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Culture/Metaculture
Culture/Metaculture is a stimulating introduction to the meanings of 'culture' in contemporary Western society. This essential survey examines: * culture as an antidote to 'mass' modernity, in the work of Thomas Mann, Julien Benda, José Ortega y Gasset, Karl Mannheim and F. R. Leavis * changing views of the term in the work of Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, T. S. Eliot and Richard Hoggart * post-war theories of 'popular' culture and the rise of Cultural Studies, paying particular attention to the key figures of Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall * theories of 'metaculture', or the ways in which culture, however defined, speaks of itself. Francis Mulhern's interdisciplinary approach allows him to draw out the fascinating links between key political issues and the changing definitions of culture. The result is an unrivalled introduction to a concept at the heart of contemporary critical thought.
The Moment of "Scrutiny"
Few thinkers have had more impact on English-speaking culture in the twentieth century than the late F.R. Leavis (1895-1978). Paradoxically, his literary-critical studies and the cultural ideas associated with them have become pervasive influences, whilst losing none of their power of provocation. Yet amidst the extremes of admiration and hostility that his name attracts-in academic circles and beyond, on Left and Right alike-little serious attention has been given to what was his most audacious and significant venture: the journal, Scrutiny, whose chief editor he was for twenty years, until its closure in 1953. The specific history of this fascinating cultural enterprise is now studied for ...
Contemporary Marxist Literary Criticism
Marxism has had an enormous impact on literary and cultural studies, and all those interested in the field need to be aware of its achievements. This collection presents the very best of recent Marxist literary criticism in one single volume. An international group of contributors provide an introduction to the development, current trends and evolution of the subject. They include such notable Marxist critics as Tony Bennett, Terry Eagleton, Edward W. Said, Raymond Williams and Fredric Jameson. A diverse range of subjects are analysed such as James Bond, Brecht, Jane Austen and the modern history of the aesthetic.
What Is Cultural Criticism?
In What Is Cultural Criticism?, two leading critics grapple with problems of literature, politics and intellectual practice. The debate opens with Francis Mulhern's account of what he terms 'metacultural discourse'. This embraces two opposing critical traditions, the elite pessimism of Kulturkritik and the populist enthusiasms of Cultural Studies. Each in its own way dissolves politics into culture, Mulhern argues. Collini, on the other hand, protests that cultural criticism provides resources for genuine critical engagement with contemporary society. Tension between culture and politics there may be, but it works productively in both directions. This widely noticed encounter is that rare thing, a sustained debate in which, as Collini remarks, the protagonists not only exchange shots but also ideas. It concludes with Mulhern's engagement with Collini's writing on the subordination of universities to metrics and bureaucracy, and a companion rejoinder from Collini on Mulhern's study of the 'condition of culture novel' and his essays on questions of nationality and the politics of intellectuals.
Culture/metaculture
A stimulating, interdisciplinary survey of the conceptual and political issues involved in the notion of twentieth-century culture. This accessible study introduces important theorists including Freud, Woolf, Orwell, and Sartre.Culture/Metaculture is a stimulating introduction to the meanings of 'culture' in contemporary Western society. This essential survey examines:* culture as an antidote to 'mass' modernity, in the work of Thomas Mann, Julien Benda, José Ortega y Gasset, Karl Mannheim and F. R. Leavis* changing views of the term in the work of Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, T. S. Eliot and Richard Hoggart* post-war theories of 'popular' culture and the rise of Cultural Studies, paying particular attention to the key figures of Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall* theories of 'metaculture', or the ways in which culture, however defined, speaks of itself.Francis Mulhern's interdisciplinary approach allows him to draw out the fascinating links between key political issues and the changing definitions of culture. The result is an unrivalled introduction to a concept at the heart of contemporary critical thought.
Figures of Catastrophe
The leading critic Francis Mulhern uncovers a hidden history in the fiction of the past century, identifying a central new genre: the condition of culture novel. Reading across and against the grain of received patterns of literary association, tracing a line from Hardy and Forster, through Woolf, Waugh and Bowen, to Barstow, Fowles, Rendell, Naipaul, Amis, Kureishi and Smith, he elucidates the recurring topics and narrative logics of the genre, showing how culture emerges as a special ground of social conflict, above all between classes. The narrative evaluations of culture's ends-the aspirations and the destinies of those whose lives are the subject of these novels-grow steadily darker over time, and the writing itself grows more introverted. A concluding discussion elicits the characteristics of the English condition of culture novel, in an international setting, and closes in, finally, on the central conundrum of the genre: its uncanny reprise, in its own plane, of the historical arc of the modern labour movement in Britain, from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century through its post-war heyday to the seemingly inexorable decline of recent decades.
Serious Noticing
The definitive collection of literary essays by The New Yorker’s award-winning longtime book critic Ever since the publication of his first essay collection, The Broken Estate, in 1999, James Wood has been widely regarded as a leading literary critic of the English-speaking world. His essays on canonical writers (Gustav Flaubert, Herman Melville), recent legends (Don DeLillo, Marilynne Robinson) and significant contemporaries (Zadie Smith, Elena Ferrante) have established a standard for informed and incisive appreciation, composed in a distinctive literary style all their own. Together, Wood’s essays, and his bestselling How Fiction Works, share an abiding preoccupation with how fiction tells its own truths, and with the vocation of the writer in a world haunted by the absence of God. In Serious Noticing, Wood collects his best essays from two decades of his career, supplementing earlier work with autobiographical reflections from his book The Nearest Thing to Life and recent essays from The New Yorker on young writers of extraordinary promise. The result is an essential guide to literature in the new millennium.
Literary Criticism
Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. The Critical Revolution Turns Right -- 2. The Scholarly Turn -- 3. The Historicist/Contextualist Paradigm -- 4. The Critical Unconscious -- Conclusion: The Future of Criticism -- Appendix: The Critical Paradigm and T.S. Eliot -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index
The Satanism Scare
Although there is growing concern over Satanism as a threat to American life, the topic has received surprisingly little serious attention. Recognizing this, the editors of this volume have selected papers from a wide variety of disciplines, broadly covering contemporary aspects of Satanism from the vantage points of studies in folklore, cults, religion, deviance, rock music, rumor, and the mass media.All contributors are skeptical of claims that a large, powerful satanic conspiracy can be substantiated. Their research focuses instead on claims about Satanism and on the question of whose interests are served by such claims. Several papers consider the impact of anti-Satanism campaigns on public opinion, law enforcement and civil litigation, child protection services, and other sectors of American society.The constructionist perspective adopted by the editors does not deny the existence of some activities by 'real' Satanists, and two papers describe the workins of satanic groups. Whatever the basis of the claims examined and analyzed, there is growing evidence that belief in the satanic menace will have real social consequences in the years ahead.
