British Life And Institutions

British Literature and the Life of Institutions charts a literary prehistory of the welfare state in Britain around 1900, but it also marks a major intervention in current theoretical debates about critique and the dialectical imagination. By placing literary studies in dialogue with politicaltheory, philosophy, and the history of ideas, the book reclaims a substantive reformist language that we have ignored to our own loss. This reformist idiom made it possible to imagine the state as a speculative and aspirational idea--as a fully realized form of life rather than as an uninspiringensemble of administrative procedures and bureaucratic processes. This volume traces the resonances of this idiom from the Victorian period to modernism, ranging from Mary Augusta Ward, George Gissing, and H. G. Wells, to Edward Carpenter and E. M. Forster. Compared to this reformist language, theeconomism that dominates current debates about the welfare state signals an impoverishment that is at once intellectual, cultural, and political. Critiquing the shortcomings of the welfare state comes naturally to us, but we often struggle to offer up convincing defences of its principles and aims.This book intervenes in these debates by urging a richer understanding of critique: speculation, this provocative new study suggests, does not signify the cancellation of critique but an aspirational moment inherent in critique itself. If we want to defend the state, Kohlmann argues, we need tolearn to think about it again.

Provides a succinct guide and easy access, in dictionary form, to selected central British institutional terms, which are widely employed in contemporary British life. The word `institutions' is applied in a broad sense to cover, for example, political and governmental institutions; local government; international institutions with which Britain has connections; legal, economic and industrial institutions; education; the media; religion and social welfare; health and housing institutions; geographical and traditional social terms and institutions. The aim of the book is to provide sufficient information in one volume to render these terms intelligible to students or professionals who are concerned with fundamental aspects of British society. The book contains lists of British governments and prime ministers, lists of kings and queens and a short historical overview of key events in British history. It is cross-referenced with a comprehensive index and includes appendices providing further information such as widely used British abbreviations.