The first book in the Cultural Margins series is a ground-breaking study of racism and homophobia in British politics. Anna Marie Smith analyzes two key moments in New Right discourse: the speeches of Enoch Powell on black immigration (1968-72) and the legislative campaign of the late 1980s to prohibit the promotion of homosexuality. She challenges the silence on issues of race and sexuality in previous studies of Thatcherism and the New Right, and offers a devastating critique of racism and homophobia in late-twentieth-century Britain.
The first book in the Cultural Margins series is a 1994 study of racism and homophobia in British politics, which demonstrates the demonisation of blacks, lesbians, and gays in New Right discourse. Anna Marie Smith develops theoretical insights from literary and cultural critics, including Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Hall, and Gilroy, to produce detailed readings of two key moments in New Right discourse: the speeches of Enoch Powell on black immigration (1968-72) and the legislative campaign of the late 1980s to prohibit the promotion of homosexuality. Her analysis challenges the silence on racism and homophobia in previous studies of Thatcherism and the New Right, and shows how demonisation of lesbians and gays depends on previous demonisations of black immigrant and criminal figures. Overall, this book offers a devastating critique of racism and homophobia in late twentieth-century Britain.
While research in right-wing populism has recently been blossoming, a systematic study of the intersection of right-wing populism and gender is still missing, even though gender issues are ubiquitous in discourses of the radical right ranging from »ethnosexism« against immigrants, to »anti-genderism.« This volume shows that the intersectionality of gender, race and class is constitutional for radical right discourse. From different European perspectives, the contributions investigate the ways in which gender is used as a meta-language, strategic tool and »affective bridge« for ordering and hierarchizing political objectives in the discourse of the diverse actors of the »right-wing complex.«
New Right, New Racism is a comparative analysis of the role of racialized symbols in the right turn of US and British politics in the late 1970s through to today. The author argues that the symbol of race has been central to the New Right's project to redefine the cultural codes and broader social imaginary upon which the consensus politics of the post-war years was built. In the process of mobilizing race as an ideological articulator of the exit from consensus politics, the New Right has promoted a new form of racism qualitatively distinct from more traditional forms.
The dynamics of identity politics frequently have been studied from the perspective of 'outsider' groups, those outside the bounds of the imagined community. But how does this dynamic play out in the construction of the 'national imaginary'? This book helps reformulate how we use rights - to what end and through what means.
'There is an Australian dream that is collective. It goes to the roots of what it means to be Australian, since it's imprinted in Australia's history, the collective acts of its peoples, their attitudes, their gestures, what and how they eat, how they spend their leisure time, and the way such things reflect upon and derive from who they are.' In The Land of Plenty, Mark Davis argues that this dream has been forsaken. Over the past few decades Australians have felt the ground shift beneath their feet. Many people are asking why Australia is no longer the egalitarian place it once was. While the airwaves sing and newspaper front pages burst with news of how prosperous Australians are, many people wonder why they are working harder and longer, for so little, while important social agendas have fallen by the wayside. The Land of Plenty is at once a devastating record of the changes that have taken place in Australian society since the 1980s, and a goldmine of ideas for change. Insightful, provocative and thoroughly original, The Land of Plenty is a manifesto for our times.
Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality has been one of the most influential books of the last two decades. It has had an enormous impact on cultural studies and work across many disciplines on gender, sexuality, and the body. Bringing a new set of questions to this key work, Ann Laura Stoler examines volume one of History of Sexuality in an unexplored light. She asks why there has been such a muted engagement with this work among students of colonialism for whom issues of sexuality and power are so essential. Why is the colonial context absent from Foucault's history of a European sexual discourse that for him defined the bourgeois self? In Race and the Education of Desire, Stoler challenges Foucault's tunnel vision of the West and his marginalization of empire. She also argues that this first volume of History of Sexuality contains a suggestive if not studied treatment of race. Drawing on Foucault's little-known 1976 College de France lectures, Stoler addresses his treatment of the relationship between biopower, bourgeois sexuality, and what he identified as "racisms of the state." In this critical and historically grounded analysis based on cultural theory and her own extensive research in Dutch and French colonial archives, Stoler suggests how Foucault's insights have in the past constrained--and in the future may help shape--the ways we trace the genealogies of race. Race and the Education of Desire will revise current notions of the connections between European and colonial historiography and between the European bourgeois order and the colonial treatment of sexuality. Arguing that a history of European nineteenth-century sexuality must also be a history of race, it will change the way we think about Foucault.
In the past 20 years, a wave of right-wing populist movements has swept over Europe, changing the face of European politics. The Netherlands has been one of the more iconic countries to partake in this shift. Known internationally as an emblem of progressivism and tolerance, the country soon became a frontrunner in the revival of nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiment. This is the first study to offer an extensive engagement with the ideas behind the Dutch swing to the right. The emergence of Dutch populism, this book shows, formed an integral part of a broader conservative tendency, identified as the Dutch New Right. In the US and the UK, the term New Right has been used to describe conservative backlash movements that arose in opposition to the progressive movements of the 1960s. The Dutch swing to the right, this book argues, formed a belated iteration of the New Right backlash that occurred overseas. This text will be essential reading for students and scholars in the fields of European Studies and Political Science, and Dutch politics and society more specifically.
Does the idea of equality for sexual minorities have as strong an influence as the media suggest? How often do politicians come out forthrightly in support of gay rights? Drawing on more than three hundred interviews with activists, politicians, officials, legislative aides, and journalists, David Rayside shows that gays, lesbians, and their political issues are still on the fringe of the political mainstream. His landmark study of political access demonstrates that, despite the overall tempering of anti-gay rhetoric in the 1990s, opponents of equality are formidable, and standing up for sexual minorities is still widely thought to be politically risky. Rayside documents a high-profile controversy in each of three countries: gays and lesbians in the military in the United States, sexual orientation and human rights legislation in Canada, and the age-of-consent battle in the United Kingdom. In addition, in-depth interviews of openly gay elected officials from three countries—U.S. Congressman Barney Frank, Canadian Member of Parliament Svend Robinson, and British M.P. Chris Smith—provide an inside look at the political process: the negotiation of gay and lesbian policy issues on a daily basis, the attitudes of colleagues in various political parties, and the tensions created when grassroots and mainstream activism intersect with each other. The only major book to look at gay and lesbian politics in three culturally similar but politically disparate countries, On the Fringe explores the political workings and impact of a modern social movement.
