Kristin Bluemel – författare

These 10 original critical essays examine the fascinating writing of the Depression and World War II. Divided into four sections -Work, Community,War, and Documents - the volume focuses on texts that are typically ignored in accounts of modernism or The Auden Generation.Chapters examine writing by Elizabeth Bowen, Storm Jameson, William Empson, George Orwell, J. B. Priestley, Harold Heslop, T. H. White, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Rebecca West, John Grierson, Margery Allingham and Stella Gibbons. These authors were politically radical, or radically 'eccentric', and tended to be committed to working- and middle-class cultures, non-canonical genres, such as crime and fantasy, and minority forms of narrative, such as journalism, manifestos, film, and travel narratives, as well as novels. The volume supports further research with an appendix, 'Who Were the Intermodernists?', a listing of archival sources and an extensive bibliography.

As one of the first English novelists to employ "stream of consciousness" as a narrative technique, Dorothy Richardson ranks among modernism's most important experimentalists, yet her epic autobiographical novel Pilgrimage has rarely received the kind of attention given to the writings of her contemporaries James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust.Kristin Bluemel's study explores the relationship between experimental forms and oppositional politics in Pilgrimage, demonstrating how the novel challenged the literary conventions and cultural expectations of the late-Victorian and Edwardian world and linking these relationships to the novel's construction of a lesbian sexuality, its use of medicine to interrogate class structures, its feminist critique of early-twentieth-century science, and Richardson's short stories and nonfiction.

Defines the interdisciplinary field of Rural Modernity through analysis of British literature, art and cultureRural Modernity in Britain argues that the rural areas of Britain were impacted by modernisation just as much – if not more – than urban and suburban areas. It is the first study of modernity and modernism to focus on rural people and places that experienced economic depression, the expansion of transportation and communication networks, the roll out of electricity, the loss of land, and the erosion of local identities. Who celebrated these changes? Who resisted them? Who documented them? Essays in this collection make the case that the rural means more than just the often-studied countryside of southern England, a retreat from the consequences of modernity; rather, the rural emerges as a source for new versions of the modern, with an active role in the formation and development of British experiences and representations of modernity.Key FeaturesIntrodues readers to concept of rural modernity that locates its critical intervention in fields of modernism and modernity studiesSplit into five sections addressing Networks, Landscapes, Communities, Heritage, and WarIncludes "In dialogue with" suggestions to guide readers across interdisciplinary contents of diverse chaptersContributors from England, Scotland, USA, New Zealand and Canada, representing fields of literature, art history, history, geography, and cultural studies

How women wood engravers helped reshape the visual and literary landscape of modern BritainAmid the austerities of Depression-era publishing in Britain, urban editors and women artists recognized a unique opportunity to make and sell popular books illustrated with wood engravings. Enchanted Wood focuses on four of these artists—Gwen Raverat, Agnes Miller Parker, Clare Leighton, and Joan Hassall—weaving together their lives and work to tell a compelling and little-known story about a modern art that transformed the lives of both urban and rural women. In this richly illustrated book, Kristin Bluemel demonstrates how women engravers used wood engraving to redraw professional and personal boundaries for themselves and other women. Depicting realistic scenes of country life, these illustrations are reminiscent of the aesthetic of eighteenth-century artist, naturalist, and print innovator Thomas Bewick even as they present distinctly modern reflections on gender, age, marriage, and motherhood. Reproducing and analyzing white-line engravings, pen and ink drawings, and rare color engravings from these four artists’ books for children and adults, Enchanted Wood reveals the magnified power and meaning of gentle arts for everyday people and for national patterns of work and play. Integrating vignettes from Bewick’s natural history with formal, thematic, and cultural analysis of the women’s art as she recovers their medium, oeuvres, and stories, Bluemel shows how wood engraving led Raverat, Miller Parker, Leighton, and Hassall to achieve professional stature, public affirmation, and personal independence. A visually rich history of collective achievement, Enchanted Wood establishes these women engravers as important modern artists and literary figures in their own right. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.