Literature, Immigration, and Diaspora in Fin-de-Siècle England

Literature, Immigration, and Diaspora in Fin-de-Siècle England
Author: David Glover
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2012-09-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139536788

The 1905 Aliens Act was the first modern law to restrict immigration to British shores. In this book, David Glover asks how it was possible for Britain, a nation that had prided itself on offering asylum to refugees, to pass such legislation. Tracing the ways that the legal notion of the 'alien' became a national-racist epithet indistinguishable from the figure of 'the Jew', Glover argues that the literary and popular entertainments of fin de siècle Britain perpetuated a culture of xenophobia. Reconstructing the complex socio-political field known as 'the alien question', Glover examines the work of George Eliot, Israel Zangwill, Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad, together with forgotten writers like Margaret Harkness, Edgar Wallace and James Blyth. By linking them to the beliefs and ideologies that circulated via newspapers, periodicals, political meetings, Royal Commissions, patriotic melodramas and social surveys, Glover sheds new light on dilemmas about nationality, borders and citizenship.

Changes in Attitudes to Immigrants in Britain, 1841-1921

Changes in Attitudes to Immigrants in Britain, 1841-1921
Author: Ben Braber
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2020-11-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1785276360

This book reviews changes in attitudes to immigrants in Britain and the language that was used to put these feelings into words between 1841 and 1921. Using a historical and linguistic method for an analysis of so far for this purpose relatively unused primary sources, it offers novel findings. It has found that changes in the meaning and use of the word alien in Britain coincided during the period between 1841 and 1921 with the expression of changing attitudes to immigrants in this country and the modification of the British variant of the English language. When people in Britain in these years used the term ‘an alien’, they meant most likely a foreigner, stranger, refugee or immigrant. In 1841 an alien denoted a foreigner or a stranger, notably a person residing or working in a country who did not have the nationality or citizenship of that country. However, by 1921 an alien mainly signified an immigrant in Britain – a term which, as this book shows, had in the course of the years since 1841 acquired very negative connotations.

The Fin-de-Siècle World

The Fin-de-Siècle World
Author: Michael Saler
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 784
Release: 2014-11-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317604814

This comprehensive and beautifully illustrated collection of essays conveys a vivid picture of a fascinating and hugely significant period in history, the Fin de Siècle. Featuring contributions from over forty international scholars, this book takes a thematic approach to a period of huge upheaval across all walks of life, and is truly innovative in examining the Fin de Siècle from a global perspective. The volume includes pathbreaking essays on how the period was experienced not only in Europe and North America, but also in China, Japan, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, India, and elsewhere across the globe. Thematic topics covered include new concepts of time and space, globalization, the city, and new political movements including nationalism, the "New Liberalism", and socialism and communism. The volume also looks at the development of mass media over this period and emerging trends in culture, such as advertising and consumption, film and publishing, as well as the technological and scientific changes that shaped the world at the turn of the nineteenth century, such as the invention of the telephone, new transport systems, eugenics and physics. The Fin-de-Siècle World also considers issues such as selfhood through chapters looking at gender, sexuality, adolescence, race and class, and considers the importance of different religions, both old and new, at the turn of the century. Finally the volume examines significant and emerging trends in art, music and literature alongside movements such as realism and aestheticism. This volume conveys a vivid picture of how politics, religion, popular and artistic culture, social practices and scientific endeavours fitted together in an exciting world of change. It will be invaluable reading for all students and scholars of the Fin-de-Siècle period.

The Discourse of Repatriation in Britain, 1845-2016

The Discourse of Repatriation in Britain, 1845-2016
Author: Daniel Renshaw
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2021-03-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429018657

Examining responses to migration and settlement in Britain from the Irish Famine up to Brexit, The Discourse of Repatriation looks at how concepts of removal evolved in this period, and the varied protagonists who have articulated these ideas in different contexts. Analysing the relationship between discourse and action, Renshaw explores how ideas and language originating on the peripheries of debate on migration and belonging can permeate the mainstream and transform both discussion and policy. The book sheds light both on how the migrant ‘other’ has been viewed in Britain, historically and contemporaneously, and more broadly how the relationship between state, press, and populace has developed from the early Victorian period onwards. It identifies key junctures where the concept of the removal of ‘othered’ groups has crossed over from the rhetorical to the actual, and considers why this was the case. Based on extensive original archival research, the book reassesses modern British history through the lens of the most polarised attitudes to immigration and demographic change. This book will be of use to readers with an interest in migration, diaspora, the development of populism and political extremes, and more broadly the history of modern Britain.

