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41796 results in Collections

Page 24 of 2090

  • 1 - Histories of Later Latin Literature

  • Edited by Gavin Kelly, University of Edinburgh, Aaron Pelttari, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Later Latin Literature
    Published online:
    16 January 2026
    Print publication:
    12 February 2026, pp 1-14
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  • Chapter 5 - The British Counterculture, Utopia, and Class

  • from Part II - Building New Communities
  • Edited by Caroline Edwards, Birkbeck College, University of London
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to British Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
    Published online:
    18 December 2025
    Print publication:
    12 February 2026, pp 97-118

  • Summary

    This chapter analyses the utopian possibilities of the British counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. Countercultural aesthetics and politics responded to contemporary crises in urban planning, ecological destruction, and fractured identities of nation and class – issues that remain pressing in the twenty-first century. Tracing the origins of post-punk utopianism, the chapter argues that the ambiguity of the British counterculture’s utopian possibilities may be explored via an excavation of its class basis. Drawing on the work of Raymond Williams, Ernst Bloch, and Herbert Marcuse, the chapter analyses the 1974 BBC TV play Penda’s Fen. It suggests that Penda’s Fen contains conflicting utopian visions, reflecting the differing class factions that comprised the counterculture and anticipated the neoliberal present of twenty-first-century Britain. The chapter concludes by suggesting that this iconic TV play has lessons to teach us in the contemporary moment. Its class politics, which explores homosexual desire between working-class and middle-class characters, offers a utopian image of cross-class solidarity and sexuality set against the backdrop of a mythic vision of Britain.

Page 24 of 2090