Rural Modernity in Britain

Rural Modernity in Britain doesn't merely fill a notable gap in studies of "modernism" and "modernity" - it provides a new template for understanding these terms in reference to Britain. Charting diverse, regionally inflected responses to modernity, the volume moves beyond the model of a single "countryside" as the locus of nostalgia or the weekend fantasies of modern urban dwellers to render the "rural" complex and vital.'
Debra Rae Cohen, University of South Carolina
Defines the interdisciplinary field of Rural Modernity through analysis of British literature, art and culture
Rural Modernity in Britain argues that the rural areas of Britain were impacted by modernisation just as much - if not more - than urban and suburban areas. It is the first study of modernity and modernism to focus on rural people and places that experienced economic depression, the expansion of transportation and communication networks, the roll out of electricity, the loss of land, and the erosion of local identities. Who celebrated these changes? Who resisted them? Who documented them?
Essays in this collection make the case that the rural means more than just the often-studied countryside of southern England, a retreat from the consequences of modernity; rather, the rural emerges as a source for new versions of the modern, with an active role in the formation and development of British experiences and representations of modernity.
Kristin Bluemel is Professor of English and Wayne D. McMurray Chair in the Humanities at Monmouth University in New Jersey.
Michael McCluskey is Lecturer in English and Film Studies at the University of York.
Cover image: Deserted Quarry, William Rothenstein, 1904
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edinburghuniversitypress.com
ISBN 978-1-4744-2095-2
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