Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kate Travers, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Liberal Arts, University of Warwick

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is the sequel to a film that launched a thousand memes.

For the film’s New York premiere in April 2026, fashion designer Evan Hirsh decided to commemorate one of the original 2006 film’s most celebrated scenes. He embroidered Meryl Streep’s infamous monologue on the fictional fashion history of the colour cerulean into the bright blue train of his coat.

In the monologue, ice-queen fashion editor Miranda Priestly (Streep) lambasts ingenue Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) for her ignorance about the blue – I mean, cerulean – colour of her sweater.

Equal parts derisive and incisive, this monologue nods to the “ballroom” tradition of reading the flaws of others, in order to deliver a devastating (and often hilarious) insult. Ballroom is an underground scene of competitive balls created by Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ communities centred on dance, fashion and performance. There, reading functions as both art form and social critique.

The monologue also encapsulates a skill practised in humanities classrooms around the world: close reading. This is the art of unpacking a detail and contextualising it within a broader history, to see how artistic choices and media landscapes come together to shape the world around us – often without us really noticing.

Although an old idea (arguably, even Aristotle was doing it), in the early decades of the 20th century, literary scholars in Britain and America began to emphasise the skills we now know as close reading. They argued that small details and specific choices come together to create the reader’s experience of the text.

In 2006, to see close reading on-screen was rare. Prior to the rise of social media, virtuosic displays of close readings were often confined to academic settings, or the occasional documentary. Now, close reading can be found everywhere in our content diets – in podcasts, YouTube videos and on TikTok.

Close reading proves an ideal technique for generating constant content. It allows creators to unpack artistic choices and the aesthetic histories of just about anything.

Some of this content presents itself as educational programming, making use of expert academic hosts (for example, in Architectural Digest’s series Every Detail or the London Review of Books’ podcast Close Readings).

These podcasts and videos form part of the history of post-war educational media, along with Open University programming that used to fill the BBC airwaves in the early hours. Contributors to this programming included Stuart Hall, whose criticism defined the field of Cultural Studies by melding historical analysis with questions of how media such as TV and film communicate with viewers.

Expertise in close reading, however, does not lie only within academia. Close readings can be found in fashion content that highlights the history of specific items, such as the 99% Invisible podcast Articles of Interest. And they’re also evident in the videos of influencers who examine the history of specific looks and the publications that shaped them.

Videos and podcasts on pop music and culture hosted by musicologists, such as Vulture’s Switched on Pop, also rely on close reading. Fan videos and tweets unpacking the work of singers like Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter perform this same skill.

Every video breaking down the difference between gen Z and millennial makeup, every outfit takedown, every analysis of a political speech – close reading is everywhere.

Close reading in The Devil Wears Prada

Let’s return to that blue sweater. While fashion editors have debunked the scene’s representation of how the fashion industry operates, that is not what is at stake for the characters. This scene dramatises the allure of shared cultural knowledge. This kind of knowledge represents what it takes to succeed at the fictional Runway magazine.

By understanding and valuing the history of a colour, Andy could become part of a glamorous in group. Now, our phones contain our own personal Miranda Priestlys, explaining how and why an object, an image, a text matters – and perhaps why we should buy it.

The Met Gala, an annual evening of fundraising for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, is always a key date in the close-reading calendar. The event exemplifies what art and music has always done for its wealthy patrons and consumers: it provides an opportunity to see and be seen, to participate in the performance of connoisseurship.

Former Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, the perennially sunglasses-clad inspiration for Priestly, helped make first Monday in May (when the gala is held) a covetable event in the fashion calendar. Days after the theatrical release of the Devil Wears Prada 2 in May 2026, a flurry of content will emerge close reading the outfit choices at the gala.

The message of the cerulean monologue is that culture, and the business of culture, exempts no one. Simply because we do not care about a certain aspect of culture does not mean we can escape its influence.

Like the blue of Andy Sach’s sweater, the act of close reading “represents millions of dollars and countless jobs”, and probably more hours of your own time than you would care to admit. Perhaps most importantly, close reading is the skill that enables us to unpack art’s political statements.

So, in case you had any doubt, it’s important that you know: it’s not just blue, it’s cerulean.

Kate Travers receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust.

– ref. How close reading took over the internet via The Devil Wears Prada’s cerulean monologue – https://theconversation.com/how-close-reading-took-over-the-internet-via-the-devil-wears-pradas-cerulean-monologue-281567

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mehri Khosravi, Energy and Carbon Senior Research Fellow, University of East London

Planning summer holidays in Europe is beginning to involve more focus on avoiding high temperatures.

Destinations including the Greek islands and southern Italy have traditionally relied on warm, stable summers to attract tourists. But they have faced extreme temperatures causing mass evacuations, wildfires and putting lives in danger in recent summers.

Even without those conditions, high temperatures are changing the summer holiday experience. Tourists are often more exposed to heat risk than residents. They spend longer periods outdoors, take part in outdoor sports, and navigate unfamiliar environments without knowing where to find shade, or local healthcare. Yet despite this heightened exposure, tourists’ vulnerability to extreme heat remains relatively underexamined.

Recent summers have made these risks visible. During 2024, parts of southern Europe, including Greece, Italy, Spain and Cyprus, experienced temperatures exceeding 40°C. During Greece’s record-setting heatwave, several foreign visitors died or went missing including the British broadcaster Michael Mosley. Mosley went missing on the Greek island of Symi and a coroner found the cause of death could have been heatstroke. In response to these very high temperatures, countries including the UK, Germany, and Sweden issued travel advisories warning of extreme heat in popular destinations.

