A History of 1930s British Literature

Benjamin Kohlmann teaches English literature at the University of Freiburg. He is the author of Committed Styles: Modernism, Politics, and Left-Wing Literature in the 1930s (2014) and Speculative States: Literature and Reform in Britain, 1870–1920 (forthcoming). His articles have been published in PMLA, ELH, Novel, and other journals. He has co-edited several essay collections and special issues, including new work on literature and anti-communism (with Matthew Taunton), modernist utopianism, and the communist writer Edward Upward. Matthew Taunton is a Senior Lecturer in Literature at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of Red Britain: The Russian Revolution in Mid-Century Culture (forthcoming) and Fictions of the City: Class, Culture and Mass Housing in London and Paris (2009). He has also written various articles and book chapters on modern literature and politics, and on cities. With Benjamin Kohlmann, he co-edited a 2015 special issue of Literature & History on the subject of literary anti-Communism. He is deputy editor of Critical Quarterly.

Introduction: the long 1930s Benjamin Kohlmann and Matthew Taunton; Part I. Mapping a New Decade: Geographies and Identities: 1. Beyond Englishness: the regional and rural novel in the 1930s Kristin Bluemel; 2. Uncanny cities: urban geographies and metropolitan life in the 1930s Emma Zimmerman; 3. The making of the working class: proletarian writing in the 1930s Nick Hubble; 4. Professional women writers Kristin Ewins; 5. Queer communist formations: coterie, counterpublic, cell Glyn Salton-Cox; Part II. Media Histories and the Institutions of Literature: 6. Circulating literature: libraries, bookshops, and book clubs Andrew Thacker; 7. Literature and education in the long 1930s Matthew Taunton; 8. International PEN: writers, free expression, organisations Rachel Potter; 9. The new reading public: modernism, popular literature, and the paperbacks Vike Martina Plock; 10. Debatable ground: journalism, pamphlets, and social critique Peter Marks; 11. 'Hypocrite auditeur, mon semblable, mon frère': literature and the border of the radio public Ian Whittington; 12. Talking films Laura Marcus; 13. Telemediations James Purdon; Part III. Commitment and Autonomy: 14. Ambiguity run riot: film-mindedness in the 1930s avant garde Rod Mengham; 15. 'A vein of insularity': British music in the long 1930s Louise Wiggins; 16. Representing fascism in 1930s literature Tyrus Miller; 17. The documentary impulse Leo Mellor; 18. Religion, modernism and Anglo-agnostics: (un) belief and fiction in the 1930s Suzanne Hobson; 19. The colonial state and transnational welfare during the 1930s Depression Janice Ho; 20. The scientific imagination and the politics of objectivity Boris Jardine; Part IV. The Global 1930s: Conflict and Change: 21. Anglo-Soviet literary relations in the long 1930s John Connor; 22. A declining empire in a rising power: British writers in America Greg Barnhisel; 23. Late modernism and the Spanish Civil War Patricia Rae; 24. Total war Marina MacKay; 25. Colonial intellectuals and the aesthetic Cold War Peter Kalliney; 26. Imperial fictions: writing the end of empire Laura Winkiel.