"Was the empire, " Baucom asks, " the domain of England's mastery of the globe... more "Was the empire, " Baucom asks, " the domain of England's mastery of the globe or the territory of the loss of Englishness?" He opens his exploration of this question, which will range from midVictorian through to fully contemporary topics, with an engaging analysis of the British Nationality Act of 1981. This act, in Baucom's view, codifies the crucial late-twentieth-century adjustment in the understanding of English identity. Formerly a question of location (where was one born?), the right to claim status as a British citizen becomes henceforth a question of genealogy (to whom was one born?); race, after 1981, takes precedent over place. Baucom does not, however, present the 1981 Act exclusively as rupture. Indeed, his book undertakes to demonstrate that English identity has been, since Britain's accession to the status of a global imperial power, complexly articulated. Indeed, Baucom argues Englishness, if one examines the imperial history ofthat idea, is always "continuously discontinuous with what it was a moment ago and what it is about to become" (163). Beginning with Ruskin, perhaps the first thinker to attempt to forge an architectural, place-oriented analysis of national identity, and concluding with the fantastic taxonomy and cartography Rushdie brings to bear upon postcolonial Englishness, the book engages with an admirable diversity of topics within literary and cultural studies. It discovers discourses of identity (typically fissured by ambivalencies) in the hybridized imperial gothic of Bombay's Victoria Terminus, in the touristic deployment of the sites and monuments of the
Th is paper assesses the present state of English studies in contemporary Turkey. It begins by no... more Th is paper assesses the present state of English studies in contemporary Turkey. It begins by noting the Head of Turkey’s Higher Education Board’s admission of the Board’s failure to improve higher education. Th e paper then confi rms the Head’s position, fi rst fi nding the acquisition of English language skills to be generally unsatisfactory among students and also among locally educated faculty members. It ascribes this problem to poor language-teaching practice, which tends to rely too much on translation. Th is paper also notes the misconception of viewing English studies as a domain of knowledge rather than as a fi eld of study. It argues that these problems have global implications and arise in relation to the global history of English studies. It undertakes a detailed examination of T. B. Macaulay’s 1835 “Minute on Indian Education,” in which Macaulay presents English literature as a new and potentially edifying subject for higher education and a powerful instrument for mor...
"Was the empire, " Baucom asks, " the domain of England's mastery of the globe... more "Was the empire, " Baucom asks, " the domain of England's mastery of the globe or the territory of the loss of Englishness?" He opens his exploration of this question, which will range from midVictorian through to fully contemporary topics, with an engaging analysis of the British Nationality Act of 1981. This act, in Baucom's view, codifies the crucial late-twentieth-century adjustment in the understanding of English identity. Formerly a question of location (where was one born?), the right to claim status as a British citizen becomes henceforth a question of genealogy (to whom was one born?); race, after 1981, takes precedent over place. Baucom does not, however, present the 1981 Act exclusively as rupture. Indeed, his book undertakes to demonstrate that English identity has been, since Britain's accession to the status of a global imperial power, complexly articulated. Indeed, Baucom argues Englishness, if one examines the imperial history ofthat idea, is always "continuously discontinuous with what it was a moment ago and what it is about to become" (163). Beginning with Ruskin, perhaps the first thinker to attempt to forge an architectural, place-oriented analysis of national identity, and concluding with the fantastic taxonomy and cartography Rushdie brings to bear upon postcolonial Englishness, the book engages with an admirable diversity of topics within literary and cultural studies. It discovers discourses of identity (typically fissured by ambivalencies) in the hybridized imperial gothic of Bombay's Victoria Terminus, in the touristic deployment of the sites and monuments of the
Th is paper assesses the present state of English studies in contemporary Turkey. It begins by no... more Th is paper assesses the present state of English studies in contemporary Turkey. It begins by noting the Head of Turkey’s Higher Education Board’s admission of the Board’s failure to improve higher education. Th e paper then confi rms the Head’s position, fi rst fi nding the acquisition of English language skills to be generally unsatisfactory among students and also among locally educated faculty members. It ascribes this problem to poor language-teaching practice, which tends to rely too much on translation. Th is paper also notes the misconception of viewing English studies as a domain of knowledge rather than as a fi eld of study. It argues that these problems have global implications and arise in relation to the global history of English studies. It undertakes a detailed examination of T. B. Macaulay’s 1835 “Minute on Indian Education,” in which Macaulay presents English literature as a new and potentially edifying subject for higher education and a powerful instrument for mor...
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