Fiction and Social Criticism

1952 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 355
Author(s):  
Granville Hicks
Keyword(s):  
Social Criticism

Catastrophic narratives

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Kahn ◽  
Mark Lipovetsky ◽  
Irina Reyfman ◽  
Stephanie Sandler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
First Century ◽  
Holocaust Literature ◽  
World War ◽  
Important Trend ◽  
Narrative Forms ◽  
Personal Trauma

The chapter considers how, beginning with the Revolution and continuing across the centry, new narrative forms in prose and poetry fashion a discourse of national destiny. As narratives conceptualize historical change and convey the meanings of catastrophe, they develop new plotlines, metaphoric systems and mythological visions. The chapter argues that Russian literature on the Great Terror, collectivization, and Gulag achieves a focus on historical and personal trauma comparable to Holocaust literature. Soviet narratives of World War II also form an important trend from the 1940s through twenty-first century, serving simultaneously as the source of social criticism and the sustained attempt to redefine national identity.

The welfare state criticism of the losers of modernization: How social experiences of resentment shape populist welfare critique

2021 ◽  
pp. 000169932199419
Author(s):  
Arno Van Hootegem ◽  
Koen Abts ◽  
Bart Meuleman
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Relative Deprivation ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Social Experiences ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Working People ◽  
Paradoxical Finding ◽  
The Welfare State

This article aims to explain the paradoxical finding that socio-economically vulnerable groups express more economic, moral and social criticism of the welfare state. As these groups generally benefit more from the welfare state and hold more egalitarian world views, their stronger criticism cannot be explained by the traditional frameworks of self-interest and ideology. As an alternative, we highlight the importance of social experiences of resentment as a source of discontent with welfare state performance. Our contribution argues that the dissatisfaction is embedded in a broader welfare populist critique that pits the hard-working people against the deceitful elite and welfare abusers. This welfare populism emerges from experiences of resentment related to the restructuring of group positions in the process of modernization. We differentiate between three types of discontent: economic status insecurity, group relative deprivation and social distrust. By applying structural equation modelling, we test whether resentful experiences mediate the relationship between the social structural position and welfare state criticism. Results indicate that relative deprivation consistently leads to more economic, moral and social criticism. Social distrust, moreover, stimulates a higher level of moral criticism. This study illustrates that resentment is indeed an important element for understanding the paradoxical relationship between social class and welfare state criticism.

THE SELF AND SOCIAL CRITICISM

1991 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-226
Author(s):  
Charles Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Social Criticism ◽  
The Self

Trying to be Dead Playwrights

1992 ◽  
Vol 8 (32) ◽  
pp. 383-388
Author(s):  
Ben Payne
Keyword(s):  
Social Criticism ◽  
The Social

WHEN perestroika legitimized the social criticism for which the Russian theatre had been the only forum during the ‘years of stagnation’, playwrights such as Gelman, Galin and Petrushevskaya came to prominence. The breaking of the wave of so-called ‘black’ plays, however, also coincided with the beginning of the disintegration of the society which they scourged.

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