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Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and Social Class
John Kucich
€ 71.14
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Description for Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and Social Class
Hardback. Reveals the role masochistic forms of voluntary suffering played in late-nineteenth-century British thinking about imperial politics and class identity. This book shows how the ideological and psychological dynamics of empire, particularly its reorganization of class identities at the colonial periphery, depended on figurations of masochism. Num Pages: 280 pages, black & white illustrations. BIC Classification: 2AB; DSBF; DSK. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (U) Tertiary Education (US: College). Dimension: 229 x 152 x 15. Weight in Grams: 542.
British imperialism's favorite literary narrative might seem to be conquest. But real British conquests also generated a surprising cultural obsession with suffering, sacrifice, defeat, and melancholia. "There was," writes John Kucich, "seemingly a different crucifixion scene marking the historical gateway to each colonial theater." In Imperial Masochism, Kucich reveals the central role masochistic forms of voluntary suffering played in late-nineteenth-century British thinking about imperial politics and class identity. Placing the colonial writers Robert Louis Stevenson, Olive Schreiner, Rudyard Kipling, and Joseph Conrad in their cultural context, Kucich shows how the ideological and psychological dynamics of empire, particularly its reorganization of ... Read more
British imperialism's favorite literary narrative might seem to be conquest. But real British conquests also generated a surprising cultural obsession with suffering, sacrifice, defeat, and melancholia. "There was," writes John Kucich, "seemingly a different crucifixion scene marking the historical gateway to each colonial theater." In Imperial Masochism, Kucich reveals the central role masochistic forms of voluntary suffering played in late-nineteenth-century British thinking about imperial politics and class identity. Placing the colonial writers Robert Louis Stevenson, Olive Schreiner, Rudyard Kipling, and Joseph Conrad in their cultural context, Kucich shows how the ideological and psychological dynamics of empire, particularly its reorganization of ... Read more
Product Details
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2007
Publisher
Princeton University Press United States
Number of pages
272
Condition
New
Number of Pages
280
Place of Publication
New Jersey, United States
ISBN
9780691127125
SKU
V9780691127125
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1
About John Kucich
John Kucich is Professor of English at Rutgers University. He is the author of "The Power of Lies: Transgression in Victorian Fiction; Repression in Victorian Fiction"; and "Excess and Restraint in the Novels of Charles Dickens". He is also the coeditor of "Victorian Afterlife: Postmodern Culture Rewrites the Nineteenth Century".
Reviews for Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and Social Class
"In this elegant study, Kucich demonstrates the possibility of mutually implicating psychoanalytic theories, literary texts, and colonial discourses of race and class without losing sight of the specificity of each of these areas. In addition, he offers up a theoretically supple account of how masochistic fantasy can serve as a 'switching point' between otherwise disparate codes of thought and speech ... Read more