Re-Thinking Literary Identities

Re-Thinking Literary Identities
Author: Laura Monrós-Gaspar
Publisher: Universitat de València
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2018-06-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 8491342613

Great Britain is changing, and so is Europe. The aim of this book, therefore, is to reflect upon the processes of (re)creation of art and literature within and against the backdrop of the shifting paradigms of the world as we know it. At a time when the political relations between Great Britain, Europe and the rest of the world are being redefined, this book examines the (de)construction of modern identities through the (de)codification of classical and contemporary mythologies.

Migration, Modernity and Transnationalism in the Work of Joseph Conrad

Migration, Modernity and Transnationalism in the Work of Joseph Conrad
Author: Kim Salmons
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-07-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350168939

Examining the notion of migration and transnationalism within the life and work of Joseph Conrad, this book situates the multicultural and transnational characters that comprise his fiction while locating Conrad as a subject of the Russian state whose provenance is Polish, but whose identity is that of a merchant sailor and English country gentleman. Conrad's characters are often marked by crossings – changes of nation, changes of culture, changes of identity – which refract Conrad's own cultural transitions. These crossings not only subjectivise the experience of the migrant through the modern complexities of technology and speed, but also through cross-cultural encounters of food and language. Collectively, these essays explore the experience of the migrant as exile; the inescapable intermeshing of migration, modernity and transnationalism as well as Conrad's own global and multicultural outlook. Conrad's work writes across historical, political and ethnic borders speaking to a transnational reality that continues to have relevance today.

Literature Now

Literature Now
Author: Sascha Bru
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2016-01-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0748699260

Literature Now argues that modern literary history is currently the main site of theoretical and methodological reflection in literary studies. Via 19 key terms, the book takes stock of recent scholarship and demonstrates how analyses of particular historical phenomena have modified our understanding of crucial notions like archive, book, event, media, objects, style and the senses. The book not only reveals a rich diversity of subjects and approaches but also identifies the most salient traits of literature and literary studies today. Leading literary critics and historians offer thought-provoking arguments as well as authoritative explorations of the key terms of literary studies providing students as well as scholars with a rich resource for exploring theoretical issues from a historically informed perspective.

Edwardian Culture

Edwardian Culture
Author: Samuel Shaw
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 489
Release: 2017-11-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1351378457

Edwardian Culture: Beyond the Garden Party is the first truly interdisciplinary collection of essays dealing with culture in Britain c.1895-1914. Bringing together essays on literature, art, politics, religion, architecture, marketing, and imperial history, the study highlights the extent to which the culture and politics of Edwardian period were closely intertwined. The book builds upon recent scholarship that seeks to reclaim the term ‘Edwardian’ from prevalent, restrictive usages by venturing beyond the garden party – and the political rally – to uncover some of the terrain that lies between. The essays in the volume – which deal with both famous writers such as J. M. Barrie and Arnold Bennett, as well as many lesser-known figures – draw attention to the nuanced multiplicity of experience and cultural forms that existed during the period, and highlight the ways in which a closer examination of Edwardian culture complicates our definitions of ‘Victorian’ and ‘Modern’. The book argues that the Edwardian era, rather than constituting a coda to the Victorian period or a languid pause before modernism shook things up, possessed a compelling and creative tenor of its own.

Margaret Harkness

Margaret Harkness
Author: Flore Janssen
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2018-12-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1526123525

This collection places the life and work of Margaret Harkness at the heart of a broader consideration of the socially turbulent decades around the turn of the twentieth century in order to illuminate historical forms of women’s political activism.

The Cambridge Companion to ‘Dracula'

The Cambridge Companion to ‘Dracula'
Author: Roger Luckhurst
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2018
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1107153174

This celebrated Gothic novel is explored through essays providing critical, historical, anthropological, philosophical and intellectual contexts that serve to further the understanding and appreciation of Dracula in all its many guises. Together the essays offer exciting new critical approaches to the most famous vampire in literature and film.