Thatcher & After: Margaret Thatcher and Her Afterlife in Contemporary Culture

This is the first substantial interdisciplinary, cross-genre critique of Margaret Thatcher and her cultural “afterlife,” exploring Thatcher’s legacy across a range of areas including public policy, broadcast media, film, poetry, architectural design, political cartoons and literature.Introduction“The Lady’s Not For Turning“: New Cultural Perspectives on Thatcher and ThatcherismPart I: Thatcher1. “There is no such thing!“: On Public Service, Broadcasting, the National Health Service and “people” in the 1980s2. “New Times” Television?: Channel 4 and My Beautiful Laundrette3.The Gospel of Gandhi: Whiteness and State Narcissism in Thatcherite England4. Rural Heritage and Colonial Nostalgia in the Thatcher Years: V. S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival5. There’s No Place like Home: Margaret Thatcher at Number 10 Downing StreetPart II: After6. Shameless?: Picturing the “underclass” after Thatcherism7. Carving Up Value: The Tragicomic Thatcher Years in Jonathan Coe8. Let’s Dance: The Line of Beauty and the Revenant Figure of Thatcher9. Sarah Kane: Cool Britannia’s Reluctant Feminist10. Parodic Reiterations: Representations of Margaret Thatcher and Thatcherism in Late Twentieth-Century British Political Cartoons The first substantial interdisciplinary, cross-genre critique of Margaret Thatcher and her cultural 'afterlife', exploring Thatcher's legacy across a range of areas including public policy, broadcast media, film, poetry, architectural design, political cartoons and literature. Thatcher & After explores the persistent reappearances of Margaret Thatcher, Britain's most loved and reviled Prime Minister, in contemporary British culture. Twenty years after Thatcher left office, Britain is still struggling to come to terms with her legacy. This exciting and original volume reads Thatcher's moment as a profound and powerful rupture in British political and cultural life and argues that there is an afterlife to Thatcher and Thatcherism that requires address and even redress in the present. The urgent goal of this volume is to restore a Thatcherite past to a present that is increasingly forgetful and celebratory of Thatcher and to resist the growing conservatism in British life. Its contributors provide strategies and opportunities to resist in the present, however belatedly, Thatcherism's all-pervasive policies - policies that can be seen problematically even at the core of New Labour's ideologies. Through a range of essays, scholars of literature, cultural studies, media studies, film and drama question what it means to be living in a post-Thatcher world Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-26 Front Matter....Pages 27-27 “There is no such thing!”: On Public Service, Broadcasting, the National Health Service and “people” in the 1980s....Pages 29-52 “New Times” Television? Channel 4 and My Beautiful Laundrette....Pages 53-74 The Gospel of Gandhi: Whiteness and State Narcissism in Thatcherite England....Pages 75-95 Rural Heritage and Colonial Nostalgia in the Thatcher Years: V. S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival....Pages 96-114 There’s No Place like Home: Margaret Thatcher at Number 10 Downing Street....Pages 115-133 Front Matter....Pages 135-135 Shameless?: Picturing the “underclass” after Thatcherism....Pages 137-157 Carving Up Value: The Tragicomic Thatcher Years in Jonathan Coe....Pages 158-179 Let’s Dance: The Line of Beauty and the Revenant Figure of Thatcher....Pages 180-198 Sarah Kane: Cool Britannia’s Reluctant Feminist....Pages 199-220 Parodic Reiterations: Representations of Margaret Thatcher and Thatcherism in Late Twentieth-Century British Political Cartoons....Pages 221-243 Back Matter....Pages 244-250 This is a substantial interdisciplinary, cross-genre critique of Margaret Thatcher & her cultural'afterlife', exploring her legacy across a range of areas including public policy, broadcast media, film, poetry, architectural design, political cartoons & literature