Drunk with the Glitter : Space, Consumption and Sexual Instability in Modern Urban Culture

Gillian Swanson

Drunk with the Glitter examines the ways in which urban modernity reshapes 'cultural experience'. In particular, it explores the ways that categories of sexual identity and behaviour were reformulated in relation to the restructuring of urban space and the introduction of new cultures of consumption in a period of modernization. How did the 'altered conditions' of postwar Britain help to inaugurate new patterns of sociability, cultural attachment and intimate encounter? Each chapter focuses on an area of public controversy which directed attention to those forms of sexual instability identified as threatening to national cohesion, including: