Heading North

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction: Imagining the North of England

   • Ewa Mazierska

   Pages 1-35

3. The North, History and an Archive

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 37-37

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   2. Knocking-off Time in the North: Images of the Working Class and History in L.S. Lowry and Mitchell and Kenyon

      • Paul Dave

      Pages 39-72

   3. Mediating Northern Identities through Visual Heritage: An Unfinished Journey

      • Heather Norris Nicholson

      Pages 73-92

   4. To the Cheshire Station: Alan Garner and John Mackenzie’s Red Shift

      • Brian Baker

      Pages 93-109

4. The North and the Rural and Urban Identities

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 111-111

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   2. Screening South Yorkshire: The Gamekeeper and Looks and Smiles

      • David Forrest, Sue Vice

      Pages 113-132

   3. Re-reading Edge of Darkness: The Power of Northernness and the ‘Man of Feeling’

      • Katharine Cockin

      Pages 133-150

   4. Producing Habitus: ITV Soap Operas and the ‘Northern Powerhouse’

      • Peter Atkinson

      Pages 151-171

   5. North Square, New Street Law and Outlaws: Class and Race in Recent Northern Legal Television Drama

      • Shivani Pal, Andy Willis

      Pages 173-192

   6. It’s Grimm Up North: Domestic Obscenity, Assimilation Anxiety and Medical Salvation in BBC Three’s In the Flesh

      • Amy C. Chambers, Hannah J. Elizabeth

      Pages 193-211

5. The North in a Transnational Context

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 213-213

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   2. Looking West, not South: The Anglo-American Films Agreement and the North on Film, 1948 to 1958

      • Alan Hughes

      Pages 215-234

   3. The North and Europe in 24 Hour Party People and Control

      • Ewa Mazierska, Kamila Rymajdo

      Pages 235-255

   4. From North to East: Children and the Spatial Allegory of Entrapment in Ken Loach’s Kes and Csaba Bollók’s Iska’s Journey

      • Zsolt Győri

      Pages 257-277

   5. The (Global) Northern Working Class: Engels Revisited

      • Deirdre O’Neill

      Pages 279-297

6. Back Matter

   Pages 299-305

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This collection presents a number of films and television programmes set in the North of England in an investigation of how northern identity imbricates with class, race, gender, rural and urban identities. Heading North considers famous screen images of the North, such as Coronation Street and Kes (1969), but the main purpose is to examine its lesser known facets. From Mitchell and Kenyon’s ‘Factory Gate’ films to recent horror series In the Flesh, the authors analyse how the dominant narrative of the North of England as an ‘oppressed region’ subordinated to the economically and politically powerful South of England is challenged. The book discusses the relationship between the North of England and the rest of the world and should be of interest to students of British cinema and television, as well as to those broadly interested in its history and culture.

• North
• Manchester
• urban
• Industrial
• artistic
• In the Flesh
• factory gate
• Coronation Street
• Kes
• Identity
• Northern

“This is a lucidly written, necessary book, with several exceptionally insightful chapters, which will be useful to postgraduates and scholars concerned with Northern screen fictions.” (Tom May, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 39 (4), 2019)

“Mazierska begins the collection with what I consider the most rigorous survey of the canonical screen North written so far. It opens by defining the theoretical object of the North with which the collection is concerned. Dealing with a notoriously loose designation of place, Mazierska clearly establishes the North under examination as being the imagination of place: a set of images, stereotypes, myths.” (Daniel Martin, Critical Studies in Television, Vol. 14 (4), September, 2019)
“Ill defined, changing and culturally complex, a society woven around distinctive landscapes, “the North” remains a major feature of British life. It clearly warrants the careful attention provided in this exciting new collection. Eschewing well-worn clichés, the various authors cast new light on neglected issues, exploring the physical and social boundaries of an enduring region.” (Huw Beynon, Cardiff University, UK)

“Heading North is a valuable addition to the growing body of work on the North of England as a previously maligned and neglected region. Written predominantly by Northern-based scholars the book presents some new (Northern) perspectives on a few familiar films and television programmes, in addition to providing a welcome assessment of some previously neglected aspects of Northern culture. For anyone interested in current debates about the North and the representation of Northern identities in film and television this collection is highly recommended.” (Lez Cooke, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)

• Studies in Eastern European Cinema , Preston, United Kingdom

  Ewa Mazierska

Ewa Mazierska is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She has published widely on European cinema, Marxism, representation of work and popular music. She is the author of From Self-Fulfilment to Survival of the Fittest (2015). 

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