Introduction: Remapping Boundaries — Postcolonial Britain and Literary/Cinematic Genres

Ilott, Sarah

doi:10.1057/9781137505224_1

New Postcolonial British Genres 2015

DOI: 10.1057/9781137505224_1

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Introduction: Remapping Boundaries — Postcolonial Britain and Literary/Cinematic Genres

Sarah Ilott

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Cited by 2 publications

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“…Certainly, although Gothic has been used in the service of conservative politics and racist ideologies, it is a dialogic mode, and is therefore open to multiple political and ideological projects. Thus postcolonial writers have long used the Gothic to challenge the legacy of imperialism and reveal the traumas of colonialism (e.g., Punter, 2000;Khair, 2009;Ilott, 2015). As Andrew Smith and William Hughes argue, the ambivalences and ambiguities of the Gothic ''provide a space in which key elements of the dominant culture can be debated '' (2003, pp.…”

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Reading ‘Fundamental British Values’ Through Children’s Gothic: Imperialism, History, Pedagogy

Buckley

2018

Child Lit Educ

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This paper reads the U.K. Government's ''fundamental British values'' project alongside two children's Gothic novels, Coram Boy (2000) by Jamila Gavin and City of Ghosts (2009) by Bali Rai. In 2011 the U.K. Government outlined what it described as ''fundamental British values'' (FBV), making it a requirement for U.K. schools to promote these values. Many critics have shown that the root of FBV lies in Islamophobia and imperialist nostalgia and suggested that the promotion of ''British'' values in school will exclude minority groups already under siege from racist elements in contemporary Britain. Other critics argue that the promotion of FBV reduces opportunities to explore issues of belonging, belief, and nationhood in the classroom. This article argues that the Gothic fictions of Jamila Gavin and Bali Rai offer a space in which to critically examine British history (and so, its values) in a way that is acutely relevant to these education contexts. Coram Boy and City of Ghosts use the Gothic to interrogate aspects of British history elided by the FBV project. That is, they point to Britain's imperial and colonial history and offer a rejoinder to the Government's insistence that ''British Values'' equate to democracy, respect for the rule of law and mutual respect and tolerance of those from different faiths and religions. Furthermore, Gavin's and Rai's use of the Gothic Chloé Germaine Buckley is a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. She gained her PhD, which explores children's and YA Gothic, in 2016 from Lancaster University. Her publications include Twenty-First Century Children's Gothic Fiction: From Wanderer to Nomadic Subject (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), Telling it Slant: Critical Approaches to Helen Oyeyemi (co-edited with Sarah Ilott), and chapters and articles on various aspects of the Gothic, including children's fiction, the Gothic child, the weird, gender and the Gothic, and representations of witches in popular culture. Children's Literature in Education https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-018-9344-z creates a space in which the ambiguities and contradictions inherent in FBV can be explored. However, their ''gothicized'' histories of Britain do not render the idea of shared values invalid. The diversity and interconnectedness of the characters offer an alternative version of identity to the patronising and arrogant FBV project, which is aimed at promoting a national identity based on sameness and assimilation. Rai and Gavin look to Britain's past through the lens of the Gothic not only to refute nationalism and racism, but also to offer a productive alternative that gestures towards a more cosmopolitan vision of identity.

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Reading ‘Fundamental British Values’ Through Children’s Gothic: Imperialism, History, Pedagogy

Buckley

2018

Child Lit Educ

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“… 5. I explore the parallels between aliens and migrant communities further in my monograph (Ilott, 2015: 162–63). …”

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“How is these kids meant to make it out the ghetto now?” Community cohesion and communities of laughter in British multicultural comedy

Ilott

2017

The Journal of Commonwealth Literature

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This article uses readings of Mark Mylod's Ali G Indahouse, Joe Cornish's Attack the Block, and Chris Morris's Four Lions to argue against a political trend for laying the blame for the purported failure of British multiculturalism at the hands of individual communities. Through my readings of these comic films, I suggest that popular constructions of "community" based on assumptions about cultural and religious homogeneity are rightly challenged, and new communities are created through shared laughter. Comedy's structural engagement with taboo means that stereotypes that have gained currency through media and political discourse that seeks to demonize particular groups of young men (the Muslim or the gangster, for example) are foregrounded. By being brought to the forefront and exposed, these stereotypes can be engaged and challenged through ridicule and demonstrations of incongruity. Furthermore, I suggest that power relations are made explicit through joking structures that work to include or exclude, meaning that the comedies can draw and redraw communities of laughter in a manner that effectively challenges notions of communities as discrete, homogeneous, and closely connected to cultural heritage. The article works against constructions of British Muslims as the problem community par excellence by using multicultural discourse to contextualize the representation of British Muslims and demonstrate how the discourse has repressed the role of political, social, and economic structures in a focus on "self-segregating" communities.

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Introduction: Remapping Boundaries — Postcolonial Britain and Literary/Cinematic Genres

Cited by 2 publications

References 11 publications

Reading ‘Fundamental British Values’ Through Children’s Gothic: Imperialism, History, Pedagogy

Reading ‘Fundamental British Values’ Through Children’s Gothic: Imperialism, History, Pedagogy

“How is these kids meant to make it out the ghetto now?” Community cohesion and communities of laughter in British multicultural comedy

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