Heat is not just a safety issue; it is also reshaping the quality of the holiday itself. Extreme temperatures can shorten stays, reduce participation in outdoor activities, and lower overall satisfaction. Key tourist sites, such as the Acropolis in Greece, may close in extreme heat making trips less satisfying. As a result, rising temperatures are already influencing what tourists can do, when they travel, and how destinations function.

Shifting travel patterns

As heat intensifies, travel patterns are beginning to shift. A growing number of tourists are moving away from traditionally hot Mediterranean destinations towards cooler regions, a trend often described as “coolcations”. Emerging evidence points to declining tourist demand in parts of southern Europe during peak summer months, alongside increased interest in destinations with milder climates.

Elevated temperatures are also influencing when people take a trip. A recent report by the European Travel Commission found that 28% of travellers are planning to change the time of year that they travel. Avoiding extreme heat was cited as a key reason.

Extreme heat also interacts with other climate-related pressures. Wildfires, drought and water shortages can disrupt tourism activities and local economies. As one participant in ongoing research at the University of East London described:
“Our reservoir was very low over the summer… boating, sailing, and water sports couldn’t run. The centre has now closed. You see those ripple effects.”

Climate is not the only factor shaping travel decisions this year. Geopolitical tensions, including the ongoing conflict involving the US, Israel and Iran, are contributing to rising fuel and travel costs. This is adding another layer of pressure, encouraging some travellers to reconsider long-distance or high-cost travel

These pressures can reinforce climate-driven trends. If southern destinations become both hotter and more expensive, travellers may be more likely to choose nearer, cooler alternatives.

Extreme heat is no longer a marginal issue for tourism; it is becoming a structural one. As heatwaves intensify and seasonal patterns shift, traditional peak holiday seasons may no longer align with safe or comfortable conditions.

Adapting will require more than incremental change. It means rethinking infrastructure, timing and visitor management, from providing shade and cool spaces, to redesigning tourism calendars. In some destinations, this is already happening, with attractions shifting opening hours to cooler periods of the day, a trend increasingly described as “noctourism”.

But adaptation is not only physical; it is also behavioural. A key part of this transition lies in how travellers perceive and respond to heat. Perception shapes behaviour: whether visitors adjust their plans, seek shade, stay hydrated, or recognise when conditions have become dangerous. This is particularly important for travellers from temperate countries, such as the UK, where awareness and experience of extreme heat remain relatively limited. Without a strong perception of risk, even well-designed warnings may fail to prompt action.

Clear and timely communication will therefore be essential. Travellers need support to interpret unfamiliar risks and take protective action when needed. This includes clearer public messaging, accessible guidance on heat safety, and better integration of tourists into national and local heat health alert systems.

At present, most heat alerts are designed with residents in mind. Yet tourists represent a highly exposed and often overlooked group. Integrating communication to visitors into heat action plans, through multilingual alerts and travel advisories, will be increasingly important as global travel continues. This kind of information needs to be developed for travellers and tour operators.

It is vital to improve our understanding of tourists perceptions of risk from heat, how to respond, and the effectiveness of communications.

Airlines, hotels, and travel websites could provide key ways to communicate in future. Providing heat-related guidance at the point of booking, before departure, and during the stay could help bridge the gap between awareness and action. In years ahead, if summer temperatures continue to intensify this could be vitally important.

Mehri Khosravi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Coolcations: why people are heading away from the sun this summer – https://theconversation.com/coolcations-why-people-are-heading-away-from-the-sun-this-summer-281452

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Carlo Pietrobelli, Professor of Economics, UNESCO Chair, United Nations University

The world economy is at a crossroads. International trade is slowing, economic uncertainty is rising, and trade between the US and China – the world’s two largest economies – risks pulling apart. And it is not just trade: the two countries also invest less in each other than they did just a few years ago.

What is driving this reconfiguration of trade? For some large economies, including the US under President Donald Trump, a desire for greater self-reliance is central. Between 2017 and 2023, American imports fell most sharply in the very products where the US had been most reliant on China – including industrial machinery, computers and computer parts, and other electronic equipment such as monitors.

This has important implications for global value chains (GVCs). GVCs are the backbone of international trade – production activities from research and product design to assembly are distributed across various locations, with “value” being added at each stage. This redistribution can take place across several countries, co-ordinated by multinational firms.

The reconfiguration of GVCs is accelerating, and so industrialised economies now have two main options. They can reshore production, bringing manufacturing back to their own countries (a stated priority for the current US administration).

Or they can “friendshore”, shifting imports and investments towards economies that are either geographically closer, or with which they have long-standing relationships.

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For developing countries, the balance between these two strategies is crucial. If advanced economies reshore a substantial share of production, developing countries could suffer as investment and jobs are lost.

And automation and digitisation now make it more convenient for advanced countries to produce goods at home, making this a greater risk to these poorer countries than it was a decade ago.

For consumers though, this reshoring could mean higher prices for everyday goods, at least in the short term, because of the higher costs of manufacturing in more advanced economies. It should be said, however, that the empirical evidence for this remains limited.

Risks and opportunities

But friendshoring offers an alternative. Early signals from countries like Mexico and Vietnam – which have recently seen an increase in investment and factory expansions from multinational firms – suggest that friendshoring can create opportunities. When paired with supportive government policies such as investment incentives or help to upgrade technology, these shifts can ensure that more production takes place domestically. This can lead to greater technology spillovers and learning.

