BrexLit: Literary Responses to Brexit and the Crisis of British Identity

When a narrow majority of 51.9 of Britons voted to leave the European Union in the Brexit referendum held on 23 June 2016, the result was quickly interpreted as a symptom of long-standing social divisions running through British society. According to commentators across media, politics, and academia alike, Brexit can only be fully understood when viewed as the outcome of complex “social, economic, political, historical, geographic, technological, medial, legal, and cultural processes” (Rostek & Zwierlein 3). Crucially, Brexit is also “an event in culture” (Eaglestone 1), grounded in conflicting beliefs about British and European identities.

Over the past decade, Brexit and its aftermath have inspired a diverse body of literary responses by both British and non-British writers, from within the UK and beyond. In what has come to be called BrexLit, these authors have engaged with the perceived crisis of national identity, fears of mass immigration and cultural change, the rise of populism, socioeconomic disparities, and a nostalgia for an idealised (imperial) past. Across a variety of genres, modes, and tones, they envision Britain’s future after its withdrawal from the EU – ranging from cautiously hopeful to starkly dystopian.

This talk invites the audience on a journey through the varied landscape of Brexit literature, spanning (documentary) plays, (performance) poetry, condition-of-England novels, cartoons, crime fiction, satire, and short stories. It assesses how these works contribute to an ongoing cultural conversation about what it means to be British after Brexit.

Notizfeld: In Zusammenarbeit mit dem Deutsch-Englischen Club Bamberg e.V.

Diese Veranstaltung wird Ihnen präsentiert von:

„Kultur.Bamberg – der offizielle Veranstaltungskalender für Stadt und Landkreis Bamberg“