This book investigates the web of rhetorical, conceptual and cultural representations and connections which characterized the Blair decade, and explores its ambiguities and underlying tensions in light of the Prime Minister’s decreasing popularity and political status across multiple public spheres and in his relationship with the media. Drawing on cultural studies, literary criticism and discourse analysis, this research ranges from journalism to political communication, from op-ed articles to political marketing and the works of public intellectuals, in order to unravel their ideological ties with, and imaginative penetration of, cultural and artistic domains as varied as architecture, satire, biography and literature. These discursive strategies also underpin New Labour’s fiery debate on the reimagining and reinvention of British national identity in accord with a new cosmopolitan ethos which looks at the opportunities and challenges of globalization by rejecting more conventional myths of insularity and trivializing the dialectics of history, memory and tradition (this point is particularly apparent in my analysis of Julian Barnes’ England, England). Though clearly political, this attempt to provide ‘new Britain’ with a set of re-invented or newly-invented identity icons and traditions entails an all important cultural agenda, which has come to take on more controversial and dramatic overtones in the aftermath of the London terror attacks of 7 July 2005 and the ensuing polarization of the public debate on contractual versions of citizenship and the crisis of multiculturalism.

L'Isola e il Mondo : intersezioni culturali nella Gran Bretagna d'oggi / L.A. De Michelis. - Milano : Franco Angeli, 2008. - ISBN 978-88-464-9282-1.

L'Isola e il Mondo : intersezioni culturali nella Gran Bretagna d'oggi

L.A. De Michelis
Primo
2008

Abstract

This book investigates the web of rhetorical, conceptual and cultural representations and connections which characterized the Blair decade, and explores its ambiguities and underlying tensions in light of the Prime Minister’s decreasing popularity and political status across multiple public spheres and in his relationship with the media. Drawing on cultural studies, literary criticism and discourse analysis, this research ranges from journalism to political communication, from op-ed articles to political marketing and the works of public intellectuals, in order to unravel their ideological ties with, and imaginative penetration of, cultural and artistic domains as varied as architecture, satire, biography and literature. These discursive strategies also underpin New Labour’s fiery debate on the reimagining and reinvention of British national identity in accord with a new cosmopolitan ethos which looks at the opportunities and challenges of globalization by rejecting more conventional myths of insularity and trivializing the dialectics of history, memory and tradition (this point is particularly apparent in my analysis of Julian Barnes’ England, England). Though clearly political, this attempt to provide ‘new Britain’ with a set of re-invented or newly-invented identity icons and traditions entails an all important cultural agenda, which has come to take on more controversial and dramatic overtones in the aftermath of the London terror attacks of 7 July 2005 and the ensuing polarization of the public debate on contractual versions of citizenship and the crisis of multiculturalism.
2008
Britishness ; Blair ; discorso politico ; New Labour ; nation-branding ; cultura inglese
Settore L-LIN/10 - Letteratura Inglese
L'Isola e il Mondo : intersezioni culturali nella Gran Bretagna d'oggi / L.A. De Michelis. - Milano : Franco Angeli, 2008. - ISBN 978-88-464-9282-1.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/48528
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