To understand the risks and opportunities, we examined the specific products where US-China decoupling is most pronounced (that is, where trade is reducing). From this analysis, two broad clusters emerged, each with different implications for developing economies.

The first group mainly includes relatively complex goods – things like consumer electronics, vehicle components, chemicals and machinery. Here, the US is both diversifying its imports quickly and is already producing these goods competitively.

The products and sectors at the heart of the reconfiguration of GVCs

These products can easily be reshored, particularly if automation lowers costs. Semiconductors, for instance, are already the focus of major US reshoring efforts. Yet the risk to current producers of the US reshoring appears limited for now. While the US has reduced imports from China of these products, other developing regions have not experienced a similar trend.

In the second group, the US is diversifying but is not competitive enough to bring production home. This group accounted for just over 6% of finished products that the US imported in 2023 – roughly US$181 billion (£134 billion). This is a small share overall, but economically significant.

Within this group, two types of opportunity emerge. Technologically complex goods, such as electrical equipment, computers and car parts, offer the greatest potential for middle-income economies with strong manufacturing experience to win contracts and investments. Lower-tech goods like textiles and furniture are better suited to lower-income countries. In both cases, governments need to negotiate carefully to ensure investments add value locally, support skills development and avoid social or environmental harm.

For consumers worldwide, friendshoring offers a more benign outlook than reshoring or tariffs. Goods may simply be made in different countries, with prices remaining broadly stable.

Who could gain?

So far, east and south-eastern Asia – including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia – have captured the largest share of these friendshoring opportunities, particularly in high-tech sectors like computers. Their exports to China have also risen, reinforcing their central role in Asian manufacturing networks. But whether this momentum continues will depend on tariffs, production costs and the pace of automation.

Other beneficiaries could include Latin America and Caribbean nations, led by Mexico. Here, the automotive sector dominates export growth. South Asia could also benefit, with India expanding in both high- and low-tech products, and Bangladesh at the lower-tech end. In contrast, Africa and western Asia remain largely absent from the emerging friendshoring landscape.

The risk to these countries of large-scale reshoring remains limited for now but cannot be ignored amid shifting global trade and investment patterns. But friendshoring could offset or even exceed potential losses, offering new pathways for industrialisation.

As economic uncertainty and technology reshape global value chains, developing economies that invest in production capabilities – and implement smart industrial policies – will be best placed to harness opportunities. In some cases, friendshoring may even allow them to leapfrog into more sophisticated activities faster than traditional development paths would allow.

For consumers, there are benefits too. The label on our next laptop, charger or T-shirt might change, but prices will remain broadly stable – at least before tariffs kick in. In this sense, globalisation will not disappear. But it will take on a different geographical shape.

This article builds on UNIDO IID Policy Brief 28, “Navigating a fragmenting global economy: What GVC reconfiguration means for future industrial development”. The views expressed in the Policy Brief and in this article are those of the authors, based on their research and expertise, and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNIDO.

Carlo Pietrobelli and Nicolò Geri do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Amid rising tensions, ‘friendshoring’ might keep global trade alive – https://theconversation.com/amid-rising-tensions-friendshoring-might-keep-global-trade-alive-276343

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matt Jacobsen, Senior Lecturer in Film History in the School of Society and Environment, Queen Mary University of London

We are used to seeing the excellent Adam Scott (Severance, Parks and Recreation) in likeable nice guy roles. In Hokum, however, he plays a curmudgeonly and prickly bestselling novelist called Ohm Bauman. Deliberating over the ending to his series of popular novels, Bauman has decided to take a trip to the rural Irish inn where his parents stayed on their honeymoon, to scatter their ashes.

The remote Bilberry Woods Hotel in the off-season is a fantastically eerie horror location. Irish writer and director Damian McCarthy populates the hotel and its surroundings with excellent, likably eccentric locals who recount the spooky lore of the area to the sceptical writer.

Jerry (David Wilmot) lives in the woods, tinkers with moonshine and psychedelics and says he sees ghosts. Bellboy Alby (Will O’Connell) is a starstruck wannabe author treated with disdain by his hero. Fiona (Florence Ordesh) is the bartender whose disappearance motivates Bauman’s exploration of the twisty hotel and its grounds.

“Hokum,” says Bauman dismissively when he is told about the witch who supposedly haunts the honeymoon suite where his parents stayed. The film performs the neat trick of making us warm to this horribly flawed and unlikeable character as he is inevitably proven wrong.

A film with a fiction writer protagonist set in a haunted hotel inevitably suggests the influence of Stephen King, not just via The Shining but the short story 1408, made into a memorable film starring John Cusack in 2007. That story similarly features a sceptical writer staying in a supposedly haunted guest house who, like Hokum’s Bauman, experiences disturbing visions from his past. Hokum also recalls horror impresario Ti West’s brilliantly eerie New England-set The Innkeepers (2011), with which this film shares the atmosphere of an off-season haunted guesthouse.

Hokum is, at its core, a classic ghost story in the mode of English writer MR James. But it throws a lot of extra horror elements into the pot at the risk of becoming unwieldy and bloated.

McCarthy’s ambiguous film has a witch, a ghost or two, a missing woman, flashbacks of Bauman’s traumatic past and, in the weirdest and scariest scene, a nightmarish televised vision of a half-bunny, half-person creature. With so much in the mix, this could be a formless mess, so it is surprising that Hokum holds together as well as it does. With one or two stumbles where things get a touch convoluted, this is an enormously effective, well-crafted and proudly old-fashioned gothic chiller.

