Moral Complexities in Turn of the Millennium British Literature
Moral Complexities in Turn of the Millennium British Literature

Author: Mara E. Reisman

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-11-08

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 1793648476

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Moral Complexities in Turn of the Millennium British Literature offers a critical analysis of moral complexity and social responsibility in works by Kazuo Ishiguro, Patrick McGrath, Graham Swift, Andrea Levy, and Jeanette Winterson. Mara Reisman argues that through their writing, these authors reveal and upset literary, cultural, and political fictions and encourage readers to think carefully about language, power, community, and social justice. The book examines moral issues in two different ways: how books by these authors address morally complex social, political, and cultural issues and how their books serve a moral function by challenging readers to be socially engaged. Reisman provides an in-depth analysis of The Remains of the Day, Asylum, The Light of Day, Small Island, and The Daylight Gate and uses these books to discuss twentieth- and twenty-first-century British politics and culture. These books address a wide variety of issues often associated with moral judgments: war, racism, adultery, maternal neglect, murder, professional misconduct, witchcraft, and religion. Despite this diversity and settings that range from the seventeenth century to the late twentieth century, these books include similar arguments about how empathy, personal responsibility, and civic engagement can create more productive social relations and a less divided world.

A History of British, Irish and American Literature
A History of British, Irish and American Literature

Author: Hans-Peter Wagner

Publisher: WVT (Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier)

Published: 2021-10-04

Total Pages: 612

ISBN-13: 3868219218

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The third revised and enlarged edition contains discussions of British, Irish and American literary works up to 2020. Focussing on outstanding writings in prose, poetry, drama and non-fiction, the book covers the time from the Anglo-Saxon period to the 21st century. The feature that makes this literary history unique among its rivals is the coverage of television/web series as a particular form of postmodern drama. The chapters on recent drama now contain detailed analyses of the development of TV and web series from Britain, Ireland and America, with extensive discussions of those series now considered classics. In addition, there are several major innovative features. To begin with, each century is introduced by a survey of the socio-political and cultural backgrounds in which the literary works are embedded. Furthermore, extensive visual material (more than 160 engravings, cartoons and paintings) has been integrated. This visual aspect as well as the introductory sections on art for each century give the reader an excellent idea of the symbiosis between visual and literary representations. Further innovative aspects include - discussions of non-fictional works from literary criticism and theory, travel writing, historiography, and the social sciences - analyses of such popular genres as crime fiction, science fiction, fantasy, the Western, horror fiction, and children’s literature - footnotes explaining technical and historical terms and events - a detailed glossary of literary terms - chronological tables for British/Anglo-Irish and American literatures an updated (cut-off date 2020), extensive bibliography containing suggestions for further reading

The American Experiment and the Idea of Democracy in British Culture, 1776–1914
The American Experiment and the Idea of Democracy in British Culture, 1776–1914

Author: Ruth Livesey

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-01

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 1317045246

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In nineteenth-century Britain, the effects of democracy in America were seen to spread from Congress all the way down to the personal habits of its citizens. Bringing together political theorists, historians, and literary scholars, this volume explores the idea of American democracy in nineteenth-century Britain. The essays span the period from Independence to the First World War and trace an intellectual history of Anglo-American relations during that period. Leading scholars trace the hopes and fears inspired by the American model of democracy in the works of commentators, including Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, Alexis de Tocqueville, Charles Dickens, John Stuart Mill, Richard Cobden, Charles Dilke, Matthew Arnold, Henry James and W. T. Stead. By examining the context of debates about American democracy and notions of ’culture’, citizenship, and race, the collection sheds fresh light on well-documented moments of British political history, such as the Reform Acts, the Abolition of Slavery Act, and the Anti-Corn Law agitation. The volume also explores the ways in which British Liberalism was shaped by the American example and draws attention to the importance of print culture in furthering radical political dialogue between the two nations. As the comprehensive introduction makes clear, this collection makes an important contribution to transatlantic studies and our growing sense of a nineteenth-century modernity shaped by an Atlantic exchange. It is an essential reference point for all interested in the history of the idea of democracy, its political evolution, and its perceived cultural consequences.

Beyond Postmodernism
Beyond Postmodernism

Author: Klaus Stierstorfer

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2012-05-02

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 3110906813

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After the veritable hype concerning postmodernism in the 1980s and early 1990s, when questions about when it began, what it means and which texts it comprises were apt to trigger heated discussions, the excitement has notably cooled down at the turn of the century. Voices are now beginning to be heard which seem to suggest a new episteme in the making which points beyond postmodernism, while it remains at the same time very uncertain whether what appears as newness is not rather a return to traditional concepts, theoretical premises, and authorial practices. Contributors to this volume propose to explore new openings and recent developments in anglophone literatures and cultural theories which engage with issues seen to be central in the construction of a postmodern paradigm, but deal with them in ways that promise new openings or a new Zeitgeist.

