Daniel Lea – författare

This book offers an accessible critical introduction to the work of Graham Swift, one of Britain’s most significant contemporary authors. Through detailed readings of his novels and short stories from 'The Sweet Shop Owner' (1980) to 'The Light of Day' (2003), Daniel Lea lucidly addresses the key themes of history, loss, masculinity and ethical redemption, to present a fresh approach to Swift.This study proposes that one of the side-effects of modernity has been the destruction of traditional pathways of self and collective belief, leading to a loss of understanding between individuals about their duties to each other and to society. Swift's writing returns repeatedly to the question of what we can believe in when all the established markers of identity - family, community, gender, profession, history - have become destabilised. Lea suggests that Swift increasingly moves towards a notion of redemption through a lived ethical practice as the only means of finding solace in a world lacking a central symbolic authority.

This book offers readings of five of the most interesting and original voices to have emerged in Britain since the millennium as they tackle the challenges of portraying the new century. Through close readings of the work of Ali Smith, Andrew O'Hagan, Tom McCarthy, Sarah Hall and Jon McGregor, Daniel Lea opens a window onto the formal and thematic concerns that characterise a literary landscape troubled by both familiar and unfamiliar predicaments. These include questions about the meaning of humanness in an age of digital intercourse; about the need for a return to authenticity in the wake of postmodernism; and about the dislocation of self from the other under neoliberal individualism. By relating its readings of these authors to the wider shifts in contemporary literary criticism, this book offers in-depth analysis of important landmarks of recent fiction and an introduction to the challenges of understanding the literature of our time.

This book offers readings of five of the most interesting and original voices to have emerged in Britain since the millennium as they tackle the challenges of portraying the new century. Through close readings of the work of Ali Smith, Andrew O'Hagan, Tom McCarthy, Sarah Hall and Jon McGregor, Daniel Lea opens a window onto the formal and thematic concerns that characterise a literary landscape troubled by both familiar and unfamiliar predicaments. These include questions about the meaning of humanness in an age of digital intercourse; about the need for a return to authenticity in the wake of postmodernism; and about the dislocation of self from the other under neoliberal individualism. By relating its readings of these authors to the wider shifts in contemporary literary criticism, this book offers in-depth analysis of important landmarks of recent fiction and an introduction to the challenges of understanding the literature of our time.

Contrary to what Simone de Beauvoir famously argued in 1949, men have not lived without knowing the burdens of their sex. Though men may have been elevated to cultural positions of strength and privilege, it has not been without intense scrutiny of their biological functions. Investigations of male potency and the ‘ability to perform’ have long been mainstays of social, political, and artistic discourse and have often provoked spirited and partisan declarations on what it means to be a man. This interdisciplinary collection considers the tensions that have developed between the historical privilege often ascribed to the male and the vulnerabilities to which his body is prone. Andrew Mangham and Daniel Lea’s introduction illustrates how with the dawn of modern medicine during the Renaissance there emerged a complex set of languages for describing the male body not only as a symbol of strength, but as flesh and bone prone to illness, injury and dysfunction. Using a variety of historical and literary approaches, the essays consider the critical ways in which medicine’s interactions with literature reveal vital clues about the ways sex, gender, and identity are constructed through treatments of a range of ‘pathologies’ including deformity, venereal disease, injury, nervousness, and sexual difference. The relationships between male medicine and ideals of potency and masculinity are searchingly explored through a broad range of sources including African American slave fictions, southern gothic, early modern poetry, Victorian literature, and the Modern novel.

Contrary to what Simone de Beauvoir famously argued in 1949, men have not lived without knowing the burdens of their sex. Though men may have been elevated to cultural positions of strength and privilege, it has not been without intense scrutiny of their biological functions. Investigations of male potency and the ‘ability to perform’ have long been mainstays of social, political, and artistic discourse and have often provoked spirited and partisan declarations on what it means to be a man. This interdisciplinary collection considers the tensions that have developed between the historical privilege often ascribed to the male and the vulnerabilities to which his body is prone. Andrew Mangham and Daniel Lea’s introduction illustrates how with the dawn of modern medicine during the Renaissance there emerged a complex set of languages for describing the male body not only as a symbol of strength, but as flesh and bone prone to illness, injury and dysfunction. Using a variety of historical and literary approaches, the essays consider the critical ways in which medicine’s interactions with literature reveal vital clues about the ways sex, gender, and identity are constructed through treatments of a range of ‘pathologies’ including deformity, venereal disease, injury, nervousness, and sexual difference. The relationships between male medicine and ideals of potency and masculinity are searchingly explored through a broad range of sources including African American slave fictions, southern gothic, early modern poetry, Victorian literature, and the Modern novel.