With a focus on character and mood, Hokum is an intelligent and, by the end, emotionally satisfying film. The strength of the film is not in its originality but in the execution of familiar conventions and plot points. How much you will enjoy the film depends on your tolerance and enthusiasm for old fashioned jump scares. An overused device in modern horror that can signal a sub-par film, it is hard here not to admire McCarthy’s commitment to making his audience gasp.

McCarthy’s talent is in building the hotel’s atmosphere of mystery with carefully placed light from lamps and candles that cast long shadows before leading to controlled scares carried out with technical skill and pinpoint timing. Strongly recalling the well-executed horror trickery of the now-classic stage adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel The Woman in Black, shocks are strongly telegraphed and built towards with inevitability. The director is telling the audience clearly what’s about to happen at every turn, but the film is no less effective for it.

The film was made in West Cork, and the Irish countryside is a beautiful, eerie backdrop for the maze-like guesthouse. Nevertheless, there is little in the film’s depiction of ghosts and witches in the Irish woodland that relies on culturally specific mythology or history.

Hokum is Irish writer and director Damian McCarthy’s third horror film after the critically acclaimed low-budget ghost stories Caveat (2020) and Oddity (2024). Those first two films were shown at film festivals before being released on horror streaming channel Shudder. This is McCarthy’s first full cinema release. Each of his films is better than the last, with the filmmaker sharpening his writing and directing a little more each time. Here he is aided considerably by the consistently brilliant Adam Scott.

Hokum is a horror film made by a director working to carry out horror conventions as well as he possibly can. The film is full of tongue-in-cheek, knowing nods to the genre. It doesn’t matter that all the major late-film plot reveals are telegraphed to the audience with a nod and a wink early in the film. Hokum has fun telling you what it’s going to do well ahead of time and remains scary and entertaining regardless.

Matt Jacobsen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Hokum review: a gothic chiller set in a creepy Irish hotel that expertly weaves horror tropes – https://theconversation.com/hokum-review-a-gothic-chiller-set-in-a-creepy-irish-hotel-that-expertly-weaves-horror-tropes-281921

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ahmed Elbediwy, Senior Lecturer in Cancer Biology & Clinical Biochemistry, Kingston University

In 1950, two researchers noticed something that didn’t quite add up. Hector Chevigny, a writer who had lost his sight in adulthood, and psychologist Sydell Braverman were studying the psychological lives of blind people when they stumbled upon an intriguing pattern: schizophrenia, a serious mental illness affecting people across virtually every known society, appeared to be entirely absent in people who had been blind from birth.

The observation sat largely ignored for decades, held back by limited understanding of the disease and a lack of patient data. Then, in the early 2000s, large national health databases allowed researchers to follow entire populations from birth into adulthood, and the pattern held up.

The most rigorous evidence comes from a 2018 whole-population study tracking nearly half a million children born in Western Australia between 1980 and 2001. Of those, 1,870 developed schizophrenia, but not one of the 66 children with cortical blindness did.

That sample of blind children is small, but the pattern holds across more than 70 years of evidence: not a single congenitally blind person with schizophrenia has ever been reported. The protection seems to be specific to cortical blindness, which is caused by damage to the brain’s visual cortex.

People who lose their sight later in life, or whose blindness is caused by damage to the eyes rather than the brain, can still develop the condition. This makes it clear that blindness itself isn’t the deciding factor. Something specific about the visual brain is.

This might seem odd. Schizophrenia is most commonly associated with hearing voices or holding unusual beliefs, not with vision. But the explanation lies not in what people see, but in how the brain uses vision to make sense of the world.

Scientists now understand schizophrenia as, at least in part, a disorder of prediction. The brain is constantly generating expectations about its surroundings and checking them against signals from the senses. In schizophrenia, this process appears to go wrong. Weak or random signals are given too much weight. Coincidences feel significant. Thoughts can seem to come from somewhere outside oneself. The boundary between imagination and reality begins to blur.

A question of prediction

Vision plays a powerful role in shaping this system, particularly in early life. The visual cortex is one of the brain’s largest and most richly connected regions, involved not just in sight but in learning, attention and emotion. When it receives no input from birth, the brain develops differently. Brain imaging studies show that in people with congenital cortical blindness, this area is often repurposed for tasks such as language, memory and reasoning.

Some researchers believe this early reorganisation may offer a kind of protection. Without visual input generating a constant stream of ambiguous or unpredictable signals, the brain may settle into more stable ways of interpreting the world, reducing the risk of the misfiring predictions that characterise schizophrenia.

Timing matters enormously. Losing vision later in life, even in childhood, does not appear to offer the same protection. By then, the brain has already been shaped by years of visual experience.

None of this suggests that blindness could ever be a practical safeguard against schizophrenia. But it does open up new ways of thinking about the condition and potentially new ways of treating it.

Most current treatments target brain chemistry, particularly the dopamine system. These drugs help many people, but they don’t work for everyone and can carry significant side-effects. If schizophrenia is partly about how the brain learns to predict and interpret reality, then future treatments might also address perception, learning, and how the brain weighs up uncertain information.

Research is now looking at drugs that act on glutamate, a brain chemical involved in learning and communication between nerve cells. Glutamate systems are particularly active in the visual cortex and in circuits that help the brain filter out what’s important from what can be ignored. These aren’t treatments based on blindness itself, but on what congenital blindness reveals about how a stable, well-organised brain develops.

