Mark Rawlinson - Böcker

British Writing of the Second World War is the first study to provide a detailed critical and historical survey of British literary culture in wartime. Concerned as much with war as with writing, it explores the significance of cultural representations of violence to the administration of the war effort. A theoretical account of the symbolic practices which connect military violence to policy provides a framework for analysing imaginative and documentary literature in its relations both to propaganda and to Peoples War ideals of social reconstruction. The book evaluates wartime fictions and memoirs in the context of official and unofficial discourses about military aviation, the Blitz, campaigns in North Africa, war aims, the conscript Army and the Home Front, Prisoners of War, and the Holocaust. It uncovers the processes by which the meanings the war had for participants were produced, and provides an extensive bibliographical resource for future scholarship.

Pat Barker is one of the leading British political and historical novelists of her generation. This introduction places her fiction in historical and theoretical contexts. Including a timeline of key dates and an interview with the author, Rawlinson establishes the cultural importance of her work and provides an overview of its critical reception.

A terrifying tale about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom, A Clockwork Orange became an instant classic when it was published in 1962 and has remained so ever since. Anthony Burgess takes us on a journey to a nightmarish future where sociopathic criminals rule the night. Brilliantly told in harsh invented slang by the novel’s main character and merciless droog, fifteen-year-old Alex, this influential novel is now available in a student edition.The Norton Critical Edition of A Clockwork Orange is based on the first British edition and includes Burgess’s original final chapter. It is accompanied by Mark Rawlinson’s preface, explanatory annotations, and textual notes. A glossary of the Russian-origin terms that inspired Alex’s dialect is provided to illustrate the process by which Burgess arrived at the distinctive style of this novel.“Backgrounds and Contexts” presents a wealth of materials chosen by the editor to enrich the reader’s understanding of this unforgettable work, many of them by Burgess himself. Burgess’s views on writing A Clockwork Orange, its philosophical issues, and the debates over the British edition versus the American edition and the novel versus the film adaptation are all included. Related writings that speak to some of the novel’s central issues—youthful style, behavior modification, and art versus morality—are provided by Paul Rock and Stanley Cohen, B. F. Skinner, John R. Platt, Joost A. M. Meerloo, William Sargent, and George Steiner.“Criticism” is divided into two sections, one addressing the novel and the other Stanley Kubrick’s film version. Five major reviews of the novel are reprinted along with a wide range of scholarly commentary, including, among others, David Lodge on the American reader; Julie Carson on linguistic invention; Zinovy Zinik on Burgess and the Russian language; Geoffrey Sharpless on education, masculinity, and violence; Shirley Chew on circularity; Patrick Parrinder on dystopias; Robbie B. H. Goh on language and social control; and Steven M. Cahn on freedom. A thorough analysis of the film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange is provided in reviews by Vincent Canby, Pauline Kael, and Christopher Ricks; in Philip Strick and Penelope Houston’s interview with Stanley Kubrick; and in interpretive essays by Don Daniels, Alexander Walker, Philip French, Thomas Elsaesser, Tom Dewe Mathews, and Julian Petley.A Selected Bibliography is also included.

Charles Sheeler was the stark poet of the machine age. Photographer of the Ford Motor Company and founder of the painting movement Precisionism, he is remembered as a promoter of - and apologist for - the industrialised capitalist ethic. This major new rethink of one of the key figures of American modernism argues that Sheeler's true relationship to progress was in fact highly negative, his 'precisionism' both skewed and imprecise. Covering the entire oeuvre from photography to painting and drawing attention to the inconsistencies, curiosities and 'puzzles' embedded in Sheeler's work, Rawlinson reveals a profound critique of the processes of rationalisation and the conditions of modernity. The book argues finally for a re-evaluation of Sheeler's often dismissed late work which, it suggests, may only be understood through a radical shift in our understanding of the work of this prominent figure.

