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Contents and Introduction
Journal of the British Academy, Volume 13 Issue 4, Contents and Editors’ Introduction
Andrew Hadfield*†
,
a.hadfield@sussex.ac.uk
Elizabeth Edwards‡
, Fiona Williams§
, Angela McRobbie¶
Abstract
The Editors introduce the fourth issue of Volume 13 of the Journal of the British Academy. This Introduction includes an overview of the content of the issue.
Keywords
social scienceshumanitiesartsinterdisciplinaryinnovativeinquiryContents
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Liz James FBA with Carol Hydes
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Maria Cristina Fumagalli and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Annelies Kusters
CONVERSATION
Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, in conversation with Angela McRobbie
THEMATIC COLLECTION
Researchers at Risk: The View from Ukrainians in the UK
Oksana Torubara
Vitaliy Shpachuk and Victoria Vdovychenko
Alona Revko
Introduction
This issue of the Journal of the British Academy sees the Journal continuing to extend its historical range and subject matter: the history of mosaics; art and literature in the West Indies; international sign language; and the economic, political, and social implications of recent developments in Ukraine.
Liz James FBA continues her lifelong exploration of the history of mosaics with an article that analyses the relationship between Giotto di Bondone (d. 1337) and this widespread art form. Giotto is almost exclusively known as a painter, and, to a lesser extent, as an architect, but, as James points out, he was undoubtedly a major mosaicist. Although the monument erected to him in Florence Cathedral in 1490 represents the artist placing tiles in a mosaic, almost all commentary on Giotto’s career and achievements ‘plays down, ignores or finds excuses for its use of mosaic and the depiction of Giotto as a mosaicist’. James makes the case that Giotto was represented as a mosaicist because he was one and argues that many mosaics of uncertain provenance were made in whole or in part by him. Only one mosaic by Giotto survives, the Navicella in St. Peter’s, Rome, which depicts Christ walking on water towards his disciples. The mosaic is now a shadow of its former glory, but it must have been a major artwork in the 14th century and one that defined Giotto’s career, perhaps ‘his most significant masterpiece’. It has often been assumed that a major artist like Giotto would not have overseen the actual production of the work, but James argues that this case is made only because art historians have not realised the importance of mosaics in Renaissance Italy. James argues that in Italy mosaics were valued, often more than the art that is most highly praised today, notably fresco painting, so would have been overseen by the master artist and given priority. Mosaics were not seen as technical designs but as art works, and our inability to understand this distorts our understanding of art history.
Maria Cristina Fumagalli FBA and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert’s article, “‘What the hell do you want to do in Puerto Rico? What would Pissarro do in St Thomas?”: Francisco Oller and the art of painting the Caribbean’, provides a timely reappraisal of the life and work of the Puerto Rican artist, Francisco Oller (1833–1917). Oller was an important force in defining the identity of Puerto Rico, and in ensuring that the Caribbean was represented in landscape painting and he deserves to be better known than he is. Oller travelled to Europe and spent time in Paris where he became a friend and artistic colleague of Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), who was born in St. Thomas, then of the Dutch Antilles, now the US Virgin Isles. Pisarro left the West Indies behind, but Oller returned to Puerto Rico, despite the scepticism of many fellow artists who thought the region provided little inspiration or subject matter for serious painters, and he worked hard to represent the country in his pictures. For Oller, giving the Caribbean a presence and identity in the art world was a valuable and important undertaking, which would stretch his talents, showing that the island was not just backward and exotic, as many European artists imagined. The Caribbean was seen as an area that failed to provide subjects for a ‘modern’ artist’, a peripheral region of secondary importance. Oller was determined to change that perception and demonstrate that the legacies of colonialism and slavery—as well as the natural beauties of the West Indian islands—were an integral part of the contemporary world and needed to be acknowledged. In his acute depictions of Caribbean fruit—a pointed contrast to the still lives of Cezanne, for example—his representations of tools and implements, and his sympathetic portraits of Puerto Rican natives, Oller sought to provide the island with a visible identity that could be understood and reproduced.
One of the aims of the Journal is to bring fields of scholarship which are not widely known to a multidisciplined audience. Professor Annelies Kuster’s article, ‘Paradoxes of International Sign: between calibration and regimentation’, is a perfect example. Based on a British Academy Lecture given at Newcastle University in April 2024, Professor Kuster, herself a deaf person, argues that the development of an international sign language is shaped by contradictions and paradoxes. Because international sign language (IS) makes possible signed communication across national boundaries and national sign languages, it is often assumed it must be a universal language. Not necessarily so.