The field is still at an early stage. But the hope is that by better understanding brain development from the very beginning, scientists might one day find ways to reduce the risk of schizophrenia or prevent its most severe forms from taking hold.

Nearly a century later, the curious observation that Chevigny and Braverman had accidentally made continues to shape how scientists think about one of the most complex and least understood medical conditions.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. People who are blind from birth never develop schizophrenia – what this tells us about the psychiatric condition – https://theconversation.com/people-who-are-blind-from-birth-never-develop-schizophrenia-what-this-tells-us-about-the-psychiatric-condition-281369

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Samson Maekele Tsegay, Research Fellow, School of Education, Anglia Ruskin University

It’s often assumed that expanding access to education is progressive – that it’s a means of ensuring social, economic and political development. However, this is not always the case.

We’ve carried out research examining the relationship between education and authoritarianism with a focus on Eritrea. Eritrea has been under a single political party and leadership since its independence in May 1993. The country lacks a functioning or implemented constitution and freedom of the press.

Our research has concluded that, in countries under authoritarian rule, education is not necessarily a path to empowerment. Instead, it’s a fertile ground for the spread of authoritarianism. Governments can spread their ideas and principles through repressive and ideological state apparatus – the processes and organisations they use to maintain power. This includes education.

Authoritarian regimes such as Eritrea claim to address societal problems through social justice and cohesion. However, they consolidate power around a single or dominant regime, which restricts democratic institutions and erodes civic liberties. They also apply preferential treatment based on political loyalty. People are elevated to positions of power for allegiance rather than merit. This causes division and political polarisation in the name of protecting national security.

Expanding education

Authoritarian states use education to maintain political stability to ensure the survival of the regime. Although many authoritarian regimes expand access to education, it is often used as a means of control and a tool for manufacturing loyalty.

For example, since independence, the number of schools and student enrollment in Eritrea has increased around fourfold. However, such regimes also see education as an opportunity to impose their attitudes onto young people. They use education to keep students isolated from ideas that may differ from or be critical of the regime.

Authoritarian regimes use deception and misinformation to uphold their ideology and extend their control. In doing so, they attempt to ensure that citizens accept the legitimacy of their rulers without question.

Additionally, authoritarian regimes politicise the school curriculum. They manipulate content, such as in history and citizenship education. This is used to mislead citizens and make them supporters of the degradation of human rights.

For example, Eritrea’s school curriculum normalises the creation of a militarised citizen who upholds the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front’s legacy and revolutionary culture. Similarly, North Korea uses school education to shape students’ behaviour, attitudes and beliefs to be compatible with and supportive of the regime. This is often supported by controlling the teaching and learning process and the academic environment.

Monitoring teachers and research

Authoritarian regimes recognise that safe education spaces can help students develop critical thinking and eventually question the country’s political system. They monitor teachers and school leaders, and promote those loyal to the regime’s ideas and principles. And, rather than encouraging critical thinking, they foster students’ sense of nationalism and patriotism.

Academic research is also a target of authoritarian regimes because of its scrutiny of government policies and actions. Researchers’ academic freedom is limited, and their choice of research topics is policed.

Most of these control measures are imposed in the name of protecting national security. For example, Eritreans are not allowed to conduct critical research that challenges the existing systems, inequalities and power structures of the country.

Researchers who cross the boundaries and criticise authoritarian regimes are silenced. Some are fired from their jobs while others face prison terms.

Meanwhile, authoritarian regimes rely on loyal academics to promote the state’s narrative. Loyal academics are also used to conceal authoritarian regimes’ failures by presenting selective evidence.

Many authoritarian states, such as China, Eritrea and North Korea, also incorporate military training into education. They blend political and ideological instruction to sustain their power. They teach students discipline and promote patriotism to develop loyal and obedient citizens.

Militarisation education sometimes places teachers and school leaders under military control. In Eritrea, all secondary school students complete their last year under military authority. This approach leads students to drop out of school. Additionally, it causes students and teachers to leave the country.

Authoritarian regimes manifest their true nature by spreading their ideas and principles. Our research shows that the education system is one of the most important levers in the propaganda machine for authoritarian countries.

Samson Maekele Tsegay is a Research Fellow at Anglia Ruskin University.

Zeraslasie Shiker is a PhD researcher at the University of Leeds.

– ref. How authoritarian regimes use education as a political tool – https://theconversation.com/how-authoritarian-regimes-use-education-as-a-political-tool-270731

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Peter Coppola, Visiting Researcher, Cambridge Neuroscience, University of Cambridge

As we go through life, our brains run different processing modes. Some – the attention and sensory systems – result in very similar experiences of the world: what colour the sky is, how warm the day feels.

But there is another, deeper side to the brain which weaves together your memories, goals, beliefs and emotions into a continuous sense of self. This allows you to experience the world not as it is, but as it matters to you personally.

This unique inner world is supported by the brain’s default mode network (DMN). This links together several areas including in the prefrontal cortex (at the very front of the brain) and the parietal lobe (at the back).

These areas of the DMN are, in evolutionary terms, relatively recent. As human brains expanded dramatically between around 800,000 and 200,000 years ago, those regions grew in size and complexity compared with our closest primate relatives. They are more likely to express genes that are uniquely human, related to brain development and function.

Our latest research explores to what extent the DMN explains what makes each of us unique. Put another way, we are attempting to understand what makes you “you”.

What makes us human?

While ancient deep regions of the brain, shared with all vertebrates, support basic experiences such as fear and thirst, the more recent and complex DMN is important for what makes us human.

