Since long before the age of celebrity activism, literary authors have used their public profiles and cultural capital to draw attention to a wide range of socio-political concerns. This book is the first to explore – through history, criticism and creative interventions – the relationship between authorship, political activism and celebrity culture across historical periods, cultures, literatures and media. It brings together scholars, industry stakeholders and prominent writer-activists to engage in a conversation on literary fame and public authority.
These scholarly essays, interviews, conversations and opinion pieces interrogate the topos of the artist as prophet and acute critic of the zeitgeist; analyse the ideological dimension of literary celebrity; and highlight the fault lines between public and private authorial selves, ‘pure’ art, political commitment and marketplace imperatives. In case studies ranging from the 18th century to present-day controversies, authors illuminate the complex relationship between literature, politics, celebrity culture and market activism, bringing together vivid current debates on the function and responsibility of literature in increasingly fractured societies.
Author(s): Sandra Mayer; Ruth Scobie (editors)
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 258
City: New York
Cover
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Foreword Meena Kandasamy
1 Introduction: The Idea of the Author Sandra Mayer and Ruth Scobie
2 ‘Let’s Deal with the People Oppressing All of Us’: Benjamin Zephaniah in Conversation Benjamin Zephaniah and Malachi McIntosh
Part 1 Art as Activism
3 Clearing a Space for Multiple, Marginal Voices: The Writers’ Activism of PEN Peter D. McDonald, Margie Orford, Rachel Potter, Carles Torner and Laetitia Zecchini
4 Live at the Polari Salon: Literary Performance as Activism Ellen Wiles
5 ‘Bugger Universality’: An Exchange with Antjie Krog Antjie Krog and Peter D. McDonald
Part 2 Activism and the Literary Industry
6 Moving between Worlds: A Writer and a Publisher in Conversation Kirsty Gunn and David Graham
7 Resisting Stereotypes: Art, Activism and the Literature Industry Elleke Boehmer, Alice Guthrie, Daniel Medin, Charlotte Ryland and Alan Taylor
8 Fanny Fern and Nellie Bly: Unstable I’s Eva Sage Gordon
Part 3 The Invention of the Public Intellectual
9 The Critical Pedagogy of Fiction in Democratic Public Spheres Odile Heynders
10 A ‘Passive Spectactress’? Frances Burney and the Eighteenth-Century Writer as Social Activist Anna Paluchowska-Messing
11 ‘The Indian Cobbett’: Radicalism, Empire and Literary Celebrity in the Life of James Silk Buckingham (1786–1855) Kieran Hazzard
12 ‘Literary Criticism Only’: Jeyamohan and the Author as Conservative Activist in ‘Aram’ (2011) Divya A.
Part 4 Writing Europe
13 European Connections: Literary Networks, Political Authorship and the Future of Europe Debate Benedict Schofield
14 Vernon Lee: Transnational Activism and Protest Literature for Art and Peace Elisa Bizzotto
15 On Behalf of the Nation: Knut Hamsun and the Politics of Authorship Tore Rem
16 Looking On … Kirsty Gunn
Bibliography
Index
