32-606: Sinfield is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: Alan Sinfield (1941–2017), British academic Ian Sinfield (athlete) (1934–2010), Australian runner Ian Sinfield (born 1977), Scottish rugby player Kevin Sinfield (born 1980), English rugby player Melissa Sinfield (born 1977), Australian basketball player Peter Sinfield (1943–2024), English songwriter Reg Sinfield (1900–1988), English cricketer [REDACTED] Surname list This page lists people with
64-515: A BA in English and Philosophy at Keele University . Dollimore achieved first class honours, but found the teaching, particularly of philosophy, uninspiring. He later wrote: "I was discovering back then that philosophy was not only more important than the academic study of it allowed, but that as a subject it needed to be turned against the academy which diminished it. That became the basis of everything I subsequently wrote". In 1974 Dollimore began
96-615: A PhD at Bedford College, University of London (now part of Royal Holloway, University of London ), but abandoned his projected thesis after little more than a year when he took up a lectureship at the University of Sussex . However, he was awarded his PhD in 1984 when the University of London allowed him to submit his first book, Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology, and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries in lieu of
128-409: A cafe in difficult conditions. Growing up in a poor household "made Alan acutely aware of the limitations of the postwar promise to provide equal access to the nation’s resources", and he credited his mother's experience with shaping his political commitment to, in his own words, "disadvantaged people—those who are elderly, infirm, unemployed, black, queer, lone parents, and so on". Sinfield attended
160-554: A dozen books, and is credited with a leading role in establishing queer studies in mainstream academic studies. Alan Sinfield was born in Southgate , north London, on 17 December 1941 to Lucy (née Seabright) and Ernest Sinfield; they had one more son, Mark. Ernest Sinfield died serving in the Royal Air Force in 1944, and Lucy began experiencing Parkinson's disease soon after, though she continued working, washing dishes in
192-424: A job operating a lathe in a car factory, and spent much of his spare time riding motorbikes at high speeds. At sixteen he suffered a serious road accident that necessitated a lengthy stay in hospital; it was during this period of convalescence that Dollimore decided to become a writer. He spent four years as a reporter for a local newspaper before taking an A-level in English at Luton College of Technology, followed by
224-557: A lecturer in English at the University of Sussex in 1965, eventually becoming Professor of English and Cultural Studies in 1990. According to The Guardian , from the late 1970s, "Sussex now developed its reputation as the most exciting, theoretically informed English department in the country, pioneering wider changes in the way English is taught in universities, with Alan a key figure." Sinfield's Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain , first published in 1989,
256-455: A lengthy discussion of what Dollimore calls "wishful theory," and the development of his idea of the daemonic: the inhumane values found at the heart of literature and civilization that traditional critics have ignored. Desire: A Memoir (2017, 2nd expanded edition 2021) In this autobiographical work, Dollimore pays particular attention to sex and identity, depression and loss, and the relationship between academic work and gay subcultures in
288-541: A memoir, and numerous academic articles. With Alan Sinfield he was the co-editor of and key contributor to Political Shakespeare , and the co-originator of the critical practice known as cultural materialism. Dollimore is credited with making major interventions in debates on sexuality and desire, Renaissance literary culture, art and censorship, and cultural theory. Dollimore was born in 1948 in Leighton Buzzard , England. After leaving school at fifteen he took
320-483: A radical materialist practice. He explains the continuing relevance of cultural materialism, and defends it against what he calls "dogged misunderstanding" of some of its theoretical positions. In "Then and Now" (2014), Dollimore reflects upon cultural materialism and the publication of Political Shakespeare , and goes on to examine the question of human nature through the lens of evolutionary biology. He advises that literary scholars take science seriously, and considers
352-592: A reading of Wilde’s novel Dorian Gray and an outline of a critical practice, derived from cultural materialism, whereby literature is used to “read” philosophy rather than vice verse. Death, Desire, and Loss (1998) In a wide-ranging survey from Anaximander to AIDS, Dollimore presses his case that the drive to relinquish the self has always lurked within Western notions of identity and can be found above all, "perversely, lethally, ecstatically" in sexuality. Sex, Literature, and Censorship (2001) Dollimore explores
