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SUMMARY:'Flirting Classical Colours!* Greco-Roman figures\, forms and stru
 ctures in Victorian Trade Union Emblems'. - Dr. Paula James\, Open Univers
 ity
DTSTART:20121018T161500Z
DTEND:20121018T173000Z
UID:TALK41101@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Helen Roche
DESCRIPTION:The banners and certificates of the developing Trades Union mo
 vement provide us with a visual history of 19th century working class aspi
 rations. The imagery TU leaders adopted and adapted for their emblems was 
 very much influenced by the elaborate and at time downright fussy 'flags' 
 of freemasonry and friendly societies. Classical motifs were part of the p
 ackage\, but the tensions within the ideologies of organised labour (skill
 ed and unskilled) found expression in apparently respectable and reassurin
 g cultural references\, from Greco-Roman architecture to classically garbe
 d female figures like Virtue\, Justice and Truth. One question we ask in o
 ur forthcoming book _Emblems of Hope_ (in which Annie Ravenhill-Johnson gi
 ves detailed analyses of key certificates and banners) is whether Classics
  corrupted the representation and the proletarian consciousness of the toi
 ling masses in struggle. I shall end the talk with a focus on the figure o
 f Hercules - the use of an heroic muscular male at the centre of the 1889 
 Dockers' Strike banner seems to be a much more militant statement about wo
 rking class strength and a fine companion for Marx's concept of 'new fangl
 ed men for new fangled machinery'.  However\, this demi god (or his Doppel
 ganger) turns out to be a problematic and complex classical icon\, suggest
 ing the simultaneously anti Capitalist and pro Imperialist stance of Briti
 sh labour.\n\n[*'Flirting colours' is a suffragette phrase\, equivalent to
  'flying the flags'.]
LOCATION:Classics Faculty\, Room G.21
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