Suchergebnisse

"This interdisciplinary collection is a first step in the process of dismantling the imperial and unionist dominance of the discipline of English Literature and building a literary history and national literature of England. The collection brings together some of the best known and most incisive commentators on England, Englishness and English Literature from political and literary fields in order to rethink the relationship between Britain, England and English literary culture. It is premised on the importance of devolution, the uncertainty of the British Union, the place of English Literature within the Union, and the need for England to become a self-determining literary nation. The collection comprises fifteen essays, organised into four parts, moving from political discussions of the form of a devolved or independent England, through a consideration of England in canonical and contemporary literature, to an exploration of the role of the national in English Literature's disciplinary logic"--

Part of Chris Searle's wide-ranging contribution to Race & Class — and the subject of this article — is a body of cricket writing that exposes the crippling imperial legacies of the game but still insists on its potential for the future, particularly in England; a future Searle understands as emerging from the country's working-class, multi-ethnic, inner-city communities. Searle is indebted to C. L. R. James's Beyond a Boundary (1963) and, like James, sees cricket as a site for the expression, playing out and (sometimes) the imaginary resolution of social relations. Searle also follows James in arguing that, because of the game's sociality, the politics of cricketing performance must be assessed in terms of the relationship between players and their communities. In this context, he has analysed the significance of figures like Devon Malcolm, England's Jamaican-born fast bowler, and Brian Lara, the world-record holding West Indies batsman. Notably, Searle's academic and personal contribution has been 'Towards a cricket of the future', as one of his own pieces is entitled. He has also helped lay the ground for a critique of the globalised televisual spectacle that is, increasingly, the international game of cricket.