Imagined Economies - Real Fictions : New Perspectives on Economic Thinking in Great Britain / Jessica Fischer, Gesa Stedman

• Funder: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
• Author: Fischer, Jessica; Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
• HerausgeberIn: Fischer, Jessica; Stedman, Gesa
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Edition Kulturwissenschaft
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (180 p.)

The way we conceptualise the economy and ourselves as homo economicus has profound consequences for our lives. The contributions to this anthology take debates about the financial crisis, about recent austerity measures or about the Brexit referendum a step further. A common denominator of these dynamics are underlying ideas of »the economy«. Each author identifies a facet of Britain's imagined economies. They connect seemingly separate fields such as finance and fiction in order to better understand current political changes. In addition, the book offers an urgently needed interdisciplinary view on the performative power of economic thought - and in this respect moves far beyond merely British perspectives.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter 1 Table of Contents 5 Introduction 7 Why Imagined Economies? 17 The Rise and Decline of Doux Commerce: Change of Experience and Change of Perception 35 The Emotional Economies of Colonial Capitalism and Its Legacies 55 Imagining Money 79 Beneath and Beyond the City: The Multiple Faces of British Finance 101 A Nation of Shopkeepers? The Idealised High Street in Brexit Britain 119 The New Democratic Economy: An Imaginary and Real Alternative 139 Imaginary Economies: Narratives for the 21st Century 157 Authors 175