The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Culture (Cambridge Companions to Culture)

340 Pages·2010·1.56 MB·English

by  Michael Higgins

The Cambridge Companion to
Modern British Culture
British culture today is the product of a shifting combination of tradition and
experimentation, national identity and regional and ethnic diversity. These
distinctive tensions are expressed in a range of cultural arenas, such as art, sport,
journalism, fashion, education and race. This Companion addresses these and
other major aspects of British culture and offers a sophisticated understanding
of what it means to study and think about the diverse cultural landscapes of
contemporary Britain. Each contributor looks at the language through which
culture is formed and expressed, at the political and institutional trends
that shape culture and at the role of culture in daily life. This interesting and
informative account of modern British culture embraces controversy and debate
and never loses sight of the fact that Britain and Britishness must always be
understood in relation to the increasingly international context of globalisation.
MICHAEL HIGGINS is Director of the Journalism and Creative Writing
programme at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
CLARISSA SMITH is Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies in the School
of Art, Design and Media, University of Sunderland.
JOHN STOREY is Professor of Cultural Studies and Director of the Centre for
Research in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Sunderland.
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The Cambridge Companion to
Modern British Culture
Edited by
MICHAEL HIGGINS
CLARISSA SMITH

and
JOHN STOREY
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© C ambridge University Press 2010
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First published 2010
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
The Cambridge companion to modern British culture / edited by Michael Higgins,
Clarissa Smith, John Storey.
p. cm. — (Cambridge companions to culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-521-86497-8 — ISBN 978-0-521-68346-3 (pbk.)
1. Great Britain—Intellectual life—20th century. 2. Great Britain—Social life
and customs—20th century. 3. Popular culture—Great Britain—History—
20th century. 4. Great Britain—Social conditions—20th century. 5. Great Britain—
Civilization. I. Higgins, Michael, 1967— II. Smith, Clarissa. III. Storey, John,
1950— IV. Title. V. Series.
DA110.C253 2010
941.082—dc22
2010023745
ISBN 978-0-521-86497-8 Hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-68346-3 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in
this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
Notes on contributors page vii
Chronology xi
Introduction: modern British culture 1
Michael Higgins, Clarissa Smith and John Storey
1 Becoming British 12
john storey
2 Language developments in British English 26
david crystal
3 Schooling and culture 42
ken jones
4 The changing character of political communications 62
john street
5 Contemporary Britain and its regions 79
john tomaney
6 Contemporary British cinema 96
sarah street
7 Contemporary British fiction 115
patricia waugh
8 Contemporary British poetry 137
alex goody
vi Contents
9 Theatre in modern British culture 154
michael mangan
10 Contemporary British television 171
jane arthurs
11 British art in the twenty-first century 189
valerie reardon
12 British fashion 208
caroline evans
13 Sport in contemporary Britain 225
ellis cashmore
14 British sexual cultures 244
clarissa smith
15 British popular music, popular culture and exclusivity 262
sheila whiteley
16 British newspapers today 279
michael higgins
17 The struggle for ethno-religious equality in Britain: the place
of the Muslim community 296
tariq modood
Guide to further reading 314
Index 317
Contributors
JANE A RTHURS is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and Head
of Culture, Media and Drama, at the University of the West
of England, Bristol. Her publications in feminist cultural
studies and contemporary television include Television and
Sexuality: Regulation and the Politics of Taste (2004) and the edited
collection C rash Cultures (2002), as well as work on post-feminist
drama for the journal F eminist Media Studies .
ELLIS C ASHMORE is Professor of Culture, Media and Sport at
Staffordshire University and is a regular media commentator
on sports culture and ethics. His most recent books include
Celebrity/Culture (2006), M aking Sense of Sports (4th edn, 2005),
Beckham (2nd edn, 2004) and T yson: Nurture of the Beast (2004).
DAVID C RYSTAL is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University
of Bangor. He read English at University College London, then
held university posts at London, Bangor and Reading before
becoming an independent scholar in 1984. The author of many
books on linguistics and English language studies, he is best
known for his two C ambridge Encyclopedias : of L anguage (1997) and
of T he English Language (2003). An autobiographical memoir, J ust a
Phrase I’m Going Through , was published in 2009.
