Some of the most incisive writers on the subject rethink the relationship between Britain, England and English literary culture. It is premised on the importance of devolution, the uncertainty of the British union, the place of English Literature within the union, and the need for England to become a self-determining literary nation.

As interest in the work of Bakhtin grows there is an increasing demand for a well organized, readable text which explains his main ideas and relates them to current social and cultural theory. This book is designed to supply this demand. Elegantly written with the needs of the student coming to Bakhtin for the first time in mind, it provides the essential guide to this important and neglected thinker.

In Britain, the resistance to popular determination allowed by the financial construct of the public has been so successful that this term, public, must be re-read as politically paralyzing. The problem, our problem, is the public - which we are so often told will bring us together and provide for us - and it is this we must move beyond.

This book describes the recent Scottish independence referendum as the latest incarnation of a contest between two times - on one hand, an ideally continuous time beyond determination underpinning financial sovereignty, on the other the interruptions to this ideal continuity inherent in human action.