Search results for ""Author Hywel Dix""
University of Wales Press Compatriots or Competitors?: Welsh, Scottish, English and Northern Irish Writing and Brexit in Comparative Contexts
This is the first comparative study of the distinctive literatures and cultures that have developed in Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland since political devolution in the late 1990s, especially surrounding Brexit. The book argues that in conceptualising their cultures as ‘national’, each nation is caught up in a creative tension between emulating forms of cultural production found in the others to assert common aspirations, and downplaying those connections in order to forge a sense of cultural distinctiveness. The author explores the resulting dilemmas, with chapters analysing the growth of the creative industries; the relationship between UK City of Culture and its forerunner, the European Capital of Culture; national book prizes in Britain and Europe; British variations on Nordic Noir TV; and the Brexit novel. With regard to separate cultural precursors and responses in each nation, Brexit itself is debated as a factor that has widened their differences, placing the future of the UK in question.
£24.99
University of Wales Press After Raymond Williams: Cultural Materialism and the Break-up of Britain
After Raymond Williams: Cultural Materialism and the Break-Up of Britain has two broad aims. The first is to re-examine the concept of cultural materialism, the term used by Raymond Williams to describe his theory of how writing and other cultural forms relate to general social and historical processes. Using this theory, the second objective is to explore the material ways in which contemporary British writing participates in one particular political process - that of the break-up of Britain. The general trajectory of the book is a matter of superseding Williams: the early chapters are devoted to extrapolating Williams's materialist theory of cultural forms, while later chapters are concerned with applying this theoretical material to a series of readings of books and films produced in the years since his death in 1988. This volume provides a detailed account of some of the writing produced in Scotland and Wales in the years surrounding political devolution, and also considers the ways in which different subcultural communities use fiction to renegotiate their relationships with the British whole.
£10.64
