Queen’s and we also welcome two students from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India.
Authors are drawn from Politics, International Studies, History, English, Philosophy,
Psychology and Social Studies. The result is a volume that offers a broad definition of
what constitutes ‘the political’ and a collection of essays enriched by a variety of
theoretical positions and distinctive approaches. Topics range from the semiotics of a
particular cinematic portrayal of female friendships to aspects of the politics of
migration, from eighteenth-century political thought to a variety of more recent
contexts. Political issues on this island are also examined, with an essay on the
Fascist Party in 1930s Northern Ireland and another with an innovative and arresting
focus on the mechanics of contact between local communities in Belfast. Read on and
enjoy this superb offering of undergraduate and postgraduate work.
Margaret O’Callaghan MA (NUI), Ph.D. (Cantab.)
School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy
5 May 2016
Guest Editor