The British working class in postwar film

The British working class in postwar film

Author: Philip Gillett

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2019-01-04

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1526141809

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An incidental pleasure of watching a film is what it tells us about the society in which it is made. Using a sociological model, The British working class in postwar film looks at how working-class people were portrayed in British feature films in the decade after the Second World War. Though some of the films examined are well known, others have been forgotten and deserve reassessment. Original statistical data is used to assess the popularity of the films with audiences. With its interdisciplinary approach and the avoidance of jargon, this book seeks to broaden the approach to film studies. Students of media and cultural studies are introduced to the skills of other disciplines, while sociologists and historians are encouraged to consider the value of film evidence in their own fields. This work should appeal to all readers interested in social history and in how cinema and society works.


Working Class Cultures in Britain, 1890-1960

Working Class Cultures in Britain, 1890-1960

Author: Prof Joanna Bourke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-01-28

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1134858582

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Integrating a variety of historical approaches and methods, Joanna Bourke looks at the construction of class within the intimate contexts of the body, the home, the marketplace, the locality and the nation to assess how the subjective identity of the 'working class' in Britain has been maintained through seventy years of radical social, cultural and economic change. She argues that class identity is essentially a social and cultural rather than an institutional or political phenomenon and therefore cannot be understood without constant reference to gender and ethnicity. Each self contained chapter consists of an essay of historical analysis, introducing students to the ways historians use evidence to understand change, as well as useful chronologies, statistics and tables, suggested topics for discussion, and selective further reading.


Representations of Working-Class Masculinities in Post-War British Culture

Representations of Working-Class Masculinities in Post-War British Culture

Author: Matthew Crowley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-02-06

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0429535716

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This book presents an analysis of representations of white, heterosexual, working-class masculinities in British culture between 1945 and 1989 to trace the development of the sociocultural and material conditions that shaped the masculinities which are helping to shape contemporary culture. This book seeks to fan the ‘spark of hope’ in the past that informs our present. The period which saw the establishment of the welfare state and the construction and breakdown of the post-war consensus in British politics was of great significance in the formation and maintenance of working-class masculinities and their correspondent representations. The author engages with a variety of cultural texts across various modes and media including films (Alfie), plays (Don’t Look Back in Anger), television (Boys from the Blackstuff), and music (The Beatles), and employs the analysis of the representation of working-class masculinities as a lens through which to examine a range of historical and cultural moments. This book reinstates class as a central precept in the study of British cultural representations and offers a timely intervention in ongoing debates around class and gender identities in Britain. The book will be key reading for students and researchers with interests in twentieth-century social and cultural British history, masculinities and gender studies, twentieth-century British literature, British television, and cultural studies more broadly.


Working-class Fiction

Working-class Fiction

Author: Ian Haywood

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0746307853

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This is the first study for more than ten years of this radical genre, covering working class literature over the last 150 years. It argues that working-class fiction has flourished in periods of major social and political change.


Postwar Politics, Society and the Folk Revival in England, 1945-65

Postwar Politics, Society and the Folk Revival in England, 1945-65

Author: Julia Mitchell

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-09-19

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1350071226

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The English folk revival cannot be understood when divorced from the history of post-war England, yet the existing scholarship fails to fully engage with its role in the social and political fabric of the nation. Postwar Politics, Society and the Folk Revival in England is the first study to interweave the story of a gentrifying folk revival with the socio-political tensions inherent in England's postwar transition from austerity to affluence. Julia Mitchell skillfully situates the English folk revival in the context of the rise of the new left, the decline of heavy industry, the rise of local, regional and national identities, the 'Americanisation' of English culture and the development of mass culture. In doing so, she demonstrates that the success of the English folk revival derived from its sense of authenticity and its engagement with topical social and political issues, such as the conflicted legacy of the Welfare State, the fight for nuclear disarmament and the fallout of nationalization. In addition, she shrewdly compares the US and British revival to identify the links but also what was distinctive about the movement in Britain. Drawing on primary sources from folk archives, the BBC, the music press and interviews with participants, this is a theoretically engaged and sophisticated analysis of how postwar culture shaped the folk revival in England.


The Intersection of Class and Space in British Postwar Writing

The Intersection of Class and Space in British Postwar Writing

Author: Simon Lee

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-12-29

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1350193119

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Centering on the British kitchen sink realism movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s, specifically its documentation of the built environment's influence on class consciousness, this book highlights the settings of a variety of novels, plays, and films, turning to archival research to offer new ways of thinking about how spatial representation in cultural production sustains or intervenes in the process of social stratification. As a movement that used gritty, documentary-style depictions of space to highlight the complexities of working-class life, the period's texts chronicled shifts in the social and topographic landscape while advancing new articulations of citizenship in response to the failures of post-war reconstruction. By exploring the impact of space on class, this book addresses the contention that critical discourse has overlooked the way the built environment informs class identity.


The working class in mid-twentieth-century England

The working class in mid-twentieth-century England

Author: Ben Jones

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2018-09-30

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1526130300

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This book maps how working class life was transformed in England in the middle years of the twentieth century. National trends in employment, welfare and living standards are illuminated via a focus on Brighton, providing valuable new perspectives of class and community formation. Based on fresh archival research, life histories and contemporary social surveys, the book historicises important cultural and community studies which moulded popular perceptions of class and social change in the post-war period. It shows how council housing, slum clearance and demographic trends impacted on working-class families and communities. While suburbanisation transformed home life, leisure and patterns of association, there were important continuities in terms of material poverty, social networks and cultural practices. This book will be essential reading for academics and students researching modern and contemporary social and cultural history, sociology, cultural studies and human geography.


Class, Culture and Social Change

Class, Culture and Social Change

Author: J. Kirk

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2007-10-11

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0230590225

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Drawing on the work of Raymond Williams, Valentin Volosinov and Mikhail Bakhtin, the book examines key issues for working-class studies including: the idea of the 'death' of class; the importance of working-class writing; the significance of place and space for understanding working-class identity; and the centrality of work in working-class lives.


Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain

Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain

Author: Alan Sinfield

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2007-03-15

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 1441179135

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Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain is a landmark work in contemporary literary and cultural analysis. It offers a provocative and brilliant account of political change since 1945 and how such change shaped the cultural output of our time. It also looks at how and when literature intersects with other cultural forms - including jazz and rock music, television, journalism, commercial and "mass" cultures - and the growth of American cultural dominance. This edition includes a new foreword by the author.