To better understand the differences, we asked 16 adult volunteers to listen to an excerpt from the Hollywood film Taken (2009) while we recorded their brain activity. Using the audio alone enabled us to compare each person’s activity when both conscious and unconscious. Our volunteers were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while awake and under general anaesthetic, as the same story was played to them.

Each time, we tracked the shifting patterns of communication between brain regions. In particular, we monitored changes in each person’s attention, sensory and default mode networks, and compared these with changes in subjective experience that participants reported.

When participants were conscious, we found their DMN activity patterns became both more complex and more dissimilar to each other as they listened to the story. In contrast, when unconscious, their individual signatures diminished – becoming simpler and more similar to those of the other volunteers.

But their attention and sensory networks showed the opposite pattern. These were more similar when awake, reflecting common mechanisms for gathering sensory information and interpreting the external world through sight and sound.

Our results reinforce that the DMN carries the more personal side of consciousness, changing from moment to moment to reflect each person’s thoughts, memories and inner experiences.

However, different parts of the DMN contribute in different ways. Some subregions, both deep in the back of the cortex and in the front of the brain, help us reflect on ourselves, imagine possibilities, and weave experience into a personal story. Others, especially those linked to memory in the deep temporal lobe regions, help reconstruct scenes and recall past events, and make sense of ideas and how they connect.

Understanding our uniqueness

Why does the DMN vary so much from person to person? Because it underpins deeply personal characteristics that define us, such as personality and values.

This echoes ideas like that of pioneering psychologist William James, who wrote: “Every brain-state is partly determined by the nature of this entire past succession … It is out of the question, then, that any total brain-state should identically recur.”

The DMN interacts with the rest of the brain to enable us move fluidly between the world as it is, and the world as we conceive it. Some studies suggest that disrupting DMN activity can blunt originality in creative tasks.

Altered DMN connectivity has been linked to many mental health conditions, particularly those involving self-narrative, memory and social cognition. If we can map a person’s DMN dynamics, we may be able to better understand their specific difficulties – for example, with memory or socialising – in a way that could one day lead to more personal forms of therapy.

But achieving high-quality brain maps requires lengthy scans and complex analytics. That is where precision functional mapping (combining a variety of methods including fMRI) and artificial intelligence come in.

Precision mapping can handle large amounts of data per person to chart individual networks. Machine learning models may then be able to combine these maps with genetics and symptoms to guide diagnosis and treatment.

But deeper questions need answering too. Humans are highly social animals living in complex societies. If every person’s inner world is unique, what does that mean for ethical decisions such as managing criminality or prioritising treatments?

The DMN is key to enabling our ability to imagine different futures. This includes the precise role that brain science can and should play in them.

Peter Coppola received funding from Cambridge Trust.
Peter Coppola is currently part of the University of East Anglia and an employee of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. He is also a Visiting Researcher at the University of Cambridge

Emmanuel A Stamatakis received funding related to this work from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR; RCZB/072 RG93193) and the Stephen Erskine Fellowship at Queens’ College, Cambridge.

– ref. How individual consciousness works – and makes us unique – https://theconversation.com/how-individual-consciousness-works-and-makes-us-unique-281512

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor, The Conversation

Brent crude oil surged to US$126 (£94) a barrel after US president Donald Trump announced that he was willing to prolong the blockade of Iranian ports for “months if needed”. This conflict has been billed as a matter of who can absorb the most pain. And Trump is betting on it being the US.

Trump has been rather bullish in his public pronouncements of late, declaring that Iran is in a “state of collapse”. Reports that the country’s inflation rate has risen to 50% from 40% since the war began at the end of February would seem to back this assessment.

The damage done to Iran’s economy will be made worse if the country is forced to shut down oil production due to a lack of storage capacity, something Trump is also confident about. He told Axios: “The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing. They are choking like a stuffed pig.”

Now in its eighth week, the conflict is having knock-on effects throughout the region and beyond. Perhaps the most telling sign this week was the announcement by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that it was quitting Opec, the oil producers’ cartel.

Adi Imsirovic, an energy expert at the University of Oxford, believes that while this decision has been brewing for some time – UAE and Opec’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, are at loggerheads over the civil war in Yemen and conflicts in Sudan and across the Horn of Africa. But the war has sharpened political sensibilities across the Gulf. Abu Dhabi has been unhappy about the lack of support from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) after being on the receiving end of intense bombardment from Iran.

Meanwhile, it has chafed under production quotas imposed by the cartel, which it sees as being well short – unfairly so – of its production capacity. When the Strait of Hormuz opens and countries begin to restock their reserves, UAE believes it can cash in on increased demand.

For Imsirovic, the episode reveals something deeper: as the transition by much of the world to retool their economies away from dependence on fossil fuels, big producers like the UAE worry about being left with oil in the ground that nobody wants. Hence the desire to pump out more oil without being constrained by Opec quotas.

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Read more:
UAE’s departure from Opec tells a story about the limited future of oil production

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Another question inevitably raised by the Middle East conflict and the chokehold that the Strait of Hormuz has over energy markets is why nobody has figured out an alternative route. After all, Iran has been threatening to close the strait whenever threatened since the early 1980s.

The fact is, various countries have figured out an alternative route, writes David B. Roberts of King’s College London; it’s just not big enough to cope. The East-West Pipeline (or Petroline) can pipe oil across the Saudi peninsula at a rate of 5-7 million barrels a day. This compares with an estimated 20 million barrels that transit the Strait of Hormuz in normal times.

