Dissertation (Whole)

UC Irvine UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Misplaced Communities: The Reproduction of Locality in Twentieth Century Planning and British Literature Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9f49r7pg Author Vijay, Ameeth Varma Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Misplaced Communities: The Reproduction of Locality in Twentieth Century Planning and British Literature DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Comparative Literature by Ameeth Varma Vijay Dissertation Committee: Professor Rei Terada, Chair Professor Étienne Balibar Professor Adriana Johnson Professor David Lloyd Professor Lilith Mahmud 2015 © 2015 Ameeth Varma Vijay DEDICATION For my mother and father, Rekha Vijay and Nampalli Vijay, who taught me to seek knowledge, and who showed me the importance of kindness TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v CURRICULUM VITAE vii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION viii INTRODUCTION: From Riots to Trees 1 CHAPTER 1: Early British Urban Planning and Home Colonization 27 CHAPTER 2: The Concrete Futurity of the Postwar: Materiality in Ian Hamilton Finlay and Roy Fisher 82 CHAPTER 3: "Towns of Unquestionable Insignificance" in Caryl Phillips' A Distant Shore 137 CHAPTER 4: Dismal Valleys and Crap Towns 182 CONCLUSION: Recurring Themes 215 WORKS CITED 224 iii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1 Mandatory Fitness Class in a Model Village 44 Figure 2 Rooftop Gardens 50 Figure 3 The Master Key 54 Figure 4 The Three Magnets 57 Figure 5 Planning in The Picture Post 91 Figure 6 Finlay - "Homage to Malevich" 111 Figure 7 Finlay - "Fisherman's Cross" 112 Figure 8 Finlay - "Green Waters" 113 Figure 9 Poster for 1951 Festival of Britain 219 Figure 10 The National Theatre 220 Figure 11 2013 Festival of Neighbourhood 220 Figure 12 The Sweepers 221 Figure 13 Octavia’s Orchard 221 Figure 14 Octavia’s Orchard (close up) 222 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The process of writing this dissertation has been long and at times arduous and would not have been possible without the help, support, and comfort of many wonderful people. The School of Humanities and Graduate Division at the University of California, Irvine, provided financial support for this project. A portion of chapter three appeared in Postcolonial Text (open access), hosted by Open Humanities Press. This dissertation would have been impossible without the help and relentless support of Rei Terada. Her belief in the worth of this project has often, if not always, exceeded my own, and she has given me the encouragement and space to think deeply and freely. Her commitment to her students and to public education is exemplary. She has been a dear friend and someone to whom I could always turn in a moment of crisis or just for an everyday animal video. My committee has likewise been a source of encouragement and brilliance. I have benefited tremendously from the hours spent conversing with Étienne Balibar, and the scope of his thinking and attention to detail never fail to amaze me. Lilith Mahmud has shown me how to be an academic in the contemporary university, and her thinking has often grounded my own. Adriana Johnson has been a sharp and incisive interlocutor. David Lloyd's curiosity and depth of knowledge are only matched by his generosity. I have been extremely lucky to work with these open-minded scholars and more lucky to know these genuine and caring individuals. Several other faculty members have helped me along the way. Jane Newman shepherded me through my early, confused years as a graduate student in a strange place. Jayne Lewis, Eyal Amiran, and Martin Harries have helped me navigate the treacherous waters of job applications and interviews. Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan has been a friendly face around campus, and I was honored that he participated in my graduation ceremony. Thanks to the many other faculty who provided help and enlivening conversation over the years. Bindya Baliga and Mary Underwood were the heart and soul of the comparative literature department, and their help was inestimable. Many thanks also to Leigh Poirier, Jason Cruz, and everyone at the graduate resource center. I have made so many wonderful friends and colleagues. Vicki Hsieh was always calming, caring, and brilliant. Aimless driving and late night coffee with someone as honest and genuine as Trudi Connolly helped me get through the first year of graduate school. Conversation and commiseration with Tamara Beauchamp was enlightening whether in Germany or California. I benefited greatly from Michelle Cho's wisdom while studying for my qualifying exams. Rachel Mykkanen's energy and creativity made for great adventures in Los Angeles as we