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Ouvrages Année : 2012

In and Out: Eccentricity in Britain

Sophie Aymes-Stokes

Résumé

The aim of In and Out: Eccentricity in Britain is twofold: first, to provide an overview of the critical history of eccentricity, and secondly to conceptualise a notion that is often presented as a defining feature of the English “character”. It addresses the key issues raised by eccentricity and brings out interdisciplinary links between science, politics, literature and the arts: the sources and dissemination of the concept of eccentricity; its relationship with the English national character as historical and ideological construct; the structural need for variation and divergence within accepted social norms; the paradoxical status of the eccentric as outsider—when eccentricity is transgressive and alienating—and as insider¬—eccentricity as socially acceptable deviation. Fundamentally eccentricity is a normative notion: being ex-centred enables eccentrics to delineate and negotiate boundaries between the margins and the centre, the canon and the norm. The contributors question the links between eccentricity and diversity and originality, the value of individual experience and character, and as a corollary, the struggle to retain individuality against increasing standardization, commoditisation and channelling within the normative discourse of normality. The first chapters tackle the cultural dissemination at work in the normative constructs in the British Empire and the early modern period. The second part of the book focuses on 18th- and 19th-century gendered eccentricity as a possible factor of social change. The following chapters deal with fictional eccentricity and its narrative figures, and with the significance of margins and peripheries in the text. Eccentricity as display and performance is the subject of the last section, which focuses on reception, image and (self)-representation, exhibition and voyeurism.
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Dates et versions

hal-04434305 , version 1 (02-02-2024)

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  • HAL Id : hal-04434305 , version 1

Citer

Laurent Mellet, Sophie Aymes-Stokes. In and Out: Eccentricity in Britain. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2012, 9781443839075. ⟨hal-04434305⟩

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