Ian Fleming and the Politics of Ambivalence

Ian Fleming and the Politics of Ambivalence
Author: Ian Kinane
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2021-04-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350128988

Previously considered an avowed nationalist, this book explores how Ian Fleming's writings and his representational politics contain an implicit resistance to imperial rhetoric. Through an examination of Fleming's Jamaica-set novels Live and Let Die, Dr. No, and The Man with the Golden Gun, as well as the later film adaptations of these novels, Ian Kinane reveals Fleming's deep ambivalence to British decolonisation and to wider Anglo-Caribbean relations. Offered here is a crucial insight into the public imagination during the birth of modern British multiculturalism that encompasses broader links between Fleming's writings on race and the representation of early British-Jamaican cultural relations. By exploring the effects of racial representation in these popular works, Kinane connects the novels to more contemporary concerns regarding migration and the ways in which the misrepresentation of cultures, races, and peoples has led to fraught and contentious global geo-political relations as figured in the fictional icon, James Bond.

Ian Fleming and the Politics of Ambivalence

Ian Fleming and the Politics of Ambivalence
Author: Ian Kinane
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2021-04-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 135012897X

Previously considered an avowed nationalist, this book explores how Ian Fleming's writings and his representational politics contain an implicit resistance to imperial rhetoric. Through an examination of Fleming's Jamaica-set novels Live and Let Die, Dr. No, and The Man with the Golden Gun, as well as the later film adaptations of these novels, Ian Kinane reveals Fleming's deep ambivalence to British decolonisation and to wider Anglo-Caribbean relations. Offered here is a crucial insight into the public imagination during the birth of modern British multiculturalism that encompasses broader links between Fleming's writings on race and the representation of early British-Jamaican cultural relations. By exploring the effects of racial representation in these popular works, Kinane connects the novels to more contemporary concerns regarding migration and the ways in which the misrepresentation of cultures, races, and peoples has led to fraught and contentious global geo-political relations as figured in the fictional icon, James Bond.

The Bondian Cold War

The Bondian Cold War
Author: Martin D. Brown
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2023-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 100093473X

James Bond, Ian Fleming’s irrepressible and ubiquitous ‘spy,’ is often understood as a Cold Warrior, but James Bond’s Cold War diverged from the actual global conflict in subtle but significant ways. That tension between the real and fictional provides perspectives into Cold War culture transcending ideological and geopolitical divides. The Bondiverse is complex and multi-textual, including novels, films, video games, and even a comic strip, and has also inspired an array of homages, copies, and competitors. Awareness of its rich possibilities only becomes apparent through a multi-disciplinary lens. The desire to consider current trends in Bondian studies inspired a conference entitled ‘The Bondian Cold War,’ convened at Tallinn University, Estonia in June 2019. Conference participants, drawn from three continents and multiple disciplines – film studies, history, intelligence studies, and literature, as well as intelligence practitioners – offered papers on the literary and cinematic aspects of the ‘spy’, discussed fact versus fiction in the Bond canon, went in search of a global Bond, and pondered gender and sexuality across the Bondiverse. This volume of essays inspired by that conference, suitable for students, researchers, and anyone interested in Cold War culture, makes vital contributions to understanding Bond as a global phenomenon, across traditional divisions of East and West, and beyond the end of the Cold War from which he emerged.

Licence to Thrill

Licence to Thrill
Author: James Chapman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2024-04-18
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1350211109

In this new edition of Licence To Thrill, James Chapman builds upon the success of his classic work, regarded as the definitive scholarly study of the history of the James Bond film series from the first picture, Dr No (1962), to the present. He considers the origins of the films in the spy thrillers of Ian Fleming and examines the production histories of the films in the contexts of the British and international film industries. This edition includes a new introduction and chapters on Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021). Chapman explores how the films have changed over time in response to developments in the wider film culture and society at large. He charts the ever-evolving Bond formula, analysing the films' representations of nationhood, class, and gender in a constantly shifting cinematic and ideological landscape.

