Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon – författare

Over the centuries, drama has been an influential and imaginative medium for presenting, analysing and offering ways of resolving real or fictional battles. This volume provides readers with a timely study of inter-generational conflicts and crises as seen through the eyes of male and female British and Irish playwrights from the medieval period to the twenty-first century. The contributions suggest that at the heart of inter-generational discord lies various crises between (the) age(d) and youth or, more generally, the idea of what is «old» and «new». The interaction and co-existence of age and youth in their embodied, symbolic or conceptual forms is the topic of this volume. The collection is built around the words «age(d)»/«young», which denote both the biological age of the characters and the more conceptual potential of these terms. Ultimately, the contributors to this collection of essays analyse not only the idea of inter-generationality within selected dramatic works but also inter-generational conflicts seen in clashes of cultures, artistic visions, concepts and aesthetic idea(l)s.

«And Yet I Remember» explores representations of ageing and old age in English drama from 1660 to the 1750s. Within these approximately ninety years, England witnessed significant developments in medicine and the advent of sentimental philosophy, which began to transform attitudes toward old age and ageing. This study discusses the enduring cultural and literary stereotyping of old(er) people in culture and drama of this period. The chapters are organised around the stereotypes that kept reappearing in cultural, medical and religious narratives on old age, namely the desiring old man (senex amans) and woman (the «lusty old widow») and the nostalgic and wise elder. Exploring many diverse storylines between 1660 and the 1750s that treat old age and present old(er) characters, the analyses in this study further show how the choice of genre, personal experiences and attitudes of the playwright, and political and cultural revolutions affected the representation of older people.

In the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, death has become an all too familiar feature of the early 2020s.The 21st century has in fact produced a singular historical moment with its unique intersection of popular politics, environmental extremes, globalisation and technological innovation, which has correspondingly created distinctive expressions of death, as well.This companion reveals our visions of death in the 21st century and what they say about us and the times we live in. Organised into sections on the war on terror, technology, climate change, extremism and global pandemics, the short, reader-friendly essays in this volume highlight crucial encounters with death in the contemporary period.

This book is an original and innovative study of how Gothic nostalgia and toxic memoryare used to underpin and promote the ongoing culture wars and populist politics incontemporary popular culture. The essays collected here cover topics from the spectral tothe ecological, deep fakes to toxic ableism, Mary Poppins to John Wick to revealhow the use of an imaginary past to shape the present, creates truly Gothic times that wecan never escape. These ‘hungry ghosts’ from the past find resonance with the Gothicwhich speaks equally of a past that often not only haunts the present but will not let itescape its grasp. This collection will look at the confluence between various kinds of toxicnostalgia and popular culture to suggest the ways in which contemporary populism hasresurrected ideological monsters from the grave to gorge on the present and any possibilityof change that the future might represent.