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Prime Meridian – England as a Cultural Kernel (18th to 21st centuries)

Krishan Kumar often speaks of “Moments of Englishness”. This class will start from Orwell’s famous essays on the topic and focus on some contemporary moments when the concepts of Englishness and Britishness were particularly relevant in their complex endeavour for a definition and became the object of cultural debate. For each selected moment, attention will be given to both conventional literary texts and cultural artifacts considered popular (including crime fiction, historical novel, memoir, film, and children’s literature):
1)
Englishness and the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars
English debate on the French Revolution and the comparison to the 1688 Glorious Revolution. Enlightenment in Britain.
The role of Britain in deterring Napoleonic advancement in Europe.
2)
Englishness and the role of coloniser in Britain
Ireland: Easter Rising 1916 and IRA
Wales: From Wales ad Berwick Act (1746) to Welsh Language Act (1967)
Scotland: Jacobite Risings (18th century), Radical War, or Scottish Insurrection (1820), and Scottish Referendum (2014)
20th century Celtic Revival and Scottish Renaissance
3)
Englishness and the role of coloniser around the world
Industrial Revolution and British Empire
Friedrich Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England
John Ruskin, John Stuart Mill, and R. H. Tawney
Resistance and Alternatives: Luddites, the Sheffield outrages, the Chartist movement, Robert Owen’s New Lanark
Darwin’s appropriation by Social Darwinism and Racial Policies
India wars involving the British East India Company
Harold Macmillan's 'Wind of Change'
Commonwealth
4)
Englishness and the World Wars
Participation in WW1 and WW2: speeches, media coverage.
War Poets.
5)
Englishness and Brexit
21st understanding of England and Britain
England and Europe
Grayson Perry’s 2008 painting “Map of Nowhere”
Banksy