Wales Unchained: Literature, Politics and Identity in the American Century(Writing Wales in English)

How do we define Welshness? Does that definition differ from how the concept was defined in the past? And how do those definitions take account of differences of race, class, gender, and language? Wales Unchained takes on these questions, exploring the various categories that have informed, and continue to inform, ideas of Wales and Welshness. Through discussions of such key figures as Rhys Davies, Dylan Thomas, Raymond Williams, Aneurin Bevan, and Gwyneth Lewis, Daniel G. Williams teases out the aesthetic and political implications of varying conceptions of self and community.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The Lure of Race: Rhys Davies and D. H. Lawrence 2. Black and White: Boxing, Race and Modernity 3. Blood Jumps: Dylan Thomas, Charlie Parker and 1950s America 4. Class and Identity: Aneurin Bevan and Paul Robeson 5. To Know the Divisions: The Identity of Raymond Williams 6. American Freaks: Welsh Poets and the United States 7. Singing Unchained: Language, Nation and Multiculturalism

About the Author :
Academic monograph. Mainly post-graduate, but may also appeal to an undergraduate readership. The book is written accessibly and should appeal also to an interested lay audience.

Review :
"A dazzling read. Williams takes us on a tour which leads to fresh perspectives on Welshness. Familiar themes--language, society, cultural identity--are convincingly reworked. Familiar personalities--Dylan Thomas, Aneurin Bevan--are compellingly redefined. An invaluable guide to the making of the modern Welsh identity."--Huw Edwards, journalist, broadcaster and newsreader "If James Joyce believed that 'the best road to Tara is through Holyhead, ' then Daniel G. Williams shows how some of the best roads to Holyhead ran through transatlantic culture. Bringing postcolonial theory, multiculturalism and a series of deep contextual readings to bear on questions of Welsh identity, Williams traces with considerable verve how transatlantic crossings cleared spaces where class and culture, Labourism and nationalism, could meet. In this two-way flow, the complexities of Wales, at once inside and outside metropolitan British culture, also open up roads not taken in contemporary debates, challenging many received critical pieties regarding nation, globalisation and cultural identity." --Luke Gibbons, National University of Ireland, Maynooth "Wales Unchained is an attractive, remarkably well-informed and well-argued collection by one of Wales's leading scholars in cultural criticism. This book breaks genuine new ground in Welsh and transatlantic studies, both in its approaches and in the depth and detail of its research. While the individual essays draw on a rich variety of theoretical material, the book wears its theory lightly and deserves a readership well beyond the academic world. Anyone interested in the pasts and possible futures of 'Welshness' should read this book."--Tony Brown, Bangor University