Political Rhetoric

Chair: Evelyn John

"Finis: the Roman conception of ‘border’ in Livy" by Antonio Montesanti

Livy’s Ab Urbe condita provides the largest number of examples and usages of bordering practices. Livy’s chronological structure may provide a clear understanding  of conceptual and practical meanings, which the Romans gave to the line of separation between two different realities (commonly named boundaries).

AUC presents the most extensive use of the word finis in Latin Literature, appearing in many different contexts and with different meanings. By analysing the contexts of where finis has been used and highlighting some peculiar examples, my paper will: a) show that the massive and explicit incidence of the Livian terminology on bordering instances is constantly associated with several different contexts (religious, sacral, political, geographical, topographical) ; b) bestow a structural and chronological periodization on the contextual transformation of the term finis; c) provide several but concrete links with archaeological contexts, where a factual usage and  application of the term finis is present.

Livy is the witness of an age (1st century BC), when borders and boundary practices become more evident and necessary. AUC probably represents the link, which connects the Archaic and the Republican border practices with the Early Empire; the Augustan policy of the borders (fines) and its purposes seems to be reflected and synthesised in Livy’s work.

“‘Back to the Future’: The Traditionalist Utopia in Spanish Political Thought” by Stephen Lynam

A Utopian political vision, by definition, cannot become reality. But when a political movement espousing Utopian views does not recognise that their views are Utopian, then  totalitarianism will frequently result. Leaders of such movements exhibit the propensity to use extreme force and terror to capture the state and enforce control in the cause of achieving the vision. One strand of far-right Utopian political thought, Traditionalism, however,  stands aside from this belief in force to achieve its ultimate goal. Traditionalism’s Utopian vision can be found in a mythic reimagining of the Middle Ages, a world supposedly 'organic', consensual, decentralised and united by the “social cement” of religious uniformity and fervent love of the rightful monarch. The paper discusses Traditionalist ideology, and why Pretenders  frequently espouse Traditionalist views. Ideology is discussed with some reference to British Jacobitism and French Legitimism, but mainly by reference to Spanish Carlism, the most successful movement, measured by its longevity, popular support and ideological sophistication. Focussing on the ideas of its main theoretician, Váquez de Mella, the paper explains the Traditionalist critique of liberal and socialist thought, and explores the  contradictions in Carlist ideology, particularly its inability to develop a coherent programme for winning power and implementing its programme so that its vision has remained forever Utopian.   

'''Not something we can afford to ignore'': the Mosley-Marchbank case and Labour responses to British fascism, 1933-36.' by James Parker

Accounts of the British Labour movement’s responses to the threat of fascism in the 1930s have tended to focus on the international dimension and foreign policy, to the extent that the approach taken by the Labour party, Trades Union Congress and individual trade unions to fascist political organisation within Britain has been relatively neglected. Focussing on a High Court slander case which pitted the General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, John Marchbank, against Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, this paper attempts to pull several strands of existing analysis together with often-overlooked evidence in order to develop a more detailed account of the Labour movement’s response to fascism in Britain in the crucial period 1933-36. It suggests that this response, based on the gathering of detailed empirical evidence on fascist activity and aimed at exposing fascists to public scrutiny, was both more systematic, and more effective, than often supposed; furthermore that analysis of Labour’s approach to British fascism can also reveal broader aspects of the movement’s political culture in the period.