CAROLINE EVANS is Professor of Fashion History and Theory at Central
Saint Martins College of Art and Design within the University of
the Arts, London. She is the author of Fashion at the Edge: Spectacle,
Modernity and Deathliness (2003) and co-author of T he London
Look: Fashion from Street to Catwalk (2004), F ashion and Modernity
(2005), Hussein Chalayan (2005) and The House of Viktor & Rolf (2008).
viii Notes on contributors
ALEX GOODY is Senior Lecturer in Twentieth-century Literature at
Oxford Brookes University. Her research interests cover the rela-
tionships between modernity, technology, culture and gender,
and current projects include a forthcoming book on technology,
literature and culture. Goody is author of Modernist Articulations
(2007).
M ICHAEL HIGGINS is Director of the Journalism and Creative Writing
programme in the Department of English Studies at the
University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. He has published numer-
ous articles covering such areas as political communications,
celebrity culture, news discourse and national identity. He also
serves as co-convenor of the Media and Politics Group of the
Political Studies Association. Higgins’s most recent book is Media
and Their Publics (2008).
KEN JONES is Professor of Education at Goldsmiths, University
of London. He has written E ducation in Britain (2003) and
co- authored S chooling in Western Europe: The New Order and its
Adversaries (2008). He is currently working on a book about the
survival or re-emergence of radical educational traditions in
the twenty-first century and is co- editing a reader on ‘creative
learning’.
M ICHAEL MANGAN is Professor of Drama at Exeter University. He has
also worked as a playwright, a director, a literary manager, a
dramaturg and an actor. His primary research interests lie in the
area of theatre and society, and he has published a wide range of
books, articles and papers on the subjects of theatre and gen-
der, Shakespeare and Renaissance theatre, theatre and cultural
history, applied theatre and contemporary British theatre. His
most recent monograph is Performing Dark Arts: A Cultural History of
Conjuring (2007).
TARIQ MODOOD is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy and
the Founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity
and Citizenship at the University of Bristol. He is a regular
contributor to the media and to policy debates in Britain, was
awarded an MBE for services to social sciences and ethnic rela-
tions in 2001 and was elected a member of the Academy of Social
Sciences in 2004. His most recent books are Multiculturalism: A
Civic Idea (2007) and, as co-editor, Secularism, Religion and
Multicultural Citizenship (2009).
Notes on contributors ix
VALERIE R EARDON is Senior Lecturer in Media at University College
Plymouth St Mark and St John as well as a practising fine-art
photographer. She has written extensively for A rt Monthly , and
her articles on the aesthetics, meanings and uses of art appear in
such journals as the Journal of Feminisms and Art and the Journal of
Media Arts and Cultural Criticism .
C LARISSA SMITH is Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies
at the University of Sunderland. Her research and publica-
tions focus on the expanding sexual sphere for heterosexual
women: its institutional practices, representational strategies,
uses and meanings. Smith has published in a variety of journals
and edited collections, including S exualities and the E uropean
Journal of Cultural Studies , and is author of O ne for the Girls: The
Pleasures and Practices of Reading Women’s Porn (2006).
J OHN S TOREY is Professor of Cultural Studies and Director of the
Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies at the
University of Sunderland. He has published widely in cultural
theory and cultural history. His latest book is called Culture and
Power in Cultural Studies (2010).
JOHN S TREET is Professor of Politics at the University of East Anglia.
His main research is on the relationship between politics and
popular culture and mass media. He is the author of M ass Media,
Politics and Democracy (2001), P olitics and Popular Culture (1997) and
Rebel Rock: The Politics of Popular Music (1986). He is a member of the
editorial group of the journal Popular Music and of T he Cambridge
Companion to Rock and Pop (co-edited with Will Straw, 2001).
S ARAH S TREET is Professor of Film at the University of Bristol. Her
most recent books are Transatlantic Crossings: British Feature Films
in the USA (2002), The Titanic in Myth and Memory (co-edited with
Tim Bergfelder, 2004), B lack Narcissus (2005) and Queer Screen: The
Queer Reader (co-edited with Jackie Stacey, 2007). Her latest book,
Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s
European Cinema , is co-authored with Tim Bergfelder and Sue
Harris (2007).
J OHN T OMANEY is Professor of Regional Development and Director
of the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies
(CURDS) at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Professor of
Regional Studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Associate
Director of the UK Spatial Economics Research Centre (SERC)