The Skillful Self
The Skillful Self

Author: John Stopford

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2009-03-16

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0739135082

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The Skillful Self: Liberalism, Culture, and the Politics of Skill presents a political liberal theory of cultural participation and the goals of cultural policy in contemporary pluralistic democracies. The ideal of cultural participation, which many regard as central to the self-conception of modern constitutional democracies, is often subject to the distorting influences of state perfectionism, paternalism, consumerism, and ideology. These distortions and the problems they raise are intensified by the forces of social, cultural, and economic globalization. Using the tools of contemporary liberal theory,The Skillful Self develops an approach to the politics of culture that focuses on the concept of skill and its place in a liberal conception of the self. Support for this approach is derived from the work of Nussbaum and Sen, who make a conception of human capability basic to their views of public policy and the design of political institutions. But the politics of skill modifies the capability approach by characterizing the central human functional capabilities as functions of the skillful self. The final chapters of the book describe the competences of the skillful self, elaborating a new typology of skills and explaining why basic institutions are obliged to promote them. To make the role of skill in the central capabilities explicit in this way is not to invoke the perfectionist ideal of a culture of skill, but rather to focus on the structural role of skill in a nonperfectionist conception of truly human functioning, and on the social conditions of individual capability viewed as a function of skill.

Writing the Modern Family
Writing the Modern Family

Author: Roberta Garrett

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-01-29

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1786605198

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Although a large body of work has emerged which addresses neoliberal representations of the family in other cultural forms (such as parenting advice programmes) little has been written specifically on the family and contemporary literature. This book examines the growing body of autobiographical and fictional writing on family and parenting issues in Anglo-American culture from the late 1990s to the present day. The book looks closely at six distinct genres which have arisen during this time frame: the misery memoir, the mum’s lit popular novel, the maternal confessional, ‘dads’ lit, the dysfunctional domestic novel and the family noir. Writing the Modern Family will examine the way these burgeoning areas of British and American writing respond to a neoliberal public discourse in which a ‘parenting deficit’ rather than economic and structural disadvantage, is responsible for increasing inequality in child welfare and achievement. In evaluating these forms and their relationship to neoliberal culture, the book will also consider the complex interrelationship between these genres.

Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society
Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society

Author: David H. Guston

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2010-07-14

Total Pages: 1025

ISBN-13: 1452266174

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Labeled either as the "next industrial revolution" or as just "hype," nanoscience and nanotechnologies are controversial, touted by some as the likely engines of spectacular transformation of human societies and even human bodies, and by others as conceptually flawed. These challenges make an encyclopedia of nanoscience and society an absolute necessity. Providing a guide to what these understandings and challenges are about, the Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society offers accessible descriptions of some of the key technical achievements of nanoscience along with its history and prospects. Rather than a technical primer, this encyclopedia instead focuses on the efforts of governments around the world to fund nanoscience research and to tap its potential for economic development as well as to assess how best to regulate a new technology for the environmental, occupational, and consumer health and safety issues related to the field. Contributions examine and analyze the cultural significance of nanoscience and nanotechnologies and describe some of the organizations, and their products, that promise to make nanotechnologies a critical part of the global economy. Written by noted scholars and practitioners from around the globe, these two volumes offer nearly 500 entries describing the societal aspects of nanoscience and nanotechnology. Key Themes - Art, Design, and Materials - Bionanotechnology Centers - Context - Economics and Business - Engagement and the Public - Environment and Risk - Ethics and Values - Geographies and Distribution - History and Philosophy - Integration and Interdisciplinarity - Nanotechnology Companies - Nanotechnology Organizations

English Literature in Context
English Literature in Context

Author: Paul Poplawski

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-05-18

Total Pages: 757

ISBN-13: 1107141672

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From Anglo-Saxon runes to postcolonial rap, this undergraduate textbook covers the social and historical contexts of the whole of the English literature.

Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754)
Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754)

Author: Knud Haakonssen

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-02-17

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1317103068

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Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754) was the foremost representative of the Danish-Norwegian Enlightenment and also a European figure of note. He published significant works in natural law and history, but also a very important body of moral essays and epistles. He authored several engaging autobiographies and European travelogues, a major utopian novel that was an immediate European succes, interesting satires that advocated women’s education and career, and a large number of comedies. These comedies secured Holberg’s status as the most significant playwright in Scandinavia before Ibsen and Strindberg. Through his extensive oeuvre, but especially through his plays, Holberg had a decisive influence on the formation of modern Danish as a literary language, something that was a self-conscious effort on the part of a man who saw himself as an educator of the public. Despite his contemporary impact at home and abroad and his ongoing popularity in Scandinavia, he remains little known in the wider world of enlightenment studies. It is the aim of this volume to revive Holberg as a major figure from a minor corner of the Enlightenment world by presenting the full variety of his work and giving it a European context.