The Discourse of Enclosure


Book Description

Examines representations of women and femininity in Old English poetry and prose.







Enclosure


Book Description

Enclosure marshals bold new and persuasive arguments about the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians. Revealing the Israel-Palestine landscape primarily as one of enclosure, geographer Gary Fields sheds fresh light on Israel’s actions. He places those actions in historical context in a broad analysis of power and landscapes across the modern world. Examining the process of land-grabbing in early modern England, colonial North America, and contemporary Palestine, Enclosure shows how patterns of exclusion and privatization have emerged across time and geography. That the same moral, legal, and cartographic arguments were copied by enclosers of land in very different historical environments challenges Israel’s current rationale as being uniquely beleaguered. It also helps readers in the United Kingdom and the United States understand the Israel-Palestine conflict in the context of their own, tortured histories.




Enclosure Acts


Book Description

Enclosure—the conversion of peasants' commonly held lands to privately owned pasture—has long been considered a critical stage in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. This book is the first, however, to treat in detail the literary and cultural implications of enclosure in early modern England. Bringing together the work of both senior and younger scholars who represent a wide range of critical orientations, Enclosure Acts focuses not only on the historical fact of land enclosure, but also on the symbolic containment of sexuality in Elizabethan and Jacobean literary works. The first type of enclosure frequently has been treated by materialists and new historicists; feminists and theorists concerned with issues of gender have tended to concentrate on the second. The fourteen essays collected here explore the relationships between these two ways of perceiving enclosure in the context of cultural studies. Individual chapters examine the creation of territorial and social boundaries as well as the consequences of enclosure acts.




The New Enclosure


Book Description

How public land has been stolen from us. Much has been written about Britain's trailblazing post-1970s privatization program, but the biggest privatization of them all has until now escaped scrutiny: the privatization of land. Since Margaret Thatcher took power in 1979, and hidden from the public eye, about 10 per cent of the entire British land mass, including some of its most valuable real estate, has passed from public to private hands. Forest land, defence land, health service land and above all else local authority land- for farming and school sports, for recreation and housing - has been sold off en masse. Why? How? And with what social, economic and political consequences? The New Enclosure provides the first ever study of this profoundly significant phenomenon, situating it as a centrepiece of neoliberalism in Britain and as a successor programme to the original eighteenth-century enclosures. With more public land still slated for disposal, the book identifies the stakes and asks what, if anything, can and should be done.




A Place to Believe in


Book Description

Medievalists have much to gain from a thoroughgoing contemplation of place. If landscapes are windows onto human activity, they connect us with medieval people, enabling us to ask questions about their senses of space and place. In A Place to Believe In Clare Lees and Gillian Overing bring together scholars of medieval literature, archaeology, history, religion, art history, and environmental studies to explore the idea of place in medieval religious culture. The essays in A Place to Believe In reveal places real and imagined, ancient and modern: Anglo-Saxon Northumbria (home of Whitby and Bede&’s monastery of Jarrow), Cistercian monasteries of late medieval Britain, pilgrimages of mind and soul in Margery Kempe, the ruins of Coventry Cathedral in 1940, and representations of the sacred landscape in today&’s Pacific Northwest. A strength of the collection is its awareness of the fact that medieval and modern viewpoints converge in an experience of place and frame a newly created space where the literary, the historical, and the cultural are in ongoing negotiation with the geographical, the personal, and the material. Featuring a distinguished array of scholars, A Place to Believe In will be of great interest to scholars across medieval fields interested in the interplay between medieval and modern ideas of place. Contributors are Kenneth Addison, Sarah Beckwith, Stephanie Hollis, Stacy S. Klein, Fred Orton, Ann Marie Rasmussen, Diane Watt, Kelley M. Wickham-Crowley, Ulrike Wiethaus, and Ian Wood.




Redefining Nature


Book Description

How can anthropology improve our understanding of the interrelationship between nature and culture?- What can anthropology contribute to practical debates which depend on particular definitions of nature, such as that concerning sustainable development?Humankind has evolved over several million years by living in and utilizing 'nature' and by assimilating it into 'culture'. Indeed, the technological and cultural advancement of the species has been widely acknowledged to rest upon human domination and control of nature. Yet, by the 1960s, the idea of culture in confrontation with nature was being challenged by science, philosophy and the environmental movement. Anthropology is increasingly concerned with such issues as they become more urgent for humankind as a whole. This important book reviews the current state of the concepts of 'nature' we use, both as scientific devices and ideological constructs, and is organised around three themes:- nature as a cultural construction;- the cultural management of the environment; and- relations between plants, animals and humans.




The Displacement of the Body in Ælfric's Virgin Martyr Lives


Book Description

The Displacement of the Body in Ælfric's Virgin Martyr Lives addresses 10th-century Old English hagiographical translations, from Latin source material, by the abbot and grammarian Ælfric. The vitae of Agnes, Agatha, Lucy, and Eugenia, and the married saints Daria, Basilissa, and Cecilia, included in Ælfric's s Old English Lives of Saints, recount the lives, persecution, and martyrdom of young women who renounce sex and, in the first four stories, marriage, to devote their lives to Christian service. They purport to be about the primacy of virginity and the role of the body in attaining sanctity. However, a comparison of the Latin sources with Ælfric's versions suggests that his translation style, characterized by simplifying the most important meanings of the text, omits certain words or entire episodes that foreground suppressed female sexuality as key to sainthood. The Old English Lives de-emphasize the physical nature of faith and highlight the importance of spiritual purity. In this volume, Alison Gulley explores how the context of the Benedictine Reform in late Anglo-Saxon England and Ælfric's commitment to writing for a lay audience resulted in a set of stories depicting a spirituality distinct from physical intactness.







The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields


Book Description

In 'The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields' by Gilbert Slater, the author meticulously dissects the impact of enclosure acts on the traditional way of life of English peasants during the agricultural revolution. Slater's work is characterized by its detailed analysis of historical documents, providing a thorough examination of the economic and social consequences of land enclosure on rural communities. The book is a must-read for those interested in agrarian history and the transformation of England's countryside in the 18th and 19th centuries. Slater's writing style is scholarly and objective, making this book a valuable resource for academic research in the field of British history. Gilbert Slater, a noted historian and lecturer, brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to his study of the English peasantry and the enclosure movement. His deep understanding of the subject matter is evident in the thorough research and insightful analysis presented in this book. Slater's background as a historian specializing in social and economic history informs his nuanced exploration of the complex issues surrounding land ownership and rural life in England. For readers interested in the intersection of economic forces and social change, 'The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields' offers a comprehensive examination of a pivotal moment in English history. Slater's expertise and meticulous research make this book an essential addition to any library on agrarian studies and British history.