Reaganism, Thatcherism and the Social Novel

Reaganism, Thatcherism and the Social Novel PDF Author: C. Hutchinson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230594905
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
The social novel is the traditional haunt of the liberal conscience. What does the triumph of the New Right mean for this type of fiction in Britain and the US? Should the liberal left seek consensus or assertion? This book examines these issues, and assesses the state of both nations, as well as that of the contemporary novel.

Reaganism, Thatcherism and the Social Novel

Reaganism, Thatcherism and the Social Novel PDF Author: C. Hutchinson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230594905
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
The social novel is the traditional haunt of the liberal conscience. What does the triumph of the New Right mean for this type of fiction in Britain and the US? Should the liberal left seek consensus or assertion? This book examines these issues, and assesses the state of both nations, as well as that of the contemporary novel.

The Comic Turn in Contemporary English Fiction

The Comic Turn in Contemporary English Fiction PDF Author: Huw Marsh
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474293042
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
The Comic Turn in Contemporary English Fiction explores the importance of comedy in contemporary literature and culture. In an era largely defined by a mood of crisis, bleakness, cruelty, melancholia, environmental catastrophe and collapse, Huw Marsh argues that contemporary fiction is as likely to treat these subjects comically as it is to treat them gravely, and that the recognition and proper analysis of this humour opens up new ways to think about literature. Structured around readings of authors including Martin Amis, Nicola Barker, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Coe, Howard Jacobson, Magnus Mills and Zadie Smith, this book suggests not only that much of the most interesting contemporary writing is funny and that there is a comic tendency in contemporary fiction, but also that this humour, this comic licence, allows writers of contemporary fiction to do peculiar and interesting things – things that are funny in the sense of odd or strange and that may in turn inspire a funny turn in readers. Marsh offers a series of original critical and theoretical frameworks for discussing questions of literary genre, style, affect and politics, demonstrating that comedy is an often neglected mode that plays a generative role in much of the most interesting contemporary writing, creating sites of rich political, stylistic, cognitive and ethical contestation whose analysis offers a new perspective on the present.

Ramsey Campbell

Ramsey Campbell PDF Author: Keith M. C. O'Sullivan
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1786839873
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
This book pays overdue attention to the British writer Ramsey Campbell, a key figure in the post-1970s boom in Anglo-American horror fiction. Despite a huge output and receiving every accolade within his field over a long career, Campbell has not yet been accorded anything like the wider critical recognition given to his contemporary Stephen King. This study concentrates also on Campbell’s neglected novels and novellas, rather than the short stories for which he has been better known. The book Ramsey Campbell establishes the author’s unique prose style, denoted by a haunted self-consciousness about the act of writing and role of readership, and his distinctive mediation of the Gothic tradition: religiously agnostic, politically liberal and ethically humane. For the first time, Campbell’s works are interpreted in the contexts of trends in postmodernist and posthumanist thought and compared explicitly to King’s, and his contribution to both Gothic studies and wider contemporary literature is appraised.

The 1980s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction

The 1980s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction PDF Author: Philip Tew
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441168532
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1980s shape contemporary British fiction? Setting the fiction squarely within the context of Conservative politics and questions about culture and national identity, this volume reveals how the decade associated with Thatcherism frames the work of Kazuo Ishiguro, Martin Amis, and Graham Swift, of Scottish novelists and new diasporic writers. How and why 1980s fiction is a response to particular psychological, social and economic pressures is explored in detail. Drawing on the rise of individualism and the birth of neo-liberalism, contributors reflect on the tense relations between 1980s politics and realism, and between elegy and satire. Noting the creation of a 'heritage industry' during the decade, the rise of the historical novel is also considered against broader cultural changes. Viewed from the perspective of more recent theorisations of crisis following both 9/11 and the 21st-century financial crash, this study makes sense of why and how writers of the 1980s constructed fictions in response to this decade's own set of fundamental crises.

Jonathan Coe

Jonathan Coe PDF Author: Philip Tew
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350027693
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
In novels such as What A Carve Up! and The Rotters' Club, Jonathan Coe has established himself as one of the great satirical writers of our time. Covering all of his major novels, including his most recent book Number 11, Jonathan Coe: Contemporary British Satire includes chapters by leading and emerging scholars of contemporary British writing. The book features a preface by Coe himself and covers the ways in which his work grapples with such themes as class politics, popular music, sex, gender and the media.

Neoliberalism and Cultural Transition in New Zealand Literature, 1984-2008

Neoliberalism and Cultural Transition in New Zealand Literature, 1984-2008 PDF Author: Jennifer Lawn
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739177427
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Through a literary lens, Neoliberalism and Cultural Transition in New Zealand Literature, 1984-2008: Market Fictions examines the ways in which the reprise of market-based economics has impacted the forms of social exchange and cultural life in a settler-colonial context. Jennifer Lawn proposes that postcolonial literary studies needs to take more account of the way in which the new configuration of dominance—increasingly gathered under the umbrella term of neoliberalism—works in concert with, rather than against, assertions of cultural identity on the part of historically subordinated groups. The pre-eminence of new right economics over the past three decades has raised a conundrum for writers on the left: while neoliberalism has tended to undermine collective social action, it has also fostered expressions of identity in the form of “cultural capital” which minority communities can exploit for economic gain. Neoliberalism and Cultural Transition in New Zealand Literature, 1984-2008 advocates for reading practices that balance the appeals of culture against the structuring forces of social class and the commodification of identity, while not losing sight of the specific aesthetic qualities of literary fiction. Jennifer Lawn demonstrates the value of this approach in a wide-ranging account of New Zealand literature. Movements towards decolonization in a bicultural society are read within the context of a marginal post-industrial economy that was, in many ways, a test case for radical free market reforms. Through a study of politically-engaged writing across a range of genres by both Māori and non-Māori authors, the New Zealand experience shows in high relief the twinned dynamics of a decline in the ideal of social egalitarianism and the corresponding rise of the idea of culture as a transformative force in economic and civic life, tending ultimately to blur the distinction between these spheres altogether. This work includes well-recognized authors such as Alan Duff, Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Eleanor Catton and Maurice Gee, but also introduces a number of non-canonical or emergent writers whose work is discussed in detail for the first time in this volume. The result is a distinctive literary history of a turbulent period of social and economic change.

British Literature in Transition, 1980–2000

British Literature in Transition, 1980–2000 PDF Author: Eileen Pollard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107121426
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
This volume shows how British literature recorded contemporaneous historical change. It traces the emergence and evolution of literary trends from 1980-2000.

Power in Politics and Academia in Jonathan Coe's Novels

Power in Politics and Academia in Jonathan Coe's Novels PDF Author: Denisa Dumitrascu
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527509710
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
This book explores the intricate manifestations of contemporary power, its related ideology, and the “resistance” and reaction to the dominant discourse in Jonathan Coe’s political fiction, covering the dismantling of the British social-democratic consensus, Thatcherism and Blairism, up to the new ideology of “Globalism.” Beyond the predictable dichotomy of support-opposition to power, the book argues the modern individual seems to have found another ontological approach, for which it coins the concept of “intentional unpower”. Furthermore, it demonstrates that there are three possibilities regarding the evolution of this type of social response, and invites the readers to discover them, while enjoying Coe’s subtlety and humour. Given its broad approach, the book will appeal to researchers in a wide range of domains, including literary and cultural studies, political theory, and sociology, as well as any reader fascinated with the essence of power, intellectual response, and discourses containing their own elements of subversion.

Contemporary Crisis Fictions

Contemporary Crisis Fictions PDF Author: E. Horton
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137350202
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This book offers a significant statement about the contemporary British novel in relation to three authors: Graham Swift, Ian McEwan, and Kazuo Ishiguro. All writing at the forefront of a generation, these authors sought to resuscitate the novel's ethico-political credentials, at a time which did not seem conducive to such a project.

The politics of male friendship in contemporary American fiction

The politics of male friendship in contemporary American fiction PDF Author: Michael Kalisch
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526156342
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
How might our friendships shape our politics? This book examines how contemporary American fiction has rediscovered the concept of civic friendship and revived a long tradition of imagining male friendship as interlinked with the promises and paradoxes of democracy in the United States. Bringing into dialogue the work of a wide range of authors – including Philip Roth, Paul Auster, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Dinaw Mengestu, and Teju Cole – this innovative study advances a compelling new account of the political and intellectual fabric of the American novel today.