The First World War (1914–1918) marked a turning point in modern history and culture and its literary legacy is vast: poetry, fiction and memoirs abound. But the drama of the period is rarely recognised, with only a handful of plays commonly associated with the war.First World War Plays draws together canonical and lesser-known plays from the First World War to the end of the twentieth century, tracing the ways in which dramatists have engaged with and resisted World War I in their works. Spanning almost a century of conflict, this anthology explores the changing cultural attitudes to warfare, including the significance of the war over time, interwar pacifism, and historical revisionism. The collection includes writing by combatants, as well as playwrights addressing historical events and national memory, by both men and women, and by writers from Great Britain and the United States.Plays from the period, like Night Watches by Allan Monkhouse (1916), Mine Eyes Have Seen by Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1918) and Tunnel Trench by Hubert Griffith (1924), are joined with reflections on the war in Post Mortem by Noël Coward (1930, performed 1944) and Oh What A Lovely War by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop (1963) as well as later works The Accrington Pals by Peter Whelan (1982) and Sea and Land and Sky by Abigail Docherty (2010).Accompanied by a general introduction by editor, Dr Mark Rawlinson.

The First World War (1914–1918) marked a turning point in modern history and culture and its literary legacy is vast: poetry, fiction and memoirs abound. But the drama of the period is rarely recognised, with only a handful of plays commonly associated with the war.First World War Plays draws together canonical and lesser-known plays from the First World War to the end of the twentieth century, tracing the ways in which dramatists have engaged with and resisted World War I in their works. Spanning almost a century of conflict, this anthology explores the changing cultural attitudes to warfare, including the significance of the war over time, interwar pacifism, and historical revisionism. The collection includes writing by combatants, as well as playwrights addressing historical events and national memory, by both men and women, and by writers from Great Britain and the United States.Plays from the period, like Night Watches by Allan Monkhouse (1916), Mine Eyes Have Seen by Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1918) and Tunnel Trench by Hubert Griffith (1924), are joined with reflections on the war in Post Mortem by Noël Coward (1930, performed 1944) and Oh What A Lovely War by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop (1963) as well as later works The Accrington Pals by Peter Whelan (1982) and Sea and Land and Sky by Abigail Docherty (2010).Accompanied by a general introduction by editor, Dr Mark Rawlinson.

The first reference book to twentieth-century war, literature and culture In fifty-seven chapters leading academics in the field of twentieth-century war studies examine the major wars of the century as well as other conflicts imagined by English and US writers. These include the Boer War, Spanish Civil War, the troubles in Northern Ireland, the Korean War and the decolonising conflicts in Africa through to the war on terror. Topics covered include: pacifism; refugees; camouflage; the war plane; war and children's literature; war and art; spy thrillers, and many more. Taken together the essays make a deliberate and thought-provoking intervention in the field.Key Features: Original essays commissioned from major critics and cultural historiansReflects the way war studies are currently being taught and researched: in the volume's approach, structure and breadth of coverageFor scholars: core arguments and detailed research topicsFor students: Historically grounded topic- and genre-based essays, useful forstudying the modern period and war modules.

Visual culture - art, advertising, architecture, cinema, television, cartography, video, the internet, and images of science - has shaped American national identity more than that of any other country. Covering the period from the late nineteenth century to the present day, the book explores how visual culture has at once transformed and consolidated the image of the United States. American Visual Culture presents both an analysis of the diversity of American visual media and a critical introduction to the study and interpretation of visual culture. Thematic chapters - on American urban and rural landscapes, icons, popular culture, art and photography, as well as on crime, anxiety and sex - describe the cultural, intellectual and historical context. Throughout, these themes are discussed in conjunction with clear and concise explanations of key visual theories and methodologies.

Visual culture - art, advertising, architecture, cinema, television, cartography, video, the internet, and images of science - has shaped American national identity more than that of any other country. Covering the period from the late nineteenth century to the present day, the book explores how visual culture has at once transformed and consolidated the image of the United States. American Visual Culture presents both an analysis of the diversity of American visual media and a critical introduction to the study and interpretation of visual culture. Thematic chapters - on American urban and rural landscapes, icons, popular culture, art and photography, as well as on crime, anxiety and sex - describe the cultural, intellectual and historical context. Throughout, these themes are discussed in conjunction with clear and concise explanations of key visual theories and methodologies.