The Abu Dhabi crude oil pipeline, which takes oil from the Habshan onshore field in Abu Dhabi and runs to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman handles less than 2 million barrels per day. Both pipelines have been damaged by Iran during the war. And both were operating before the Strait of Hormuz was closed, so the idea that these pipelines can replace the strait is not feasible.

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Read more:
What alternatives do Gulf states have to the Strait of Hormuz?

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Trump assassination attempt

It was shocking and depressing to read of another apparent attempt on the US president’s life – the third in two years – at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday. It was the first of these dinners that Trump had attended since 2011 when he was famously the butt of Barack Obama’s jokes in the by-now familiar comedy “roast” that is traditionally a highlight of the evening.

A man armed with two guns and a knife attempted to enter the ballroom where the dinner was being held, so the principals were evacuated and the dinner broke up in disarray. It later emerged that the would-be assassin had written a “manifesto” in which he revealed his hatred for the US president.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed what she called “hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump”, which she said had “helped to legitimise this violence and bring us to this dark moment”. She pointed the finger at the US Democrats and “some in the media”.

Seeking to link the assassination attempt to political rhetoric is a pretty direct attack on the first amendment to the US constitution, which protects free speech, writes Eliza Bechtold, a US constitutional law expert at the University of Oxford. The Trump administration has a track record of lionising the first amendment when it suits them (the January 6 US Capitol rioters were characterised by some as peaceful protesters exercising first amendment rights). But attacking the media or the Democrats for their criticisms of Trump’s administration is, writes Bechtold, a denial of everything the first amendment was designed to do.

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Trump uses assassination attempt to justify his assault on first amendment rights to free speech

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But not everyone in Trump’s Maga movement is now singing from the authorised songbook, writes Clodagh Harrington of the University of Cork. First it was Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a fervent Trump fan in the House of Representatives, now a bitter critic – who jumped ship in 2025, largely due to what she sees as his mishandling of the Epstein files.

More recently, it has been former Fox host Tucker Carlson, who has gone from introducing Trump at election rallies in 2024, to apologising to the US public for “misleading” them into voting for Trump. For Carlson, it’s the Iran war that flies in the face of one of Trump’s core election promises: no new wars.

Mind you, Harrington notes, Carlson’s move may also be dictated by a dream to launch his own presidential run in 2028. A TV personality running for president? Well, it has been known.

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Read more:
Is Trump losing the support of his Maga base?

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– ref. War in the Gulf and on US free speech – https://theconversation.com/war-in-the-gulf-and-on-us-free-speech-281937

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Eliza Bechtold, Programmes Manager and Research Fellow, the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford

The Trump administration has called on TV network ABC to “take a stand” after a joke from its late night comedy host Jimmy Kimmel offended the US president and first lady.

Two days before the White House Correpondents’ dinner on April 25, Kimmel broadcast what he said was a “roast” of the Trump administration. Roasts are typically quite savage comedic attacks which have become a traditional part of the dinner.

Trump, who was famously the target of jokes from former president, Barack Obama, at a dinner in 2011, had never attended the dinner while in office. This year he opted to attend, but the comedian’s spot was taken by what was described as a “mentalist”.

So Kimmel said he decided to supply the roast on his show as an “all-American” version of the Correspondents’ Dinner. In what he said was a joke about the 24-year age difference between the couple, he described Melania Trump as “having a glow like an expectant widow”. But after a would-be assassin tried to launch a murderous attack two days later at the dinner, the Trumps have demanded his sacking.

“Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behaviour at the expense of our community,” Melania Trump wrote in a post on X.

But it appears that ABC, a subsidiary of Disney, is instead standing by Kimmel, who has not been taken off air, in contrast to an episode in September 2025 when Kimmel was suspended after comments he made following the death of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, a close friend of the Trumps. After a public outcry, ABC relented and restored Kimmel’s show.

In response, Brendan Carr, the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has brought forward a review of ABC’s station licences, which were previously not scheduled until 2028 or later. Carr’s actions follow a press conference at the White House on April 26 at which press secretary Karoline Leavitt said coverage critical of Trump, including from his Democrat opponents, was responsible for the rise in political violence in the US by creating what she called a “leftwing cult of hatred”.

These examples highlight the politicisation of “free speech” by the Trump administration as a cudgel to silence disfavoured viewpoints under the guise protecting the public from harm.

First amendment protection for free speech

But these political debates are becoming increasingly distanced from the first amendment. That is, the interpretation of the first amendment by the Supreme Court and the protections it provides to individuals and entities, including media outlets and broadcast companies, from government interference. The wider this gulf becomes, the greater the space between the principles underlying the expansive protections afforded to speech in the US and the public’s understanding of the democratic principles that underpin these protections.

This is more important than ever in the Trump era. Actions taken by the administration to target broadcast networks and individuals for political speech are precisely what the first amendment protects against. It was designed, among other things, to protect individuals, entities and the press from government interference by creating an open marketplace in which ideas compete freely.

This is particularly true for dissenting political speech, which is the core of the first amendment. This explains why government interference with speech based on “the specific motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective of the speaker” – known as “viewpoint discrimination” – is expressly prohibited.

Additionally, whether and to what extent speech is offensive is irrelevant to the protection it enjoys. When it comes to the value of public debate, the first amendment is not neutral. Indeed, as a Supreme Court judgment, Baumgartner v. United States (1944) found: “One of the prerogatives of American citizenship is the right to criticize public men and measures.” Moreover a more recent judgment, Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell (1988), found that “robust political debate” is expressly encouraged, given that such debate “is bound to produce speech that is critical of those who hold public office”.

