Invisible Lives of the Rural Idyll: Midsomer Murders and Cynan Jones’ The Long Dry

This article explores how certain rural lives are rendered invisible by the enduring dominance of the genre of the rural idyll, which is particularly strong in British culture. Drawing on my previous work about ‘living ghosts’, on Jacques Derrida and on Akira Lippit, I contend that, when dealing wit...

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Autor principal:	Esther Peeren
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN FR
Publicado:	Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée 2021
Materias:	rural idyll living ghosts haunting invisibility spectralization avisuality Arts in general NX1-820 English language PE1-3729 English literature PR1-9680
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/0fa23adc7ec144aea072acbba7794e96
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:0fa23adc7ec144aea072acbba7794e962021-12-02T10:51:55ZInvisible Lives of the Rural Idyll: Midsomer Murders and Cynan Jones’ The Long Dry1168-49172271-544410.4000/ebc.10993https://doaj.org/article/0fa23adc7ec144aea072acbba7794e962021-12-01T00:00:00Zhttp://journals.openedition.org/ebc/10993https://doaj.org/toc/1168-4917https://doaj.org/toc/2271-5444This article explores how certain rural lives are rendered invisible by the enduring dominance of the genre of the rural idyll, which is particularly strong in British culture. Drawing on my previous work about ‘living ghosts’, on Jacques Derrida and on Akira Lippit, I contend that, when dealing with the invisibilized lives of the rural, it is crucial to ask in what sense these lives are invisible and what each form of invisibility makes (im)possible. Two case studies are discussed: the popular television crime drama Midsomer Murders (1997-present), set in rural England, and the 2006 novel The Long Dry by Cynan Jones, set on a Welsh farm. With regard to Midsomer Murders, I show how it affirms the rural idyll’s construction of the English countryside as a space of whiteness. With regard to The Long Dry, I argue that it exposes the rural idyll, in Lauren Berlant’s terms, as a waning genre whose good-life fantasy is no longer viable, while also opening up the possibility of a posthuman idyll adequate to the contemporary globalized rural.Esther PeerenPresses Universitaires de la Méditerranéearticlerural idyllliving ghostshauntinginvisibilityspectralizationavisualityArts in generalNX1-820English languagePE1-3729English literaturePR1-9680ENFRÉtudes Britanniques Contemporaines, Vol 61 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN FR
topic	rural idyll living ghosts haunting invisibility spectralization avisuality Arts in general NX1-820 English language PE1-3729 English literature PR1-9680
spellingShingle	rural idyll living ghosts haunting invisibility spectralization avisuality Arts in general NX1-820 English language PE1-3729 English literature PR1-9680 Esther Peeren Invisible Lives of the Rural Idyll: Midsomer Murders and Cynan Jones’ The Long Dry
description	This article explores how certain rural lives are rendered invisible by the enduring dominance of the genre of the rural idyll, which is particularly strong in British culture. Drawing on my previous work about ‘living ghosts’, on Jacques Derrida and on Akira Lippit, I contend that, when dealing with the invisibilized lives of the rural, it is crucial to ask in what sense these lives are invisible and what each form of invisibility makes (im)possible. Two case studies are discussed: the popular television crime drama Midsomer Murders (1997-present), set in rural England, and the 2006 novel The Long Dry by Cynan Jones, set on a Welsh farm. With regard to Midsomer Murders, I show how it affirms the rural idyll’s construction of the English countryside as a space of whiteness. With regard to The Long Dry, I argue that it exposes the rural idyll, in Lauren Berlant’s terms, as a waning genre whose good-life fantasy is no longer viable, while also opening up the possibility of a posthuman idyll adequate to the contemporary globalized rural.
format	article
author	Esther Peeren
author_facet	Esther Peeren
author_sort	Esther Peeren
title	Invisible Lives of the Rural Idyll: Midsomer Murders and Cynan Jones’ The Long Dry
title_short	Invisible Lives of the Rural Idyll: Midsomer Murders and Cynan Jones’ The Long Dry
title_full	Invisible Lives of the Rural Idyll: Midsomer Murders and Cynan Jones’ The Long Dry
title_fullStr	Invisible Lives of the Rural Idyll: Midsomer Murders and Cynan Jones’ The Long Dry
title_full_unstemmed	Invisible Lives of the Rural Idyll: Midsomer Murders and Cynan Jones’ The Long Dry
title_sort	invisible lives of the rural idyll: midsomer murders and cynan jones’ the long dry
publisher	Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/0fa23adc7ec144aea072acbba7794e96
work_keys_str_mv	AT estherpeeren invisiblelivesoftheruralidyllmidsomermurdersandcynanjonesthelongdry
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Invisible Lives of the Rural Idyll: Midsomer Murders and Cynan Jones’ The Long Dry

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