3,100 research outputs found
Eugenics, literature and culture in post-war Britain
No full textThis book explores eugenics in its wider social context and in literary representations in post-war Britain. Drawing on a wide range of sources in medicine, social and educational policy, genetics, popular science, science fiction, and literary texts, Hanson tracks the dynamic interactions between eugenic ideas across diverse cultural fields, demonstrating the strength of the eugenic imagination. Challenging assumptions that eugenics was fatally compromised by its association with Nazi atrocities, or that it petered out in the context of changed social attitudes in an egalitarian post-war society, the book demonstrates that eugenic thought not only persisted after 1945, but became more prominent. Throughout, eugenics is defined as a cultural movement, rather than more narrowly as a science, and the study is focused on its border-crossing capacity as a ‘style of thought.’ By tracing the expression of eugenic ideas across disciplinary boundaries and in both high and low culture, this book demonstrates the powerful and pervasive influence of eugenics in the post-war years. Authors visited include Raymond Williams, John Braine, Agatha Christie, Muriel Spark, Anthony Burgess, Doris Lessing, and J.G. Ballard
The book of repetition: Rachel Cusk and maternal subjectivity
No full textThis essay discusses Cusk’s representation of maternal subjectivity in the context of an Anglo-American post-feminist culture which construes motherhood simultaneously as an individual choice and a social responsibility. It argues that what is distinctive about Cusk’s writing on motherhood is her focus first on the disjunctions between subjective experience and public discourses of motherhood and secondly on the fissures within maternal subjectivity which are, in part, a consequence of this disjunction. This essay explores her treatment of these themes with reference to popular discourses of motherhood and the psychoanalytic perspectives which are both invoked and critiqued in her work.Cet article analyse la manière dont Cusk représente la subjectivité maternelle dans le contexte d’une culture anglo-américaine que l’on pourrait qualifier de post-moderniste et qui construit le fait d’être mère à la fois comme un choix individuel et comme une responsabilité sociale. Cet article montre que ce qui rend le discours de Cusk sur la maternité différent, c’est l’intérêt qu’elle porte d’abord à la disjonction entre l’expérience subjective et les discours publics sur la maternité ; c’est ensuite l’accent qu’elle place sur les fissures au sein même de la subjectivité maternelle qui sont, en partie, une conséquence de cette dislocation mise en évidence. L’article fait référence aux discours populaires sur la maternité et aux perspectives psychanalytiques qui sont tour à tour convoquées et critiquées dans l’œuvre de Cusk
A catastrophic universe: lessing, posthumanism and deep history
No full textThis chapter explores the shift in Lessing’s work from social realism to an experimental approach to genre and argues that it is inseparable from the expansion of the scope of her later fiction, from the specifics of contemporary history to a concern with evolutionary and planetary time. A recurring tension in her writing is identified, between a trans-humanist ethos (expressed through the protagonists’ engagement with the prospect of ‘enhancing’ humanity) and post-humanist perspectives that offer a radical challenge to human exceptionalism. Taking the figure of the evolutionary ‘throwback’ in The Fifth Child (1988) as a starting point, the chapter argues that the novel opens up a landscape in which ‘the human’ in its current incarnation is no longer the structuring norm. It goes on to consider the relationship between humans and other animals in Lessing’s work, charting an emerging critique of anthropocentric ideology and an innovative mapping of inter-species subjectivities. Drawing on the neo-vitalist philosophy of Rosi Braidotti and Elizabeth Grosz, it argues that a post-humanist perspective is articulated in Lessing’s fiction, but that it is complicated by a transhumanism which is in part impelled by her continued commitment to Sufism. The chapter concludes by locating Lessing’s space fiction and late fables such as Mara and Dann (1999) in the context of Dipesh Chakrabarty’s concept of ‘deep history’, an approach that he argues is mandatory at a time of planetary crisis.</p
A cultural history of pregnancy: pregnancy, medicine and culture 1750-2000
No full textContentsAdvice to the fair sex; moral physiology; mothering the race; mass production; reproductive future
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A study of John Clare in his historical and political context
No full textAs the title indicates, the basis of the thesis is to set John Clare’s life and work within the context of the social and political history of his time. It is a study that is long overdue. The manner in which topical and political matters were mediated to him and were reflected in his work are analysed. His introduction to the literary and social worlds of Stamford and London is evaluated, and the advantages and disadvantages of patronage assessed. The active and complex political culture of Stamford has been taken into account as this may have affected his later political statements and a growing awareness of his audience. His antagonism to enclosure and the social changes that it engendered are considered. Three major questions that arise from this are addressed. The two local newspapers that Clare is known to have read are used throughout. His correspondence with friends, colleagues and casual correspondents has provided valuable insights as have his poetry and prose writings. Research in the Northamptonshire Record Office has revealed important new information in the form of one book of Enclosure Commissioners’ Minutes dated 1809-14, the first five years of the enclosure of Helpstone, Clare’s native village
Save the mothers? Representations of pregnancy in the 1930s
No full textThis article explores a range of representations of pregnancy in the context of the increasing importance of eugenic thought. Two major changes are identified in medical and popular discourses of pregnancy, both of which are linked with the rise of eugenics. The first of these is an increasing concern with the selection of mothers 'fit' to breed, the second a shift of emphasis away from the health of the mother to that of the foetus. Both these shifts are related to the specifically British strand of eugenic thought which held that social class was heritable, the pauper class being (re)produced through the transmission of genetic flaws
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