Expanding Suburbia: Reviewing Suburban Narratives

Front Cover
Roger Webster
Berghahn Books, 2001 M02 1 - 208 pages

During the last few decades suburbia has grown enormously and become a phenomenon attracting the attention of scholars as well as practitioners by whom it is seen as an increasingly significant and complex area of modern life. The essays in this volume consider a range of representations of suburban life from the late nineteenth century to the present day, including fiction, film, and popular music, drawn from America and Australia as well as Britain. They explore and challenge traditional views of suburbia so that, rather than a location of conformity and stereotypicality, it can be viewed as a site of social conflict, division, and ambiguity as well as a source of significant creativity across a range of cultural texts. The volume takes a thematic approach, considering the rise of suburbia, imagined and real suburbias, alternative suburbias: all of the essays have a strong historical dimension and the overall approach is characterized by interdisciplinarity.

 

Selected pages

Contents

SUBURBIA INSIDE OUT
1
AN ALTERNATIVE SUBURBAN HISTORY
15
CHAPTER 2 THE NEW SUBURBANITES AND CONTESTED CLASS IDENTITIES IN THE LONDON SUBURBS 18801900
31
SUBURBAN FICTIONS AT THE VICTORIAN FIN DE SIÈCLE
51
SUBURBANITES IN POSTWAR BRITISH FICTION
71
CHAPTER 5 SUBURBAN VALUES AND ETHNICITIES IN INDOANGLIAN WRITING
91
CRIME CONTEMPORARY FICTION AND SUBURBIA
109
SIGNIFYING EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN SOUTH
125
RENEGOTIATING THE SUBURBAN SELF IN NICK HORNBYS FEVER PITCH AND HIGH FIDELITY
141
THE IDEA OF THE SUBURB IN ENGLISH POP
161
SUBURBIA IN RECENT AUSTRALIAN COMEDY FILM
173
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
187
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
191
INDEX
193
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Expanding Suburbia: Reviewing Suburban Narratives
Roger Webster
Limited preview - 2000
Expanding Suburbia: Reviewing Suburban Narratives
Roger Webster
Limited preview - 2000
Expanding Suburbia: Reviewing Suburban Narratives
Roger Webster
No preview available - 2000

Common terms and phrases

appears Arts associated attempt Australian Ballroom become begins belonging British building called camp centre century character concerns contemporary continue created crime critical culture dance defined describes desire domestic early England English escape example existence experience express fact father Fever Pitch fiction football Garden City Garden City movement Hornby Ibid ideal ideas identity Indian individual interest John Karim kind Kureishi late later Letchworth living London look mall meaning middle middle-class move movement Muriel’s Wedding narrative nature Notes novel offer perhaps Pitch planning popular position provides recent reflection relationship represents response reveals seems seen sense significant Silverstone social space story streets style suburban suburbanites suburbia suburbs suggests tion town traditional urban utopian values Visions of Suburbia wanted writing

About the author (2001)

Roger Webster is Professor of Literary Studies and Director of the School of Media, Critical & Creative Arts, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool.

Bibliographic information

TitleExpanding Suburbia: Reviewing Suburban Narratives
Volume 6 of Polygons: Cultural Diversities and Intersections
EditorRoger Webster
PublisherBerghahn Books, 2001
ISBN1800735146, 9781800735149
Length208 pages
  
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