generation x douglas coupland sparknotes

Constant and glorified antagonisms join the liberal art field to the social field, forever re-scripting ‘anti’ as TINA –the principle that “there is no alternative”. The preference of Gen-Xers for “microcosms”, where withdrawal encountered low-fi collectivism, became more prevalent in subsequent decades and aligned with a democracy realised, and idealised, as the politics of “anti” (including anti-fascism) –exemplified in the art field in its association with an ethical left.

This was a formative literary work for its anti-work stance but also the narrativisation of withdrawal in awe of processes of acceleration that saw production principles translating into “dazed and confused” lifestyles. Abstract: The article traces the haunting of the contemporary art field by a post-1989 cultural and political imaginary captured in Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture(1991). The article is free to read online at the journal's website. More information about the project, and illustrated versions of all the essays can be found at. This essay is part of a larger project, Growing Up Modern: Childhood, Youth and Popular Culture Since 1945. In exploring these two issues, I show that this was a difficult – and at times, quite confused and contradictory – endeavour. It did this in two main ways: firstly, through its representation of inner-city life, and of racial diversity and secondly, through attempting to raise the educational achievement of black children in particular. The programme was targeted at preschool children in general, but particularly at disadvantaged, inner-city children – and, at least initially, at African-American children specifically. In this essay, drawing on original archival research, I go back to the origins of Sesame Street and the Children’s Television Workshop, the non-profit organization that created it. Yet fifty years on, it’s important to recall some of the controversy that surrounded its early days.

Sesame Street is the longest-running children’s television show of all time: it has become almost a sacred institution, which is guaranteed to generate a warm, nostalgic glow.

Generation x douglas coupland sparknotes