The British Aristocracy in Popular Culture: Essays on 200 Years of Representations - Paperback

by Stefania Michelucci (Editor), Ian Duncan (Editor), Luisa Villa (Editor)

As traditional social hierarchies fall away, ever steeper levels of economic inequality and the entrenchment of new class distinctions lend a new glamor to the idea of aristocracy: witness the worldwide popularity of Downton Abbey, or the seemingly insatiable public fascination with the private lives of the British royal family. This collection of new essays investigates the enduring attraction to the icon of the aristocrat and the spectacle of aristocratic society. It traces the ambivalent reactions the aristocracy provokes and the needs (political, ideological, psychological, and otherwise) it caters to in modern times when the economic power of the landed classes have been eroded and their political role curtailed. In this interdisciplinary collection, aristocracy is considered from multiple viewpoints, including British and American literature, European history and politics, cultural studies, linguistics, visual arts, music, and media studies.

Author Biography

Stefania Michelucci is a professor of English Studies at the University of Genoa, Italy. She is specializes in Modernism and the visual arts and on 20th century Anglo-American poetry and fiction. She has been a visiting scholar and has lectured all over the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, South Africa and Japan. Ian Duncan is Florence Green Bixby Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches the history of the novel, 19th-century British literature, and Scottish literature. Luisa Villa is a professor of English Studies at the University of Genoa, Italy. She has published books in Italian on Henry James, George Eliot, ressentiment in late 19th century fiction, and on the representation of the British military campaigns in the Sudan.