Doris Lessing and the Forming of History

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Doris Lessing ◽  
First Century ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Youth Politics ◽  
European Cinema ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Post War

The death of Nobel Prize-winning Doris Lessing sparked a range of commemorations that cemented her place as one of the major figures of twentieth- and twenty-first- century world literature. This volume views Lessing’s writing as a whole and in retrospect, focusing on her innovative attempts to rework literary form to engage with the challenges thrown up by the sweeping historical changes through which she lived. Contributors provide new readings of Lessing’s work via contexts ranging from post-war youth politics and radical women’s writing to European cinema, analyse her experiments with genres from realism to autobiography and science-fiction, and draw on previously unstudied archive material. The volume also explores how Lessing’s writing can provide insight into some of the issues now shaping twenty-first century scholarship – including trauma, ecocriticism, the post-human, and world literature – as they emerge as defining challenges to our own present moment in history.

Twenty-First-Century Fiction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Berthold Schoene
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
First Century ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
Global Relations

This chapter looks at how the contemporary British and Irish novel is becoming part of a new globalized world literature, which imagines the world as it manifests itself both within (‘glocally’) and outside nationalist demarcations. At its weakest, often against its own best intentions, this new cosmopolitan writing cannot but simply reinscribe the old imperial power relations. Or, it provides an essential component of the West’s ideological superstructure for globalization’s neoliberal business of rampant upward wealth accumulation. At its best, however, this newly emergent genre promotes a cosmopolitan ethics of justice, resistance. It also promotes dissent while working hard to expose and deconstruct the extant hegemonies and engaging in a radical imaginative recasting of global relations.

Leadership competencies for the 21st century: a review from the Western world literature

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Major Ngayo Fotso
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Leadership Competencies ◽  
First Century ◽  
Western World ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Decision Choices ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Recruitment And Selection

Purpose The proliferation of studies on leadership competencies have not yet provided a consistent set to guide the work of researchers and practitioners. This paper aims to generate a clear, literature-based overview of the relevant leadership competencies for the twenty-first century. Design/methodology/approach The paper is an integrative literature review and identifies four strands of literature on leadership, reaching back to traditional works. It reviews each strand to establish which leadership competencies remain relevant for the twenty-first century. Findings This paper shows it is essential to clarify and harmonize terminology used in leadership literature. It identifies 18 groups of leadership competencies required for the twenty-first century. The research reveals that leaders of the twenty-first century must be able to combine a strong concern for people, customer experience, digitalization, financialization and the general good. Research limitations/implications This paper is based on a non-exhaustive list of literature derived from studies published in Western journals, written in English. Future research should include papers beyond the confines of Western academia and entail fieldwork to test the comprehensive framework derived here. Practical implications This paper will help practitioners develop leadership training curricula and transform the leadership culture in their organizations. The competency list can be useful in recruitment and selection processes for leadership positions. Professionals will find it helpful as an index in self-diagnosis and personal development for their career decision choices. Originality/value The paper addresses the growing need for clarity on the required leadership competencies for the twenty-first century.

scholarly journals Doris Lessing’s Science Fiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 167-176
Author(s):  
Ms. Shikha Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Doris Lessing ◽  
Feminist Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
Private Problems ◽  
Post War ◽  
Story Writer

Doris Lessing, the Nobel Laureate (1919-2007), a British novelist, poet, a writer of epic scope, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer. She was the “most fearless woman novelist in the world, unabashed ex-communist and uncompromising feminist”. Doris has earned the great reputation as a distinguished and outstanding writer. She raised local and private problems of England in post-war period with emphasis on man-woman relationship, feminist movement, welfare state, socio-economic and political ethos, population explosion, terrorism and social conflicts in her novels.

Kids on Bikes in Twenty-First-Century Nostalgia Science Fiction

2020 ◽  
pp. 189-222
Author(s):  
Jeremy Withers
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
First Century ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Motorized Transport

This final chapter focuses on one of the most recent and most popular trends happening right now in science fiction, the rise of a decidedly nostalgic form of science fiction. In particular, the trend examined in this chapter is one called ‘1980s-nostalgia science fiction’ and is made up of science fiction literary and screen texts from c. 2010-present that exhibit a profound fondness for or interest in the American 1980s. The three nostalgia texts that comprise the focus of this chapter are Super 8, Stranger Things, and Paper Girls. After first discussing what is one of the most influential texts for this 1980s-nostalgia science fiction – Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra Terrestrial – this chapter then analyzes how these nostalgia texts align themselves with Spielberg’s blockbuster film by demonizing motorized transport while simultaneously exalting the bicycle.

The Future of Epic in Cinema

2018 ◽  
pp. 119-132
Author(s):  
Pantelis Michelakis
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
First Century ◽  
Genre Criticism ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The Future ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter explores the ways in which the generic label of ‘epic’ might be deemed relevant for Ridley Scott’s film Prometheus (2012), and more broadly for the ways in which a discussion about the meanings of epic in early twenty-first-century cinema might be undertaken outside the genre of ‘historical epic’. It argues for the need to explore how ‘epic science fiction’ operates in Scott’s Prometheus in ways that both relate and transcend common definitions of the term ‘epic’ in contemporary popular culture. It also focuses on the unorthodox models of biological evolution of the film’s narrative, suggesting ways in which they can help with genre criticism. When it comes to cinematic intertextuality, a discussion about generic taxonomies and transformations cannot be conducted at the beginning of the twenty-first century without reflecting on the tropes that cinema animates and the fears it enacts at the heart of our genetic imaginary.

Staying Mobile in Postapocalyptic Cli-Fi

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-188
Author(s):  
Jeremy Withers
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
First Century ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter examines how the rising popularity since the 1990s of works of postapocalyptic cli-fi (i.e. climate change fiction) has provided science fiction writers a convenient opportunity to explore issues of mobility and transportation. After first examining an early postapocalyptic cli-fi work from the 1990s by Octavia E. Butler, the chapter then advances this book’s chronological analysis to some twenty-first century works of science fiction. In its discussion of a novel by Paolo Bacigalupi and one by Benjamin Parzybok, this chapter shows how more restrained modes of transport play a vital role during times of apocalypse in keeping a society functioning and keeping us as individuals from slipping into disempowerment.

Anarchism and Cinema

2020 ◽  
pp. 9-59
Author(s):  
Richard Porton
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Politics ◽  
First Century ◽  
Early Cinema ◽  
Free Love ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
European Cinema ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter discusses how, from early cinema to the present, the demonization of anarchist protagonists is evident in films made by both commercial hacks and auteurs with more rarefied sensibilities. Most filmmakers usually proffer de-historicized versions of anarchism, which nurture specific agendas that have little to do with historical reality. It is important to remember, nonetheless, that hyperbolic images of anarchist terrorists, conspicuous in both Hollywood and European cinema, from the early work of Edwin S. Porter and D. W. Griffith to the apparently more sophisticated films of European cineastes such as Claude Chabrol and Bertrand Tavernier, do not exist in a vacuum. For this reason, a brief historical excursus is necessary to explain the staying power of the wild-eyed, homicidal anarchist as a popular cinematic stereotype. The chapter then looks at the ambiguous representations of anarchism in the twenty-first century and the perils of self-representation, assessing Joel Sucher and Steven Fischler's documentary Anarchism in America (1981). It also considers the link between “free love” and anarchist sexual politics. Finally, the chapter addresses anarcho-feminism in cinema and the question of violence.

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