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#1732780985501384-491: A special issue of the journal Textual Practice , entitled On Alan Sinfield . Sinfield was himself the editor of the journal for a long period. Sinfield became the partner of Jonathan Dollimore in the 1970s, and Sinfield purchased a cottage in Shropshire in this period. Sinfield's partner from the mid-1990s was Vincent Quinn . Sinfield suffered from Parkinson's disease , and Quinn became his full-time carer after
416-512: A thesis. To meet university regulations, the book was required to be housed inside a cardboard box identical in colour and size to a conventional thesis. In 1991, now a Reader at the University of Sussex, Dollimore co-founded with his then-partner Alan Sinfield the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence, which, as he later recalled, was met with horror by some commentators: "One Tory MP said that
448-525: A timeless, humane and civilising Shakespeare with a Shakespeare anchored in the social, political and ideological conflicts of his historical moment. Dollimore contributes three essays to the expanded second edition, including an introduction that explains and defends his approach. Also included are essays by Stephen Greenblatt, Alan Sinfield and Kathleen McLuskie. Sexual Dissidence (1991, 2nd edition 2018) In Sexual Dissidence , Dollimore sets out "to retrieve lost histories of perversion", in part by tracing
480-474: Is a revolutionary socialist interpretation of the postwar cultural settlement and its destruction. He pioneered the Sexual Dissidence programme at the University of Sussex with Jonathan Dollimore and taught postgraduate students and research in the field of sexual dissidence at the University of Sussex . Sinfield retired from Sussex in 2004. In 2016, Sinfield and his work were the subject of
512-477: Is a way of reading that, at its simplest, can be defined as "a combination of historical context, theoretical method, political commitment and textual analysis". As Christopher Marlow puts it, "Above all else, cultural materialists consider texts from a materialist rather than an idealist perspective. This means rejecting critical clichés such as the idea that Shakespeare’s works demonstrate a revelation of something called ‘human nature’, and instead paying attention to
544-596: Is akin to trying to make history in conditions of our own choosing". In making this point, he reaffirms his commitment to praxis as well as theory. In "Civilization and its Darkness" (2012) Dollimore examines Joseph Conrad 's novel Heart of Darkness , and explores the relationship between civilisation and the forces that subvert and destroy it. Civilization, Dollimore writes, "is, at some level, profoundly and necessarily limited, focused and exclusionary, built on repressions which remain constitutive." The repressed forces, however, re-emerge intensified, which means that "only
576-399: Is different from Wikidata All set index articles Alan Sinfield Alan Sinfield (17 December 1941 – 2 December 2017) was an English theorist in the fields of Shakespeare and sexuality , modern theatre, gender studies , queer theory , queer studies , post-1945 politics and cultural theory . He was a professor of English at the University of Sussex , and the author of
608-558: Is more often than not outside the doxa ," and states: "almost everything that is done, including what we ourselves do, be it at the macro or the micro level, could and should be done more authentically, more honestly, more meaningfully, more truthfully." In an interview with David Jonathan Y. Bayot published as Jonathan Dollimore in Conversation (2013), Dollimore discusses theory, aesthetics, ethics, and politics, and considers how to mobilize them alongside desire and spirituality for
640-531: Is one of Dollimore’s most crucial theoretical concepts, first described in Sexual Dissidence , and later applied in Sex, Literature, and Censorship . The "perverse dynamic" is the production of perversion from within the very social structures that are offended by it and often enforce against it. The perverse "other" turns out not to be the remote alien thing it is supposed to be, enabling a "tracking-back of
672-539: The Royal Wolverhampton School on a scholarship for children who had lost parents in the War. He learned the guitar and had a skiffle band, which also included his brother. This was followed by University College London , from which he took a first-class BA in 1964, an MA in 1967 (which was the basis for his 1971 The Language of Tennyson's In Memoriam ), and a DLitt in 1987. Sinfield was appointed as
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#1732780985501704-413: The surname Sinfield . If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name (s) to the link. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sinfield&oldid=1257619627 " Category : Surnames Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description
