Contemporary British Literature and Urban Space [electronic resource] : After Thatcher /
Duff, K.author.
Looking at writers such as Will Self, Hani Kureishi, JG Ballard, and Iain Sinclair, Kim Duff's new book examines contemporary British literature and its depiction of the city after the time of Thatcher and mass privatization. This lively study is an important and engaging work for students and scholars alike.
Description based upon print version of record.
Cover; Contents; Acknowledgements; Note on the Text; Introduction: The Spatial Turn: Dialectics of Space and Identity; Thatcher in space; The 'Spatial Turn'; 1 'The Script That Has Been Eradicated from the Street': Iain Sinclair's Lights Out for the Territory, Julian Barnes's England, England, and the Spaces of English Heritage; Heritage and national identity: Theme-parked identities and the erasure of the unmarketable; 'Nothing is erased': Sinclair's urban tracings; Ephemeral transcriptions of the urban; England, England: The spaces of the history market; Conclusion, or after the lights dim
2 'House Arrest': Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, J.G. Ballard's High-Rise, Thatcherite Council Estates, and the New Under ClassHousing, identity, and the rolling back of the welfare state; Ballard's High-Rise: Community, class, and the dystopic possibilities of the tower block; Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting: The spaces of abject identities; 'Winter in West Granton';  or another winter of discontent; 'It Goes Without Saying': Neoliberalism, historical identities, and the spaces of addiction; 'House Arrest': Heroin, family, and the spaces of kicking
Conclusion: The production of spatialized identities3 Space, Production, and Identity: Monica Ali's Brick Lane, Hanif Kureishi's My Beautiful Laundrette, and Powellite Englishness; Community, identity, and space; Race and class: Enoch Powell, the 1960s, and the 1970s; Brick Lane, or how to get ahead in Tower Hamlets; Nazneen as urban/urban as process; Hanif Kureishi's My Beautiful Laundrette, space, and the productive citizen; Conclusion: Domestic production, or the production of identity; 4 The Spaces of the Thatcherite Body: Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty and Will Self's Dorian
Thatcher as puppet, or the puppetry of ThatcherPublic and private shifts: Section 28, Thatcher, and the 1980s; The postmodern investment: Nick, the Lloyd's building, and the spaces of identity; The Iron Lady, or The Lady keeps on turning; Let's dance: Consuming the Thatcherite body; Will Self's Dorian and the consumptive body; Conclusion: Two sides to every Thatcher; Conclusion: Thatcher in Space, or the Spaces of Thatcher; Notes; Works Cited; Index
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Looking at writers such as Will Self, Hani Kureishi, JG Ballard, and Iain Sinclair, Kim Duff's new book examines contemporary British literature and its depiction of the city after the time of Thatcher and mass privatization. This lively study is an important and engaging work for students and scholars alike.
Thatcher, Margaret
Literature—Philosophy.
British literature.
Culture—Study and teaching.
Literature, Modern—20th century.
Fiction.
Literature—History and criticism.
Literary Theory.
British and Irish Literature.
Cultural Theory.
Twentieth-Century Literature.
Fiction.
Literary History.