Scottish and “Celtic fringe” postcolonialism has caused much controversy and unease in literary studies. Can the non-English territories and peoples of the British Isles, faced with centuries of English hegemony, be meaningfully compared to former overseas colonies? This book is the first comprehensive study of this topic which offers an in-depth study of Gaelic literature. It investigates the complex interplay between Celticity, Gaeldom, Scottish and British national identity, and international colonial and postcolonial discourse. It situates post/colonial elements in Gaelic poetry within a wider context, showing how they intersect with socio-historical and political issues, anglophone literature and the media. Highlighting the centrality of Celticity as an archetypal construct in colonial discourses ancient and modern, this volume traces post/colonial themes and strategies in Gaelic poetry from the Middle Ages to the present. Central themes include the uneasy position of Gaels as subjects of the Scottish or British state, and as both intra-British colonised and overseas colonisers. Aiming to promote interdisciplinary dialogue, it is of interest for scholars and students of Scottish Studies, Gaelic and English literature, and international Postcolonial Studies.

A surprising and revealing look at how today’s elite view their wealth and place in society From TV’s “real housewives” to The Wolf of Wall Street, our popular culture portrays the wealthy as materialistic and entitled. But what do we really know about those who live on “easy street”? In this penetrating book, Rachel Sherman draws on rare in-depth interviews that she conducted with fifty affluent New Yorkers—from hedge fund financiers and artists to stay-at-home mothers—to examine their lifestyle choices and understanding of privilege. Sherman upends images of wealthy people as invested only in accruing social advantages for themselves and their children. Instead, these liberal elites, who believe in diversity and meritocracy, feel conflicted about their position in a highly unequal society. As the distance between rich and poor widens, Uneasy Street not only explores the lives of those at the top but also sheds light on how extreme inequality comes to seem ordinary and acceptable to the rest of us.

How coalitions of citizens and experts have been effective in promoting environmental justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor.

Challenging the wisdom about the way capitalism and colonialism joined forces to transform Hong Kong into one of the world's great cities, this book deploys case studies of the clash of interests between alien colonials and their Chinese constituents and the conflict between a pro-business government and its political and social responsibilities.

This book is about the migrations for family reunion that have taken place in post-1997 Hong Kong between mothers and children living in mainland China and their long-absent husbands and fathers, residents of Hong Kong.

In this major interpretive history of the reform era, Barry Karl presents an imaginative and thoughtful perspective on America's quest for political, economic, and cultural nationalism. Challenging accepted interpretations, he argues that the two world wars and the depression did not successfully unite the country so that a national managerial state could emerge as it did in other industrial nations. Karl draws on an impressive array of sources to support his position, offering insightful comments on popular culture—movies, novels, comic strips, and detective stories—and brilliant analyses of technological change and its impact. Karl shows how Americans approached the central dilemmas of modern life, such as the clash between planned efficiency and autonomous individualism, which they managed to patch over but never fully resolve. Above all, he finds that America's commitment to the autonomous individual is both an aspiration and a curse.

This volume brings together essays that, individually and collectively, address the force of the literary text with regard to problematic identities. They work out of shared concerns with literary representations of this issue in different regions, nations and communities that often prove divided; they pursue questions related to textual identity, where the literary text itself is contested internally, or in its generic and historical relations. In sum, these studies actively test identity, as social or literary concept, discovering in difference the very condition of a useful, if paradoxical, sense of personal or textual coherence. What happens to us when we move between different cultures or different societies, defined in geographical or historical terms? What happens to texts and textual practices in these same circumstances? What happens to us when we are obliged to adapt to a new social order? Homi Bhabha speaks of “cultural difference” as calling into play what he calls “cultural translation.” What happens to identity, the narrative that fashions a continued sense of self, in this case? Difference, raised to alterity, demands that we accord functional and philosophical value not just to other aspects, but also to the aspect of the other. At the level of personal or textual agency, however, difference contests and threatens to subvert stable selfhood, composing a scene of conflict. Even so, it often proves to be instrumental in re-charging a sense of the cultural valence of the literary text – not least by virtue of its political implications. In this regard, the border – where difference materialises – has considerable presence in contributions to this volume, prompting appreciation of texts that work on or travel across such borders, however haphazardly and dangerously, but also those that compose “border textualities.”