Narrating poverty and precarity in Britain / edited by Barbara Korte and Frédéric Regard.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Korte, Barbara, editor.

Regard, Frédéric, editor.

Series:

Culture & conflict ; Volume 5.

Culture & Conflict, 2194-7104 ; Volume 5

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poverty in literature--Great Britain.

Poverty in literature.

Social problems in literature--Great Britain.

Social problems in literature.

English fiction--History and criticism--Great Britain.

English fiction.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (240 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin, [Germany] ; Boston, [Massachusetts] : Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Poverty and precarity have gained a new societal and political presence in the twenty-first century's advanced economies. This is reflected in cultural production, which this book discusses for a wide range of media and genres from the novel to reality television. With a focus on Britain, its chapters divide their attention between current representations of poverty and important earlier narratives that have retained significant relevance today.The book's contributions discuss the representation of social suffering with attention to agencies of enunciation, ethical implications of 'voice' and 'listening', limits of narratability, the pitfalls of sensationalism, voyeurism and sentimentalism, potentials and restrictions inherent in specific representational techniques, modes and genres; cultural markets for poverty and precarity. Overall, the book suggests that analysis of poverty narratives requires an intersection of theoretical reflection and a close reading of texts.

Contents:

Front matter

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Narrating Poverty and Precarity in Britain: An Introduction / Korte, Barbara

Envying the Poor: Contemporary and Nineteenth-Century Fantasies of Vulnerability / Betensky, Carolyn

Managing the Unmanageable: Paradoxes of Poverty in Harriet Martineau's Illustrations of Political Economy (1832-1834) / Rostek, Joanna

"We have learned the value of poverty": (Re‐)Presentations of the Poor in Nineteenth-Century Melodramas / Frenk, Joachim

The Sexual Exploitation of the Poor in W. T. Stead's 'New Journalism': Humanity, Democracy and the Tabloid Press / Regard, Frédéric

"The Amateur Casuals": Immersion among the Poor from James Greenwood to George Orwell / Abrunhosa, Marina Remy

Flann O'Brien's The Poor Mouth and the Deconstruction of Stereotypes about Irish Poverty / Egbert, Marie-Luise

Frames of Recognition under Global Capitalism: Eastern European Migrants in British Fiction / Eveline, Kilian

"The Last Voice of Democracy": Precarity, Community and Fiction in Alan Warner's Morvern Callar (1995) / Romain, Nguyen Van

Life on the Streets: Parallactic Ways of Seeing Homelessness in John Berger's King: A Street Story (1999) / Zipp, Georg

Poverty on the Market: Precarious Lives in Popular Fiction / Korte, Barbara

Weaponizing Prurience / Hester, Helen

Biographies of the Contributors

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed February 11, 2015).

ISBN:

9783110365740

311036574X

9783110391367

3110391368

OCLC:

898769820