soldiered through our dissertations. Sarah Kessler was always there when I needed someone to talk to. I would like to thank everyone who organized conferences, colloquia, and events with me, everyone who served with me in the graduate student association, and everyone who walked in solidarity; these things are worth doing. Karen Tongson offered invaluable advice amid sessions of grilling and singing. Ben Garceau helped me define concrete, and he along with Jacqueline v Way and Robin Stewart helped me reconnect with my inner nerd. Walks with Feng-Mei Heberer were always comforting. Allison Carter helped me move to Irvine, welcomed me to L.A. two years later, and was a steady presence. I was extremely lucky to befriend Andrea Luka Zimmerman and Lasse Johansson in London. Chris Malcolm and Joy Tehero were kind and tolerant roommates in Los Angeles. There are many, many other dear friends and brilliant colleagues whose support made this project possible. Not to mention my dear Peeky, who has been a tender and sweet animal companion. Above all I would like to thank my amazing family. My big sister Anupama has always led the way, and I'm glad I have been able to spend time with her and John and my little nephew Kiran. My mother and father are truly inspirational people whose love, support and encouragement have made me who I am and allowed for any successes along the way. I cannot thank them enough. vi CURRICULUM VITAE Ameeth Varma Vijay 2004 B.A. with Honors in Comparative Literature, Brown University, 2009 M.A. in Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine 2015 Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine FIELD OF STUDY Modern and Contemporary British Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Critical Theory, Literature of Migration, Urban Environmental Studies, Trees PUBLICATIONS “ ‘Towns of Unquestionable Insignificance’ in Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore,” Postcolonial Text. Vol 10, No. 1 (2015) “The Ends of the World: Review of Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability by Emily Apter,” Discourse, Vol 36, No. 3 (2015) vii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Misplaced Communities: The Reproduction of Locality in Twentieth Century Planning and British Literature By Ameeth Varma Vijay Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Irvine, 2015 Professor Rei Terada, Chair This dissertation situates twentieth-century British literature within a larger historical discourse of place and identity, especially as articulated in urban planning and architecture. In the twentieth century, planning emerged as a practice of hegemonic and colonial power within Britain as well as internationally. In analyzing these discourses, this dissertation argues against criticism that would set such hegemonic power in strict opposition to the local; in fact, through planning and its notion of place, such power could make profound claims to locality and particularity. This larger context informs readings of postwar and contemporary British writers, from the materially-focused poetry of Roy Fisher and Ian Hamilton Finlay, to the juxtapositions of provinciality and migration in the work of Caryl Phillips, and finally to the encounters with marginalized dismalness in the fiction of and Rachel Trezise. viii INTRODUCTION From Riots to Trees From April to July of 1981, 'race' riots broke out across England, first in Brixton, and then in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. Frustrated by endemic poverty, decaying neighborhoods, police surveillance and brutality, and the incipient attack on the welfare state, working class communities – white and black – took to the streets in violent protest. While sparked mostly by incidents of police brutality, often against black youth already the frequent subject of increased 'stop and search' policing, the riots were deemed to be the result of "racial disadvantage," according to a subsequent government inquiry into the riots, the Scarman report.1 While asserting that institutionalized racism did not exist, the report nevertheless advocated for affirmative action to prevent existing race inequities from becoming an "endemic, ineradicable disease threatening the very survival of [British] society."2 The riots were the result not only of a rapidly changing economy but also of the contestation of 'British' identity that, in the postwar period, pitted Britain's burgeoning 'postcolonial', migrant population against white nationalists, and working class white and black youths against Thatcherite authoritarianism and neoliberalism. Margaret Thatcher herself promised, in 1978, that if elected the British would "finally see an end to immigration lest [they] feel rather swamped by people

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