The Irregulars

The Irregulars
Author: Jennet Conant
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2009-09-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0743294599

Following her bestselling accounts of the most guarded secrets of the Second World War, Conant offers a rollicking true story of spies, politicians, journalists, and intrigue in the highest circles of Washington during the tumultuous days of World War II.

The Many Facets of Diamonds Are Forever

The Many Facets of Diamonds Are Forever
Author: Oliver Buckton
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2019-03-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1498567584

Diamonds Are Forever—the fourth James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, published in 1956—is widely recognized as one of the most intriguing and original works in the 007 series. With its exciting settings including West Africa, Las Vegas, and the horse-racing center of Saratoga Springs, the novel explores the thrilling themes of diamond smuggling, gambling, gangsters, sex, and espionage. Moreover, the novel is unique in being set outside the conventional Cold War milieu of other Fleming novels, allowing readers to explore Fleming’s views of America without reference to its Cold War antagonist, the Soviet Union. This collection of essays is the first to explore Fleming’s novel in depth, as well as delve into the remarkable 1971 film adaptation directed by Guy Hamilton (who also directed Goldfinger), and starring Sean Connery in his final “official” appearance as 007. Updating Fleming’s novel for the post-1960s culture of sexual liberation and mass-market consumerism, Hamilton’s film departs from the novel by introducing Ernst Stavro Blofeld—the head of SPECTRE and James Bond’s nemesis—as the arch-villain. The ten original essays in this collection focus on diverse themes such as the central role of Tiffany Case—one of Fleming’s most memorable “Bond girls”—in novel and film; Fleming’s fascination with diamonds, reflected in this novels intertextual connections to the non-fiction book The Diamond Smugglers; the author’s ambivalent relationship with American culture; the literary style of Diamonds Are Forever, including its generic status as a “Hollywood novel”; and the role of homosexuality in the novel and film versions of Diamonds Are Forever. Bringing together established Bond scholars and new emerging critics, this collection offers unique insight into one of the most influential works of modern popular culture, casting new light on the many facets of Diamonds Are Forever.

Isn't it Ironic?

Isn't it Ironic?
Author: Ian Kinane
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2021-04-25
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000377016

This volume addresses the relationship between irony and popular culture and the role of the consumer in determining and disseminating meaning. Arguing that in a cultural climate largely characterised by fractious communications and perilous linguistic exchanges, the very role of irony in popular culture needs to come under greater scrutiny, it focuses on the many uses, abuses, and misunderstandings of irony in contemporary popular culture, and explores the troubling political populism at the heart of many supposedly satirical and (apparently) non-satirical texts. In an environment in which irony is frequently claimed as a defence for material and behaviour judged controversial, how do we, as a society entrenched in forms of popular culture and media, interpret work that is intended as satire but which reads as unironic? How do we accurately decode works of popular film, literature, television, music, and other cultural forms which sell themselves as bitingly ironic commentaries on current society, but which are also problematic celebrations of the very issues they purport to critique? And what happens when texts intended and received in one manner are themselves ironically recontextualised in another? Bringing together studies across a range of cultural texts including popular music, film and television, Isn’t it Ironic? will appeal to scholars of the social sciences and humanities with interests in cultural studies, media studies, popular culture, literary studies and sociology.

The Dead Yard

The Dead Yard
Author: Ian Thomson
Publisher: Bold Type Books
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2011-03-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1568586663

Named the Dolman Travel Book of the Year, The Dead Yard paints an unforgettable portrait of modern Jamaica. Since independence, Jamaica has gradually become associated with twin images--a resort-style travel Eden for foreigners and a new kind of hell for Jamaicans, a society where gangs control the areas where most Jamaicans live and drug lords like Christopher Coke rule elites and the poor alike. Ian Thomson's brave book explores a country of lost promise, where America's hunger for drugs fuels a dependent economy and shadowy politics. The lauded birthplace of reggae and Bob Marley, Jamaica is now sunk in corruption and hopelessness. A synthesis of vital history and unflinching reportage, The Dead Yard is "a fascinating account of a beautiful, treacherous country" (Irish Times).