Böcker av Christopher Gair

This book brings together leading critics to explore the work of CLR James, the world-famous Carribean intellectual. It's an exciting and innovative examination of the wide impact that CLR James has had on contemporary thought -- as a historian, novelist, cultural and political theorist and activist. The contributors reinvigorate James's inspiring critical output, with particular reference to the impact he has had on cultural studies. Invaluable for students of post-colonial studies, the book examines points where James crosses with other theorists, such as Lacan and Gramsci. Racial identity and cultural politics are key themes in his work, not to mention his unique writings on cricket. Contributors including Donald E Pease, Nicole King, Christopher Gair and Anthony Bogues illuminate the key themes in James's writing, and put forward the idea that the breath of James's thinking can be identified as the beginning of 'post-national' studies. Christopher Gair is a lecturer in the Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham. He is the author of Complicity and Resistance in Jack London¹s Novels (Edwin Mullen Press, 1997), of The American Counterculture (forthcoming, Edinburgh University Press, 2006), and of numerous essays on American literature and culture. He is the editor of the journal Symbiosis.

Without them, the Hippies and the Punks would never have existed.The Beat Generation were a radical group of American writers whose relaxed, gritty and candid writing inspired generations. In his chronicle of the origins, adventures, and inner workings of the Beat movement, Christopher Gair reveals how it sparked one of the most important revolutions in American literature, influencing everything from bebop to the Beastie Boys.

The American counterculture played a major role during a pivotal moment in American history. Post-War prosperity combined with the social and political repression characteristic of middle-class life to produce both widespread civil disobedience and artistic creativity in the Baby Boomer generation.This introduction explores the relationship between the counterculture and American popular culture. It looks at the ways in which Hollywood and corporate record labels commodified and adapted countercultural texts, and the extent to which countercultural artists and their texts were appropriated. It offers an interdisciplinary account of the economic and social reasons for the emergence of the counterculture, and an appraisal of the key literary, musical, political and visual texts which were seen to challenge dominant ideologies.