British imperialism's favorite literary narrative might seem to be conquest. But real British conquests also generated a surprising cultural obsession with suffering, sacrifice, defeat, and melancholia. "There was," writes John Kucich, "seemingly a different crucifixion scene marking the historical gateway to each colonial theater." In Imperial Masochism , Kucich reveals the central role masochistic forms of voluntary suffering played in late-nineteenth-century British thinking about imperial politics and class identity. ...
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British imperialism's favorite literary narrative might seem to be conquest. But real British conquests also generated a surprising cultural obsession with suffering, sacrifice, defeat, and melancholia. "There was," writes John Kucich, "seemingly a different crucifixion scene marking the historical gateway to each colonial theater." In Imperial Masochism , Kucich reveals the central role masochistic forms of voluntary suffering played in late-nineteenth-century British thinking about imperial politics and class identity. Placing the colonial writers Robert Louis Stevenson, Olive Schreiner, Rudyard Kipling, and Joseph Conrad in their cultural context, Kucich shows how the ideological and psychological dynamics of empire, particularly its reorganization of class identities at the colonial periphery, depended on figurations of masochism. Drawing on recent psychoanalytic theory to define masochism in terms of narcissistic fantasies of omnipotence rather than sexual perversion, the book illuminates how masochism mediates political thought of many different kinds, not simply those that represent the social order as an opposition of mastery and submission, or an eroticized drama of power differentials. Masochism was a powerful psychosocial language that enabled colonial writers to articulate judgments about imperialism and class. The first full-length study of masochism in British colonial fiction, Imperial Masochism puts forth new readings of this literature and shows the continued relevance of psychoanalysis to historicist studies of literature and culture.
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Add this copy of Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and to cart. $42.00, like new condition, Sold by Common Crow Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Pittsburgh, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by Princeton University Press.
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Fine in Fine jacket. Black cloth boards in dust jacket, octavo, 258pp., not illustrated. Book has handsome boards and tight binding, text clean and unmarked, feels unread. DJ fine.
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New. Reveals the role masochistic forms of voluntary suffering played in late-nineteenth-century British thinking about imperial politics and class identity. This book shows how the ideological and psychological dynamics of empire, particularly its reorganization of class identities at the colonial periphery, depended on figurations of masochism. Num Pages: 280 pages, black & white illustrations. BIC Classification: 2AB; DSBF; DSK. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (U) Tertiary Education (US: College). Dimension: 229 x 152 x 15. Weight in Grams: 542. 2006. Hardcover.....We ship daily from our Bookshop.
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Add this copy of Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and to cart. $80.33, new condition, Sold by Booksplease rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Southport, MERSEYSIDE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2006 by Princeton University Press.
