Greece has always occupied a prevalent position in European philosophy. During the Enlightenment, the Greco-Roman culture gained a new impetus, which paved the way for the surge of the Grand Tour and established Italy as a popular travel destination amongst European travellers who yearned to be in close communion with its ancient sites. Unlike Italy, Greece still posed a challenge to the average travel writer, since it functioned as a bridge between Europe and the Orient. The gradual shift of focus from Neoclassical ideals to Northernism, which conveniently conformed to the nation-building Anglo-Saxon paradigm, marked a parallel reversal of cultural order, which resulted in the view of Greece as a land of piracy and banditry, conditions which intensified its perception as the Oriental Other and led British intellectuals to associate the Greek nation with nearby countries on various levels. Considering the parallel emergence of the “pseudosciences”, which venerated the image of the Nordic race and persistently viewed other nations as the Other, Greece was automatically placed as an alien culture in the light of Social Darwinism. During its war of independence, Greece became the subject of ardent political and cultural debates, which favoured its autonomy from the Ottoman yoke, yet undermined its complete transformation into an independent state. The focal point of this book is British women travellers’ perceptions of Greece and the Orient from the late-eighteenth century until the late-Victorian era. The construction of a Greek dystopia will be explored in relation to the historical background that fuelled the negative conceptualisation of the Greek nation as mongrel, unruly, indolent and perilous to the British imperialist agenda. This book, therefore, sheds light on British women travellers’ efforts to subvert patriarchal authority and engage in predominantly male activities, during which they are purposefully or unconsciously led to several misconceptions regarding the Greek cause.

Without any doubt, one of the European regions that has never ceased to trouble the Westerner traveller is the Balkan Peninsula, which functioned as a terra incognita within the British travel canon, and served as the transit point to the Ottoman Empire or the Old Grecian world. At a time when Anglo-Saxonism occupied a prevalent position in British political discourse, the Balkan Peninsula came to epitomise all the negative qualities of the Orient that British travellers were anxious to apply to alien countries that were far removed from the nation-building agenda of the Empire. As such, classified as the fringe of the Orient, Serbia was persistently depicted as a politically unstable region, inhabited by primitive ethnic groups that could possibly threaten the viability of the British imperialist interests in European Turkey. In the light of the Serbian national struggle to promote the idea of a South-Slavic Union or forge an identity against the Austrian and Ottoman Empires, some British travellers undertook a journey to all the Balkan states where Serbians formed the majority of the population to demonise the War of Liberation of the Balkan states against the Ottoman yoke, treating it as visible evidence of Russian Expansionism. This book concentrates on dystopian British imagology of Serbia as a travel destination, including travel accounts produced from 1717 until 1911, a year prior to the outbreak of the First World War. The travel texts incorporated into this volume shed light on all the conceptualisations of the Balkans, addressing the sociopolitical conditions that sparked the national awakening of Serbia.

Until its emancipation from the Ottoman yoke, Bulgaria always occupied an unprivileged and unfavourable position in British imagination, from the very first mention of the country in Western travelogues. However, since the late eighteenth century, the Bulgarian nation has been subjected to the scrutiny of the British traveller owing to its proximity to other nations whose national struggles received more prominence, and consequently overshadowed the Bulgarians’ National Renaissance, such as Serbia and Greece. This volume concerns all the depictions of Bulgaria as a dystopian land from the eighteenth century until the country’s emergence as an important military power after its Liberation movement in 1878. In these travel narratives, the notion of the Bulgarian nationhood is described as an antithesis to idea of the civilised British, but also as a threat to the stability of the Ottoman Empire. With the rapid decline of the latter, from a mere Ottoman province, Bulgaria gradually transforms into a nation whose National Revival efforts come to the fore to question the British and Ottoman depictions of the Bulgarian nation as subaltern and uncultivated.

Since its annexation to the British Crown, Ireland has never ceased in forming the subject of an ardent national debate in Great Britain which resulted in the demonisation of the Celtic race as subaltern and backward. In its effort to forge a national identity, the British Empire adopted several collective identities on the basis of the racial and cultural findings of the 1850s which gave a new impetus to the systematic view of England as a typically Anglo-Saxon culture, staunchly opposed to the alleged Celtic backwardness and the rebellious spirit of the Irish. In view of the rising anti-Irish wave of sentiment in the British imperialist imagination, Irish nationalism was manifest through a series of uprisings, the majority of which sought to link the country to its ancient Celtic heritage. The Celticist movements of Young Ireland and the Irish Revival revealed the need of Irish Nationalists to acquire a new, collective identity, which proved to be a strenuous task, given the complex historical and ethnic background of the Irish. This book investigates the extent to which Irish identity is affected by the racist and nationalist discourses of the nineteenth century which emerged to either defend or oppose the image of Ireland as a cultural construct. The travelogues explored here include some of the most fundamental representations of Ireland by prominent Irish and British travel writers, whose impressions of the island might be linked to the utopian and dystopian dimensions of the country.

Discusses previously marginalized or underappreciated women Gothic authors. Provides innovative readings of specific Gothic texts. Reintroduces lesser known primary texts into the critical discussion. Presents a core thesis which advances the field of Gothic studies and rethinks previous perceptions of literary culture.

This collection brings together new and original research on the concept and practice of ‘rhythmanalysis’ in urban sociology as a means to analyse the relationship between the time and space of the city.

Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.

Ce recueil bilingue consacré à l'écrivain canadien Margaret Atwood, reconnue comme l'une des figures dominantes de la littérature d'expression anglaise, contient l'intervention qu'elle a prononcée à Rennes en novembre 1998 sur son roman The Handmaid's Tale (La Servante écarlate) et sur le genre auquel il appartient. Le roman, inscrit aux programmes 1999 du CAPES et de l'agrégation d'anglais, a été l'un des plus grands succès littéraires des années 80 aux États-Unis, au Canada et en Grande-Bre.

There are many debates about utopia - What constitutes a utopia? Are utopias benign or dangerous? Is the idea of utopianism essential to Christianity or heretical? What is the relationship between utopia and ideology? This Very Short Introduction explores these issues and examines utopianism and its history. Lyman Sargent discusses the role of utopianism in literature, and in the development of colonies and in immigration. The idea of utopia has become commonplace in social and political thought, both negatively and positively. Some thinkers see a trajectory from utopia to totalitarianism with violence an inevitable part of the mix. Others see utopia directly connected to freedom and as a necessary element in the fight against totalitarianism. In Christianity utopia is labelled as both heretical and as a fundamental part of Christian belief, and such debates are also central to such fields as architecture, town and city planning, and sociology among many others Sargent introduces and summarizes the debates over the utopia in literature, communal studies, social and political theory, and theology. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.