The 1980s: After the Watershed

British writing in the 1980s garnered acclaim, but remains incongruously ill-served by scholars. This has been a significant disadvantage to those both researching and teaching in the contemporary period. Research in this field has normally focused on single authors. My book will provide the first full and dedicated account of the literary response to this decisive conjuncture. The book will be wide-ranging and inclusive, though not exhaustive. Instead it will articulate particular themes and arguments which I propose are the most distinctive and dynamic trajectories of the period.

I argue that the transformative power of Thatcherism generated writing in its wake and in opposition, which often echoed the contradictions of the political moment itself. The 'watershed' of the title signifies the attempted break with post-war consensus. The book will insist on the formative role of social conditions and cultural contexts. It will trace literature's registration of emergent experiences, notably in relation to nation, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. But it will also analyze the period as a specific conjuncture for literary forms. This account will in turn be grounded in the history of the institutions of publishing and dissemination at the time, which formed literary groupings and shaped public perceptions of writing. After an introductory analysis of Thatcherism, the book will thus frame literary history through the history of publishing, arts organizations and media.

Chapter One, 'Winners', will discuss both those writers who formed the literary establishment at the start of the decade, and those who would become the next hegemonic generation. (The two Amises are emblematic here.) Subsequent writers found themselves in a contradictory relation to the new landscape of Thatcherism, which their work by turns relished and disdained. Chapter Two, 'Disaffections', argues that a full account of the literature of Thatcherism must also contemplate the large body of writing written in the name of the downtrodden and dispossessed, including the work of Pat Barker, Tony Harrison and James Kelman. Chapter Three, 'Modes', starts from formal and intellectual concerns, exploring the claims of literary experiment. The category of Postmodernism is limned as a discursive formation, with reference to the intersecting discourses of literary theory, literary and political journalism, and the novel itself. The influential metafictional mode of postmodernism will be set alongside alternatively experimental modes in poetry.

Chapter Four, 'Belongings', assesses the increasingly multiple and contested idea of British national identity. I show that writers of immigrant descent (Kureishi, Grace Nichols) made a significant impact on both poetry and fiction in Britain. Chapter Five, 'Passions', will explore tensions around both gender and sexuality at this conjuncture. The role of masculinity will be scrutinized, as will feminist writing, and the radical reinterpretations of tradition by Jeanette Winterson and Alan Hollinghurst. The Conclusion will assess the significance of the 1980s in modern literary history. It will also show that the legacy of the 1980s is still being worked through in contemporary literature, demonstrating that the field of the book remains an open, generative source.

The book is contracted with the University of Edinburgh Press for completion by September 2008, and publication in 2009. It will form part of the Edinburgh History of Twentieth-Century Literature in Britain. This will provide wide dissemination and publicity for the book. Work on the book is underway following the production of an 8,000-word proposal which has been approved and improved by a series of readers. The book draws on research I have been undertaking into this period for a number of years, much of it already published. However, the book will be an entirely new publication.