Generational identities: Historical and literary perspectives

Discussions of generational identities need to take into account their long and non-linear history. Our present focus on intergenerational inequity Baby-Boomers vs. Millennials disregards the much more complex history this social identity. This paper by a historian literary scholar teases apart (1) diachronic synchronic meanings ‘generation’, (2) difference between ‘a generation in itself’ from for that has identity, (3) are claimed within or ascribed without. places question how change takes place historical context, showing while came focused attention during First World War, they arguably began century earlier, upheavals French Revolution worldwide Napoleonic Wars. Nineteenth-century intellectual movements were often generation-conscious, though these did not translate across spectrum. The emphasises intersectional nature any taxonomy relation class, gender, race national drawing brief examples independence-era Jamaica, post-Soviet Russia, mid-twentieth-century UK USA. A final section highlights value ‘intergenerational’ approaches over those emphasize ‘generation gap’.