While the gender and age of the girl may seem to remove her from any significant contribution to empire, this book provides both a new perspective on familiar girls' literature, and the first detailed examination of lesser-known fiction relating the emergence of fictional girl adventurers, castaways and 'ripping' schoolgirls to the British Empire.
This reader collects together articles by key historians, literary critics and anthropologists on the cultures of colonialism in the British Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is divided into three sections: theoretical, emphasizing approaches; the colonisers "at home"; and "away".
From Colonial to Modern examines representations of girls in Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand girls' literature to trace how colonial authors transformed British feminine norms to produce transnational ideals and modern, nationalised femininities.
First published in 1978, and winning the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize for that year, Finding a Voice established a new discourse on South Asian women's lives and struggles in Britain. This new edition includes a preface by Meena Kandasamy, some historic photographs, and a remarkable new chapter by young South Asian women.
The Irish New Woman explores the textual and ideological connections between feminist, nationalist and anti-imperialist writing and political activism at the fin de siècle . This is the first study which foregrounds the Irish and New Woman contexts, effecting a paradigm shift in the critical reception of fin de siècle writers and their work.
In this collection the multidimensional story of children’s literature in the formative period of the long nineteenth century is illuminated, questioned, and, in some respects, rewritten. Children’s literature might be characterised as the love-child of the Enlightenment and the Romantic movements, and much of its history over the long nineteenth century shows it being defined, shaped, and co-opted by a variety of agents, each of whom has their own ambitions for it and for its child readership. Is children’s literature primarily a way of educating children in the principles of reason and morality? A celebration of the Rousseauesque child? A source of pleasure and entertainment? Women, both as writers and as nurturers involved at an intimate and daily level with the raising of children, recognised early and often very explicitly the multiple capacities of literature to provide entertainment, useful information, moral education and social training, and the occasionally conflicting nature of these functions. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women’s Writing.
The essays in this collection examine women in diverse roles; mother, socialite, prostitute, celebrity, medical practitioner and patient. The wide range of commentators allows a diverse picture of women’s health in this period.
Women of war is an examination of gender modernity using the world’s longest established women’s military organisation, the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. These New Women’s adoption of martial uniform and military-style training, their inhabiting of public space, their deployment of innovative new technologies such as the motor car, the illustrated press, advertisements and cinematic film and their proactive involvement in the First World War illustrate why the Corps and its socially elite members are a particularly revealing case study of gender modernity. Bringing into dialogue both public and personal representations, it makes a major contribution to the social and cultural history of Britain in the early twentieth century and will appeal to undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars working in the fields of military history, animal studies, trans studies, dress history, sociology of the professions, nursing history and transport history.
This collection seeks to understand the long-lasting and global appeal of Tarzan: Why is a story about a feral boy, who is raised by apes in the African jungle, so compelling and so adaptable to different cultural contexts and audiences? How is it that the same narrative serves as the basis for both children’s cartoons and lavish musical productions or as a vehicle for both nationalistic discourse and for light romantic fantasy? Considering a history of criticism that highlights the imperialistic, sexist, racist underpinnings of the original Tarzan narrative, why would this character and story appeal to so many readers and viewers around the world? The essays in this volume, written by scholars living and working in Australia, Canada, Israel, The Netherlands, Germany, France and the United States explore these questions using various critical lenses. Chapters include discussions of Tarzan novels, comics, television shows, toys, films, and performances produced or distributed in the U.S., Canada, Israel, Palestine, Britain, India, The Netherlands, Germany and France and consider such topics as imperialism, national identities, language acquisition, adaptation, gender constructions, Tarzan’s influence on child readers and Tarzan’s continued and broad influence on cultures around the world. What emerges, when these pieces are placed into dialogue with one another, is an immensely complex picture of an enduring, multi-faceted global pop culture icon.
