'Angry Young Men' Movement

Une crise de la masculinité, dit-on, sévit dans nos sociétés trop féminisées. Les hommes souffriraient parce que les femmes et les féministes prennent trop de place. Parmi les symptômes de cette crise, on évoque les difficultés scolaires des garçons, l’incapacité des hommes à draguer, le refus des tribunaux d’accorder la garde des enfants au père en cas de séparation, sans oublier les suicides. Pourtant, l’histoire révèle que la crise de la masculinité aurait commencé dès l’antiquité romaine et qu’elle toucherait aujourd’hui des pays aussi différents que le Canada, les États-Unis et la France, mais aussi l’Inde, Israël, le Japon et la Russie. L’homme serait-il toujours et partout en crise?

Dans ce livre, Francis Dupuis-Déri propose une étonnante enquête sur ce discours de la «crise de la masculinité», dont il retrace l’histoire longue et ses expressions particulières selon le contexte et les catégories d’hommes en cause, notamment les «hommes blancs en colère» ainsi que les Africains-Américains et les «jeunes Arabes». Il analyse l’émergence du «Mouvement des hommes» dans les années 1970 et du «Mouvement des droits des pères» dans les années 1990 et leurs échos dans les réseaux chrétiens et néonazis. Il se demande finalement quelle est la signification politique de cette rhétorique, qui a pour effet de susciter la pitié envers les hommes, de justifier les violences masculines contre les femmes et de discréditer le projet de l’égalité entre les sexes.

This essay argues that L. P. Hartley’s novel The Go-Between (1953) fits into the critical tradition of the Bildungsroman in one specific sense: its attention to matters of deception. First, this plot of formation and development involves a necessary apprenticeship in deception: a moral training that has links with everyday practices of concealment in linguistic construal, social etiquette, and interpersonal trust, whose presence I track in the novel. Second, the novel’s framing screens the salient context of its production, the “angry decade” of 1950s Britain. I consider Hartley’s conservative distance from other writing on childhood and youth in the period, suggesting that his representation of deception relates to his critique of social and moral erosion in the postwar period. In the loose vehicle of a Bildungsroman where development is compromised, Hartley presents a novel whose formal structure, in its use of deceptive tropes, affords both its turning away from historical difficulties and its indirect critique of failing morals.

The paper presents possible classical inspirations of John Braine’s novel Room at the Top (1957). It is an attempt to analyses the text of the novel belonging to the so called Angry Young Period as a tragic work which translated into the reality of the late 1940s Great Britain the myth of Jason and Medea, represented in the text of the paper by its most classic rendition, the ancient tragedy by Euripides entitled Medea. The article moves on to discuss the issue of to what extent it is possible to adapt classical material, and to what extent tragedy is impossible today while any attempt of recreating it must result in a parody of the classical form.

Parts of this have since appeared in publications elsewhere. Posting the file because it contains additional detail/ ideas/ correspondence on various topics. Discussion of Lennon, McCartney, Duchamp & Stockhausen is unique to this, though selections from sections on 'Norwegian Wood' appear in the articles 'Where You Once Belonged' & 'The Beatles' Uses of Literacy'. Discussion on Hoggart & Melly appear in my review of Hoggart (1957/2009). The rest is fresh.

This book analyses the literary works of four different post-war writers in order to examine the issues of class, race, gender and nationality/locality in relation to social, political and cultural circumstances in the second half of the twentieth century and suggests that one-dimensional identity politics paradoxically commodifies subjective ideas, homogenises the subordinated, eschews questions of economics and class relations and is solely concerned with recognition, tolerance and respect. The overall aim is to reconceptualise the broader economic, cultural and social framework of the processes of alienation and of escape mechanisms employed by the individual as defence mechanisms in capitalist cultures. Over the course of the book, it is also suggested that the concept of identity should be taken into account in a more radically intersectional manner and that one-dimensional postmodern identity politics is unable to give a materialistic articulation of poverty and subordination within the larger context of global economics. The book develops an anti-establishment, egalitarian and emancipatory framework in reading its authors: one which might also be implemented as part of a movement that aims to critique, resist and overthrow injustice and oppression.

