Doris Lessing and the forming of history / edited by Kevin Brazil, David Sergeant and Tom Sperlinger.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Brazil, Kevin, 1987- editor.

Sergeant, David, 1979- editor.

Sperlinger, Tom, 1979- editor.

Judith Greenblatt Endowment Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Lessing, Doris, 1919-2013--Criticism and interpretation.

Lessing, Doris.

Lessing, Doris, 1919-2013.

Criticism and interpretation.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xvi, 208 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2016.

Summary:

The death of Nobel Prize-winning Doris Lessing sparked a range of commemorations that cemented her place as one of the major figures of twentieth- and twenty-first-century world literature. This volume views Lessing's writing as a whole and in retrospect, focusing on her innovative attempts to rework literary form to engage with the challenges thrown up by the sweeping historical changes through which she lived. The 12 original chapters provide new readings of Lessing's work via contexts ranging from post-war youth politics and radical women's writing to European cinema, analyse her experiments with genres from realism to autobiography and science-fiction, and draw on previously unstudied archive material. The volume also explores how Lessing's writing can provide insight into some of the issues now shaping twenty-first century scholarship - including trauma, ecocriticism, the post-human, and world literature - as they emerge as defining challenges to our own present moment in history.

Contents:

1 Early Lessing, Commitment, the World / Adam Guy Guy, Adam 10

2 'I'm an adolescent. And that's how I'm going to stay': Lessing and Youth Culture 1956-1962 / Nick Bentley Bentley, Nick 26

3 Sequence, Series and Character in Children of Violence / Kevin Brazil Brazil, Kevin 39

4 The Politics of Form: The Golden Notebook and Women's Radical Literary Tradition / Rowena Kennedy-Epstein Kennedy-Epstein, Rowena 56

5 Readers of Fiction and Readers in Fiction: Readership and The Golden Notebook / Sophia Barnes Barnes, Sophia 71

6 From The Grass is Singing to The Golden Notebook: Film, Literature and Psychoanalysis / Laura Marcus Marcus, Laura 84

7 'A funny thing laughter, what's it for?': Humour and Form in Lessing's Fiction / Cornelius Collins Collins, Cornelius 97

8 Lessing and the Scale of Environmental Crisis / David Sergeant Sergeant, David 111

9 Lessing and Time Travel / David Punter Punter, David 128

10 Lessing's Interruptions / Tom Sperlinger Sperlinger, Tom 137

11 Lessing's Witness Literature / Elizabeth Maslen Maslen, Elizabeth 152

12 A Catastrophic Universe: Lessing, Posthumanism and Deep History / Clare Hanson Hanson, Clare 164.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Judith Greenblatt Endowment Fund.

ISBN:

9781474414432

1474414435

OCLC:

949913220

Publisher Number:

99970149606