Importantly, the Supreme Court found in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) that such criticism, inevitably, will not always be reasoned or moderate and that public figures as well as public officials will be subjected to “vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks”.

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Read more:
New York Times v Sullivan: the 60-year old Supreme Court judgment that press freedom depends on in Trump era

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The motive of the speaker is also irrelevant, as the Supreme Court held in Hustler v Falwell that while a “bad motive” may be deemed controlling for tort liability and in other areas of the law, “the first amendment prohibits such a result in the area of public debate about public figures”.

Stakes couldn’t be higher

By expressly linking Democrat criticisms of the president, and pointed critiques (however off-colour) from Kimmel and his fellow political satirists to an upsurge in political violence, the Trump administration is trying to silence criticism of its actions. But it’s also clear that this behaviour is precisely what the first amendment prohibits.

Ironically, the media often portrays these episodes as “feuds” between Trump and his critics.

But when viewed through the lens of the first amendment and its core values in this context, the stakes are much higher. These episodes constitute an effort to wrest control of public discourse by interfering in the marketplace of ideas in order silence those critical of the government.

And history tells us that a government that can silence its critics often does so in pursuit of unchecked power. Viewed through this lens, perhaps the greatest threat to American democracy is the government itself.

Eliza Bechtold does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Trump uses assassination attempt to justify his assault on first amendment rights to free speech – https://theconversation.com/trump-uses-assassination-attempt-to-justify-his-assault-on-first-amendment-rights-to-free-speech-281757

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nicholas Vincent, Professor of Medieval History, University of East Anglia

In his speech to Congress during a trip to the US to mark the country’s 250th anniversary, King Charles made repeated references to Magna Carta, the medieval English charter that laid the foundations for the modern rule of law. Dating back to 1215, Magna Carta also established for the first time that the monarch was not above the law. Charles used his speech to reference the common Anglo-American tradition of law, and of how the charter has been cited in more than 160 US judgments of the US Supreme Court.

It was notable that the king chose to cite this ancient charter, which stands as a symbol of protecting freedom and guarding against tyranny, at such a tricky moment for US-UK relations. Perhaps not surprisingly in the context of an erratic and controversial US president, the remarks from the king were well received by parts of the audience.

In fact, Charles enjoyed a standing ovation when he stated that Magna Carta was the very “foundation of the principal that executive power is subject to checks and balances”. In other words, it serves as the basis for the rule of law.

Charles is only the third ruling British monarch to visit the US. But during all three visits, Magna Carta has been trumpeted in support of a supposedly very special alliance. King George VI, Charles’ grandfather, began this in 1939. Back then, he visited the New York World Fair where Lincoln Cathedral’s original Magna Carta of 1215 was on display as the centrepiece of the British pavilion.

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Read more:
How King Charles charmed the US while taking digs at Trump

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War broke out that same year, and so Lincoln’s Magna Carta became stranded in the US. It was guarded in the gold depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, until it could be returned to England in 1946.

At a low point in British fortunes following both the fall of France and the Blitz, in the summer of 1941, prime minister Winston Churchill even considered gifting it to the American people. Had he done so, this would have served as a reminder of America’s responsibilities to war-torn Europe.

In 1976, when Charles’ mother, Queen Elizabeth II, visited Washington for the bicentenary of American independence, there was again talk – not least from the British prime minister Harold Wilson – of gifting a Magna Carta to the US.

In the end, this was resolved by the presentation of a replica crafted in gold and enamel (which is now somewhat sheepishly displayed in the crypt of the US Capitol).

Legacy in US statute

In all of this, Magna Carta for many Americans remains an icon of the rule of law, or what in the US is called “due process”. Where only four of the charter’s original 60 clauses are still operative under English law, the entire text was incorporated in the statute books of no less than 17 US states, beginning with South Carolina in 1836 and ending with North Dakota in 1943.

Images of England’s King John presenting Magna Carta to his barons are carved or painted in many state capitols or court houses, including on the vast bronze doors of the Supreme Court building in Washington.

The US National Archives (thanks to a long-term loan), and Harvard Law School both possess originals of the English charter. That of the National Archives is via a reissue of 1297, sold to the presidential candidate Ross Perot in 1984, while Harvard’s is from a 1300 reissue, purchased in 1946 as a mere “copy” for US$27.50 (around £7 at the time). This was reauthenticated in 2025 as a lost (and therefore extremely valuable) original.

And in the UK, an acre of Runnymede in England, where Magna Carta was sealed, was granted to the American people in perpetuity in 1965. This was done both in honour of a shared respect for the principle of liberty, and as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1963.

Of course, there are aspects of this story that belong more to the realm of myth than reality. For instance, of Magna Carta’s many appearances in US supreme court judgments, a surprising number cite it not as a touchstone of liberty or the rights of man, but in defence of commercial or corporate privilege.

Even so, the standing ovation for King Charles and his remarks about checks and balances suggest that Magna Carta remains a potent symbol. In what was widely received as a pitch-perfect speech, the king reminded the land of the free that the price of US (or indeed UK) freedom is not only eternal vigilance, but a healthy respect for the shared Anglo-American past.

Nicholas Vincent does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘Executive power is subject to checks and balances’: why King Charles cited Magna Carta in the US Congress – https://theconversation.com/executive-power-is-subject-to-checks-and-balances-why-king-charles-cited-magna-carta-in-the-us-congress-281887