As Kuster shows, its development over time has involved two processes in tension—one a process of ‘regimentation’ in which ‘flexible, context-dependent language practices become more controlled, recognisable, and institutionally actionable’. In other words, in order to establish IS as a distinct language that can be used in formal settings (European Commission and UN meetings, sporting events, academic conferences, etc.) language practices and perceptions are ordered, named, documented, taught, and regulated through policies which make them institutionally visible and manageable. This creates and maintains boundaries. At the same time, focusing on the dynamics of communication between those who use IS in informal and face-to-face international encounters, Kusters finds that the language is flexible, continually being adjusted by drawing on visual strategies and shared repertoires, and co-created by the signers themselves. In this way it works because it transgresses boundaries and reshapes language.
It is this focus on the enactors of IS that brings the originality of Kusters’ research to the fore. Her method of linguistic ethnography produces a fascinating film (embedded in the text) that demonstrates clearly the argument she is making about how, in contrast to regimentation, the process through which the lexicon develops in practice is one of calibration in relational and geographical contexts.
The boundary-making produces other effects beyond language. Who has access to IS is marked by hierarchies—those who can travel and those who cannot, but as well by racial and geopolitical inequalities. Yet, the expanding visibility of IS online on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, has increased its creative calibration and the erosion of the boundaries of IS and national sign languages.
The British Academy has been heavily involved in issues arising from the rapidly evolving landscape of change in higher education with particular reference to the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The Journal of the British Academy recently published a number of articles following events held in 2024 where concerns were expressed by Fellows about the impact of key subjects in our fields no longer attracting high volumes of students, resulting in courses being cut and an overall decline in the provision of important subjects. This trend, alongside the disadvantages for non-Russell Group universities following the lifting of the cap on numbers, as well as the loss of students following Brexit, has been seen by many as precipitating an overall crisis across the sector.
With these issues in mind Angela McRobbie’s interview with Sir Professor Anton Muscatelli, who has recently ended his tenure as Principal and Vice Chancellor at Glasgow University after fifteen years in the post, in fact paints an interestingly less bleak picture. Sir Anton Muscatelli points to the benefits of expansion to the university’s infrastructure of buildings in Glasgow’s West End. There is also the contribution to the wider Scottish economy through innovation and research in areas pivotal to the future of employment and growth. Sir Anton makes a robust case for a social justice agenda especially with reference to a range of access pathways for students who have not previously had opportunities to prepare for higher education. Angela McRobbie refers to the possible ambivalences of being accountable to two governments, and the interview concludes with Sir Anton seeing some pathways for collaborations across the sector to compensate for the decline in key subject areas while also envisaging a more cooperative scenario with youth exchanges in Europe.
The Journal Editors have brought together a cluster of three papers focusing on the work and experience of Ukrainian scholars in business studies, politics, and economics. They are part of the British Academy’s ‘Researchers-at-Risk’ programme, and currently working in the United Kingdom. First, Dr Oksana Torubara, looks very specifically at the complex experiences of these scholars. Based on data survey and 125 interviews, she considers gendered patterns of mobility in the time of war, the emotional toll of displacement, different disciplinary and research experiences, the tensions between caregiving, and academic responsibilities, and the desire to make a contribution to society. The overall aim of the article is not a comprehensive evaluation of the programme, but to present a clear and detailed exploration of the experience of the programme, including key prisms: how Ukrainian scholars entered the programme; the demographic makeup of the cohort, transitions from Ukrainian to UK institutions; the role of family circumstances in adaptation, and the nature of institutional support provided to scholars and accompanying family members. The range and richness of the dataset presented, and the strong voices within it, create a baseline for both assessing the personal and collective impact of displacement experience but also the working, on the ground, of the Researchers-at-Risk programme for both guests and hosts.
The second paper, by Dr Vitaliy Shpachuk and Dr Victoria Vdovychenko, explores questions of the economic viability and deterrence for investment in times of acute structural fragility, namely the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the emergence of Ukraine’s war-time economy. Positioned in larger contexts of changing dynamics in the global order, their analysis addresses two key issues: the implications of the Russia’s full-scale invasion on the economic security and economic viability of Ukraine; and the challenges of economic security and viability which affect Ukraine’s potential to deter aggressors. The analysis is framed and structured, in particular, around the impact of ‘5Ds’—disruption, diversion, destruction, displacement, and finally development, the last being the investment costs of peace. This intersects with three critical and expansive imperatives, what they call Ukraine’s ‘strategic trilemma’ for viability, namely, upholding and restoring national sovereignty within its 1991 borders; deterring and defending against Russian aggression and maintaining that economic viability. Their finely tuned discussion of economic viability, business impacts, associated risks, and emergent opportunities while focused on Ukraine has, like all the papers in this cluster, wider implications for thinking about economics in a conflict-impacted environment and their global repercussions.
