Alienation, ideology and social critique in the British crime thriller

SUMMARY: ALIENATION, IDEOLOGY AND SOCIAL CRITIQUE IN THE BRITISH CRIME THRILLER PHD THESIS BY ROGER COTIRELL ! An interdisciplinary PHD on the ventilation of radical social and political themes in British crime fiction since the Second World War. The composite parts of this thesis look at the role played by crime fiction in establishing a consensus around policing with consent and what happened to it in the 1970s. A core theme here involves the manner by which policing with consent was integral to postwar conditions of social democracy and how this was eroded by open class warfare and the consolidation of a new state form. I particularly examine this process from the .vantage point of British crime writers who engaged with this phenomenon. A second strand of my PHD deals with the core theme of alienation as a factor in a deepening social crisis in British society and how this too was mapped by crime fiction. In particular, I am concerned to show how the engagement with alienation as a theme enabled a cultural crossover between the kitchen sink narrative tradition and underworld crime fiction. I also look at how this development was undermined by trends in cultural criticism that I describe as Stalinist. The third component of the thesis demonstrates how critiques of Thatcherism and of the new state form, in gangster movies and political conspiracy thrillers of the 1980s, was undermined by the prevalent trends in cultural criticism since Althusser. Supplied by The British Library - 'The world's knowledge'---------EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo