Edition Kulturwissenschaft

Figurations of Tainted Whiteness in the Novels of Irvine Welsh, Niall Griffiths and John King

Mark Schmitt

• Publisher: transcript Verlag
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783839441015
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

"White trash" is a liminal figure that dramatizes the intersection of race and class. Contemporary British novelists like Irvine Welsh, Niall Griffiths and John King use this originally US-American stereotype to interrogate the racializing discourse of class in British society. Their novels are interdiscursive reflections of the figurations of race and class that still haunt the British cultural imaginary."British White Trash" is the first analysis to comprehensively examine the adaptation of the "white trash" stereotype in major British novels. The study thus contributes to a critical understanding of racism and classism, its cultural representations and its underlying social processes.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction. Whiteness and the C Word
• I What Happened to the British (White) Working Class? Theoretical and Methodological Framework
• II “The trash ay Europe” Abject Working-Class Whiteness in the Novels of Irvine Welsh
• III How Southern Gothic Came to Wales Race, Class and Post-Britishness in the Novels of Niall Griffiths
• IV Trashing the National Centre England’s Human Waste in the Novels of John King
• Conclusion
• Works Cited