The final paper of this cluster, by Dr Alona Revko, looks at both Britain and Ukraine. It considers the need for focused research on social entrepreneurship in extreme contexts in order to conceptualise the particular conditions of crisis-induced dynamics and ecosystem building. In particular, she explores the necessity of social entrepreneurs being able to navigate institutional contexts resourcefully by leveraging four key pillars: government policy and regulatory framework; funding and finance; social capital; and educational and scientific potential. Two key questions frame the study: first, how do social entrepreneurs construct and navigate social entrepreneurship ecosystems through the collaborative interactions in extreme contexts, and, second, how do challenges in stakeholder relationships and resource access drive social entrepreneurs to develop innovative collaborative approaches within these ecosystems? Based on interviews with social entrepreneurs in Britain and Ukraine, Dr Revko proposes a theoretical framework aimed at comprehending social entrepreneurship ecosystems operating in extreme contexts, based on those empirical insights. She argues that a shift in conceptualisation from individual enterprises to an ecosystem model of profound supportive interconnectedness is necessary to stabilise such endeavours in extreme environments.
What unites the papers in this cluster is a profound sense of resilience, opportunity, agency, and imagination within patterns of economic insecurity which will come to inform investments in peace. They all have international implications wider than their specific focus as Ukraine emerges as a critical case study of increasingly global problems.
Finally, Journal Volume 13, Issue 4 marks the last issue for Professor Fiona Williams, who is stepping down as Journal Editor after an eight-year term. Her contribution has been immeasurable, not only in intellectual terms, but in shepherding the Journal into its new on-line format with all the potential that it offers. We shall miss her sorely, but are delighted that she will now serve on the Editorial Board, so all is not lost. As if one loss were not enough, Professor Angela McRobbie is stepping down for personal reasons. She has brought a wealth of energy and innovation to the Journal and, although her tenure has been quite short, her contribution has been invaluable and lasting. Like Professor Williams, we are very pleased that she is joining the Editorial Board. These departures have meant editorial vacancies, so we are delighted to welcome three new Editors, bringing significant expertise and interdisciplinary knowledge across the humanities and social sciences: Professor Hilary Graham FBA, University of York, Professor Pablo Mukherjee FBA, University of Oxford, and Professor Mike Savage FBA, London School of Economics. The editorial team is now five strong, reflecting both the volume of interesting material we are now being offered and its ever-expanding disciplinary reach.
We thank our Editorial Board for their support; our dedicated peer reviewers; and our authors whose research and professionalism makes the Journal possible. We remain indebted to the Publishing department of the British Academy for their combined experience, knowledge, and efficiency in producing the Journal, and especially for their openness to discussions about the Journal’s future development.
Cite
DOI: 10.5871/jba/013.a39
Published on: 5 December 2025
Volume: 13
Issue: Issue 4
Article view count: 664
Article download count: 15
Copyright statement
© The author(s) 2025. This is an open access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International LicenseCite this article
Hadfield, A., Edwards, E., Williams, F. & McRobbie, A. (2025), ‘Journal of the British Academy, Volume 13 Issue 4, Contents and Editors’ Introduction’, Journal of the British Academy, 13(4): a39 https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/013.a39Crossref
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Received
October 2022
Accepted
May 2023
Published
July 2023
Editors’ Introduction to Journal of the British Academy, Volume 12, Issues 1 & 2 Fiona Williams, Elizabeth Edwards, Andrew Hadfield
The Editors reveal their ambitions for the newly relaunched Journal of the British Academy, including an explanation of the types of articles that it will contain in future. There is also a description of the contents of the double issue with which the Journal is being relaunched.
22 May 2024
The arts and humanities: rethinking value for today—introduction Isobel Armstrong
This kaleidoscope of short pieces derives from two Fellows Engagement Week sessions (2022, 2023) in which speakers from across the British Academy—Theatre Studies, Anthropology, Modern History, History of Science, English, Philosophy, Music—gave ten-minute talks on the civic value of the arts and humanities. The British Academy’s SHAPE acronym, answering the Royal Society’s STEM formulation, understandably stresses the economic importance of arts and humanities in today’s challenging technological world (E is for Economy). The remit of this forum, however, was to remake and reclaim arguments for the civic importance of arts and humanities, recognising that accounts of the arts are often based on 19th-century arguments that no longer have force today. Three themes emerge from this forum: the importance of collaboration, the non-instrumental significance of aesthetic experience, and the centrality of language to civic life. (This article is published in the thematic collection ‘The arts and humanities: rethinking value for today—views from Fellows of the British Academy’, edited by Isobel Armstrong.)
10 September 2024
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