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The road to Brexit: A cultural perspective on British attitudes to Europe

Online ISBN:
9781526155559
Print ISBN:
9781526145086
Publisher:
Manchester University Press
Book

The road to Brexit: A cultural perspective on British attitudes to Europe

Ina Habermann (ed.)
Ina Habermann
(ed.)
University of Basel
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Published online:
21 January 2021
Published in print:
29 May 2020
Online ISBN:
9781526155559
Print ISBN:
9781526145086
Publisher:
Manchester University Press

Abstract

This timely collection explores British attitudes to continental Europe that explain the Brexit decision. Analysing British discourses of Europe and the impact of British Euroscepticism, the book argues that Britain’s exit from the European Union reflects a more general cultural rejection of continental Europe: Britain is in denial about the strength of its ties to Europe and needs to face Europe if it is to face the future. The volume brings together literary and cultural studies, history, and political science in an integrated analysis of views and practices that shape cultural memory and the cultural imaginary. Part I, ‘Britain and Europe: political entanglements’, traces the historical and political relationship between Britain and Europe and the place of Europe in recent British political debates while Part II, ‘British discourses of Europe in literature and film’, is devoted to representative case studies of films as well as popular Eurosceptic and historical fiction. Part III, ‘Negotiating borders in British travel writing and memoir’, engages with border mindedness and the English Channel as a contact zone, also including a Gibraltarian point of view. Given the crucial importance of literature in British discourses of national identity, the book calls for, and embarks on, a Euro-British literary studies that highlights the nature and depth of the British-European entanglement.

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