Contemporary British Fiction: Cool Britannia and After

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Contemporary British Fiction Cool Britannia and
After

• British Literature, Culture, and Society from the
  1990s to the Present
• Session Five Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones
  Diary

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Agenda

• Reflection and Representation

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Helen Fielding, Bridget Joness Diary

• 1995-1996 Weekly columns in The Independent
• 1996 published as Bridget Joness Diary
• 2001 Sharon Maguire, Bridget Joness Diary

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First UK edition
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First American edition
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Sharon Maguire, Bridget Joness Diary (2001)
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Post 2001 edition
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BBC, Pride and Prejudice (1995)
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Second Time AroundBridget Jones The Edge of
Reason

• 1997-1998 weekly columns in The Daily Telegraph
• 1999 published as Bridget Jones The Edge of
  Reason
• 2004 Beeban Kidron, Bridget Jones The Edge of
  Reason

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Third Time Around???

• 2005-2006 weekly columns in The Independent
• Bridget Jones novel nr 3?
• Bridget Jones 3 Film in the works
• Bridget Jones, the musical

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Reflection

• A brilliant evocation of life as a single girl
  in a certain time (The Times)
• It captures neatly the way modern women teeter
  between I am woman independence and a pathetic
  girlie desire to be all things to all men
  (NYTBR)
• Bridget Jones, cest moi (TLS)
• Bridget Jones is satire, a sassy spoof of urban
  manners (NYT)

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Contextualism New Historicism, Cultural
Materialism

• Representation rather than reflection.
• Art is a cultural construct and ideological
  product of historically specific conditions
  rather than a mirror held up to life
• Art is like other cultural constructs and
  ideological products.
• Historically specific conditions cultural norms,
  values, ideas, beliefs, institutions, practices,
  relationships, products.

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Womens Fashion

• Early 19th century

• Mid 19th century

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Womens Fashion
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Contextualism
schools
Libraries
Marriage
Sports
Politics
Music
The Arts
Nature
Fashion
Hollidays
Literature Books, Readings, Prizes,
Cars
The Internet Surfing, chatting, Blogging
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Contextualism New Historicism, Cultural
Materialism

• Representation
• Embedding
• Negociation
• Commerce
• Exchange
• Transaction
• Circulation

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Working with contextualism

• Tuesday 21 March Birthday
• Identify the anomaly
• Whats the point or effect of the anomaly?
• What does it do to our image of Bridget?
• How does it relate to historically specific
  conditions cultural norms, values, ideas,
  beliefs, institutions, practices, relationships,
  products.