The use of language play to escape from the reality of either unfair or meaningless world is the dominant characteristics of the absurdist play Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett (1949, original name “En attendant Godot”) and the realist play Look Back in Anger, John Osborne (1956). In Beckett’s play, the only meaningful action is to pass the time with word or action games that have no purpose and function (hat-passing). They also stress that human is ridiculously living for no intent since life already plays some tricks on us with the time. In Osborne’s work, the game is the only way to ‘escape from the reality’ of social injustice and dissatisfaction in marriages, such as the game of game of bear and squirrel.
Key Words: Theatre of the Absurd, Realism, British History, Beckett, Angry Young Men

Despite their different time periods and social, economic and political changes in the society, these three plays have anger, violence and alienation in common and so, the desire to convey these feelings to their audience yet in different forms.

• comparing and contrasting the works
• focusing particularly on contextual/historical background and theatrical/aesthetic features

Did the Angry Young Men Really Exist?  An Attempt at a Discussion Concerning Indiscriminate Approach Towards Generally Accepted Terminology.

The theoretical aim of the article is to start a discussion concerning the approach towards discussion understood as a (in the Author's opinion largely neglected) teaching method. The practical part of the article includes a selection of information concerning the Angry Young Writers (1950-1965) with a special stress put on their approach towards their recognition (or being labelled) as a generation. The material collected for the article may be further used for the preparation of a number of classes which would also be on the one hand aimed at a presentation of the literary period why on the other hand would give students and teachers a concise material for the discussion concerning the similarities and differences among the authors in question. (In Polish)

The article advocates the importance of studying conceptual meaning and change in modern mass media and highlights the significance of conceptual intermediality. The article first analyzes anger in Hindi cinema as an audio visual key concept within the framework of an Indian national ideology. It explores how anger and the Indian angry young man became popularized, politicized, and stereotyped by popular films and print media in India in the 1970s and 1980s. The article goes on to advocate for extending conceptual history beyond language on theoretical grounds and identifies two major ob stacles in political iconography: the methodological subordination of visuals to language in the negotiation of meaning, and the distinction of emotion and reason by assigning them functionally to different

In 1950s Britain, a group of young, male authors from the working and lower-middle classes became known as the ‘Angry Young Men’ for expressing disdain for the class system, frustration, and hostility towards post-war austerity, and a desire for radical change across broad fields including social and sexual mores, education, politics, and the arts. In 1956 John Osborne’s (1929-1994) play Look Back in Anger was a hit at the Royal Court Theatre and the label ‘Angry Young Man’ was given to the young authors. Others who were grouped under this label by critics or who self-identified as such included the novelists Kingsley Amis and Alan Sillitoe, and two young writers who were close friends for some years, Colin Wilson (1931-2013) and Stuart Holroyd (b. 1933).

Esta ponencia se concentra en un análisis del Free Cinema, procurando identificar las modificaciones que introdujo en el proceso de producción cinematográfica, su dimensión política y su afinidad con la reformulación crítica del marxismo  emprendida por la Escuela de Birmingham. El Free Cinema es una corriente cinematográfica surgida en Gran Bretaña a mediados de la década de 1950, cuyas intenciones originales fueron explicitadas a través de una serie de manifiestos que acompañaron las primeras proyecciones del grupo. El manifiesto, punto de encuentro de las pasiones políticas y los impulsos estéticos, constituye un corpus privilegiado para iniciar un estudio de la articulación entre ambas dimensiones que luego se concentrará en las producciones audiovisuales. En primera instancia, la ponencia da cuenta de las rupturas formales y temáticas que caracterizan la irrupción del Free Cinema dentro del cine británico. A continuación, explora particularmente las transformaciones que supuso en los modos de representar y relacionarse con la clase obrera. Nos interesa rastrear cómo se manifiesta, en ese vínculo, un conjunto de asociaciones valorativas ligadas a formas específicas de alineamiento y compromiso político que colocan al Free Cinema en las proximidades de los Estudios Culturales