Full Description
The growing debate over British national identity, and the place of "Englishness" within it, raises crucial questions about multiculturalism, postimperial culture and identity, and the past and future histories of globalization. However, discussions of Englishness have too often been limited by insular conceptions of national literature, culture, and history, which serve to erase or marginalize the colonial and postcolonial locations in which British national identity has been articulated. This volume breaks new ground by drawing together a range of disciplinary approaches in order to resituate the relationship between British national identity and Englishness within a global framework. Ranging from the literature and history of empire to analyses of contemporary culture, postcolonial writing, political rhetoric, and postimperial memory after 9/11, this collection demonstrates that far from being parochial or self-involved, the question of Englishness offers an important avenue for thinking about the politics of national identity in our postcolonial and globalized world.
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Nationalism Beyond the Nation-State
Graham MacPhee & Prem Poddar
PART I: NATION AND EMPIRE
Chapter 1. "As White As Ours": Africa, Ireland, Imperial Panic, and the Effects of British Race Discourse
Enda Duffy
Chapter 2. Writing About Englishness: South Africa's Forgotten Nationalism
Vivian Bickford-Smith
Chapter 3. Passports, Empire, Subjecthood
Prem Poddar
Chapter 4. Friends Across the Water: British Orientalists and Middle Eastern Nationalisms
Geoffrey Nash
Chapter 5. Under English Eyes: The Disappearance of Irishness in Conrad's The Secret Agent
Graham MacPhee
PART II: POSTCOLONIAL LEGACIES
Chapter 6. Brit Bomber: The Fundamentalist Trope in Hanif Kureishi's The Black Album and "My Son the Fanatic"
Sheila Ghose
Chapter 7. Crisis of Identity? Englishness, Britishness, and Whiteness
Bridget Byrne
Chapter 8. Conserving Purity, Labouring the Past: A Tropological Evolution of Englishness
Colin Wright
Chapter 9. All the Downtown Tories: Mourning Englishness in New York
Matthew Hart
Notes on Contributors
Index