736-512: The United Kingdom, Australia, and New York. In a review, Andrew Gibson writes " Desire may tell us more about what was at stake in our culture, especially British culture, from the late sixties to the early nineties (the period the memoir covers) than many another book that may address the theme in a more deliberate and learned fashion". Cultural materialism As defined and originated by Dollimore and Alan Sinfield, cultural materialism
768-573: The University should be shut down, disinfected AND subjected to the financial equivalent of carpet bombing. An opinion writer in The Sun newspaper agreed, but added that the carpet bombs should be real". Dollimore later became Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of York. Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (1984, 2nd edition 1989, 3rd edition 2004, reissued 3rd edition 2010) In his first book, Dollimore argues that
800-609: The actual circumstances in which texts are written and read. Thus where traditional criticism sees Shakespeare’s era as one that comfortably maintained a conservative political status quo, cultural materialism finds evidence of dissent and subversion. Being a materialist also means abandoning the idea that literary criticism exists in a privileged scholarly realm ‘above’ politics and thus offers unbiased readings of Shakespeare and other literary texts. For cultural materialists, all readings are political readings, not least, of course, their own". The perverse dynamic "The perverse dynamic",
832-535: The fact that "historicism in one newish form or another, has become a new orthodoxy." The most committed historicism , Dollimore claims, "tends towards a policing of the play [or whatever else] against interpretation. It doesn't just avoid questions of value, but represses them; in other words it's a contextualising which is also, and more fundamentally, a containment." A call for a new sort of spiritually intense living runs through Dollimore's recent writings. For example, in his "Foreword", he counsels that "authenticity
864-583: The humanist critical tradition has distorted for modern readers the actual radical function of Early Modern English drama, which had to do with 'a critique of ideology, the demystification of political and power relations and the decentring of "man"'. Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism , edited with Alan Sinfield (1985, 2nd edition 1994) Treading the same path as Radical Tragedy , this collection of essays by leading writers on Shakespeare has as its goal to replace our idea of
896-412: The illness began to affect Sinfield's speech. Sinfield died on 2 December 2017. Jonathan Dollimore Jonathan G Dollimore (born 1948) is a British philosopher and critic in the fields of Renaissance literature (especially drama), gender studies , queer theory ( queer studies ), history of ideas , death studies, decadence , and cultural theory . He is the author of four academic books,
928-486: The most highly civilised can become truly daemonic." Dollimore also reiterates, from Sex, Literature and Censorship , his belief that "to take art seriously is to recognise that it has the power to compromise both our morality and our humanity." Dollimore, in his extended "Foreword" to Ewan Fernie's book The Demonic (2012), discusses the modern state of literary criticism. He dislikes the " obscurantist " tendencies of some critical and cultural theory, but he also deplores
960-454: The relationship between criticism, ethics and aesthetics, centring his discussion on literature’s "dangerous knowledge". He calls for a shift in critical values from theoretical learning to experiential knowledge, endorsing a criticism capable of "being historically and imaginatively inside a perspective which one is also critically resisting; struggling to escape its failures while seeing that one has already been changed by it". The book contains
992-512: The term "perverse" back to its etymological origins in Latin and its epistemological origins in Augustine. Oscar Wilde takes centre stage, but the book also discusses writers including André Gide, Freud, and Foucault, and topics such as desire, transgression, homophobia, and cross-dressing. The second edition includes a new introduction that locates the book in its original contexts, and also offers
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1024-491: The ‘other’ into the ‘same’". This return of the suppressed via the proximate Dollimore calls "transgressive reinscription." Wishful theory This phrase is used by Dollimore in his later work to refer to versions of cultural criticism that have abandoned "the effort to understand the historical real as we inherit and live it". Playing on Marx’s famous tenet that as human beings "we can make history, but not in conditions of our own choosing", Dollimore remarks that "wishful theory
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