Authorship, Activism and Celebrity: Art and Action in Global Literature

Since long before the age of celebrity activism, literary authors have used their public profiles and cultural capital to draw attention to a wide range of socio-political concerns. This book is the first to explore – through history, criticism and creative interventions – the relationship between authorship, political activism and celebrity culture across historical periods, cultures, literatures and media. It brings together scholars, industry stakeholders and prominent writer-activists to engage in a conversation on literary fame and public authority. These scholarly essays, interviews, conversations and opinion pieces interrogate the topos of the artist as prophet and acute critic of the zeitgeist; analyse the ideological dimension of literary celebrity; and highlight the fault lines between public and private authorial selves, 'pure' art, political commitment and marketplace imperatives. In case studies ranging from the 18th century to present-day controversies, authors illuminate the complex relationship between literature, politics, celebrity culture and market activism, bringing together vivid current debates on the function and responsibility of literature in increasingly fractured societies.

Table of Contents:
Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements Foreword Meena Kandasamy (author, academic and activist) 1. Introduction: The Idea of the Author Sandra Mayer (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria) and Ruth Scobie (University of Oxford, UK) 2. 'Let's Deal with the People Oppressing All of Us': Benjamin Zephaniah in Conversation Benjamin Zephaniah (poet, performer, activist) and Malachi McIntosh (University of Oxford, UK) Section 1. Art as Activism 3. Clearing a Space for Multiple, Marginal Voices: The Writers' Activism of PEN Peter D. McDonald (University of Oxford, UK), Margie Orford (author; former president, PEN South Africa), Rachel Potter (University of East Anglia, UK), Carles Torner (author, executive director PEN International) and Laetitia Zecchini (CNRS Paris, France) 4. Live at the Polari Salon: Literary Performance as Activism Ellen Wiles (Exeter University, UK) 5. 'Bugger Universality': An Exchange with Antjie Krog Antjie Krog (University of the Western Cape, South Africa) and Peter D. McDonald (University of Oxford, UK) Section 2. Activism and the Literary Industry 6. Moving Between Worlds: A Writer and a Publisher in Conversation Kirsty Gunn (University of Dundee, UK) and David Graham (managing director, Batsford Books, UK) 7. Resisting Stereotypes: Art, Activism and the Literature Industry Elleke Boehmer (University of Oxford, UK), Alice Guthrie (translator, editor, curator; Exeter University, UK), Daniel Medin (American University of Paris, France), Charlotte Ryland (director, Stephen Spender Trust; University of Oxford, UK) and Alan Taylor (editor, Scottish Review of Books, UK) 8. Fanny Fern and Nellie Bly: Unstable I's Eva Sage Gordon (The Graduate Center, CUNY, USA) Section 3. The Invention of the Public Intellectual 9. The Critical Pedagogy of Fiction in Democratic Public Spheres Odile Heynders (Tilburg University, the Netherlands) 10. A 'Passive Spectactress'?: Frances Burney and the Eighteenth-Century Writer as Social Activist Anna Paluchowska-Messing (Jagiellonian University, Poland) 11. 'The Indian Cobbett': Radicalism, Empire and Literary Celebrity in the Life of James Silk Buckingham (1786-1855) Kieran Hazzard (University of Oxford, UK) 12. 'Literary Criticism Only': Jeyamohan and the Author as Conservative Activist in 'Aram' (2022) Divya A. (Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India) Section 4. Writing Europe 13. European Connections: Literary Networks, Political Authorship and the Future of Europe Debate Benedict Schofield (University of Bristol, UK) 14. Vernon Lee: Transnational Activism aqnd Protest Literature for Art and Peace Elisa Bizzotto (Iuav University of Venice, Italy) 15. On Behalf of the Nation: Knut Hamsun and the Politics of Authorship Tore Rem (University of Oslo, Norway) 16. Conclusion: Looking On… Kirsty Gunn (University of Dundee, UK) Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Sandra Mayer is a literary and cultural historian based at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, working on the intersections of literary celebrity, activism and life-writing. Ruth Scobie is a scholar of eighteenth-century literature and colonialism. She is the author of Celebrity Culture and the Myth of Oceania in Britain 1770-1823 (2019).

Review :
Authorship, Activism, and Celebrity offers a welcome account of literary activism that is historically and culturally diverse, from the 18th to the 21st centuries, from England to South Africa to Tamil Nadu. Featuring a range of scholarly and creative positions on the question of whether celebrity impedes or empowers literary authors' capacity to militate for social change, this volume is intellectually capacious in its analysis of 'the complex entanglements of celebrity, artistic integrity and political agency.' Authorship, Activism and Celebrity is a unique collection of essays on a topic which is not only 'cutting edge' in terms of academic interest, but which also has obvious relevance to contemporary authorship, particularly where authors find themselves on the front line in defence of freedom of speech, thought and action. The editors of this ground-breaking volume have brought together a fascinating range of scholars and practitioners in a collection which is as important for understanding the historical context of literary celebrity activism as it is in helping to comprehend its contemporary relevance and importance. It explores the interplay of celebrity status and literary activism through a mixture of interviews and email exchanges with contemporary activist authors and literary celebrities such as Benjamin Zephaniah and Antjie Krog, transcripts of round-table discussions and more traditional scholarly essays. The latter range across time and space from the early days of celebrity authorship in the 18th and 19th centuries to the present. The book's juxtaposition of historically situated essays with insight and comment from contemporary activist authors makes it both a significant scholarly work of literary history and an important social document in itself. This is a highly pertinent and important work that is urgent reading for students and scholars.