Contemporary British fiction and the cultural politics of disenfranchisement : freedom and the city / Alexander Beaumont.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Beaumont, Alexander, 1984- author.

Contributor:

Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--21st century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Politics and literature--Great Britain.

Politics and literature.

Great Britain.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

vii, 239 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Summary:

"During the 1980s, urban space became an important battleground in a confrontation between left and right over the meaning of freedom. While Thatcherism sought to harness the power of the free market to rationalise and reform the inner cities, the response of the 'cultural' left was to celebrate the emancipatory potential of flexible identities and expressive practices associated with urban subcultures. However, through close readings of eight contemporary authors, this book argues that a problematic consequence of the left's experiment with freedom was to elevate exclusion to the status of a political principle and to close down the space of politics itself. It explores how, in less than two decades, the coexistence of flexible cultural identities and urban space has become a virtual impossibility in British fiction. And it suggests that, today, the British novel is frequently marked by structures of failed utopianism, frustrated or incomplete experiments and even withdrawal and quietism, all of which are a consequence of the left's celebration of a cultural politics of disenfranchisement"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note:

1.Introduction: 'What We Need Now...'PART I: IDENTIFYING THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF DISENFRANCHISEMENT 2.Resistance and Rationalisation: Exile and the Inner Cities in Jeanette Winterson's The Passion3.Rave to the Grave: Hanif Kureishi and the Failure of Left Culturalism4.Politics is Over: Flexibility and Freedom in J.G. Ballard's Late DystopiasPART II: LOCATING URBAN CULTURE IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BRITISH FICTION5.The New Culture Wars: Neo/Liberal Pedagogy in Ian McEwan's Saturday and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go6.Placing Politics: Home and the Right to Habitation in Monica Ali's Brick Lane and Zadie Smith's NW7.Coda: The Postcultural City and the Postculturalist LeftBibliographyIndex.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

1137393718

9781137393715

OCLC:

898925100

Publisher Number:

99963532326