Centre for Studies in Literature (CSL)
Twentieth and Twenty-First Century British and American Literature
Researchers in this cluster work on Edwardian and modernist literature, war writing as well as postmodernist literature. Beyond these classic areas staff share a strong interest in contemporary cultural production, particularly its concerns with the literary and cultural past and how these underpin strategies of ‘re-writing’. Crime fiction, travel writing, life writing, magical realism, the (neo)historical novel, postcolonial, immigrant and multi-ethnic writing as well as postmodernist fiction are significant research areas.
The geographical scope of research includes British, North American, and Canadian literature and film. One of the strengths of this research cluster is its international make-up which also accounts for the strong focus on issues of cultural and transnational identity.
Current projects involve the study of the link between orality, legal discourse and Native American writing; immigrant writing and transnationalism in post-1965 US literature; the neo-Victorian novel; the English home tour; and the modernist literary memoir.
Recent notable publications by researchers in this field include monographs on Djuna Barnes; on Margaret Atwood and on Anne Hébert; on modernism and national identity; as well as on late modernism and markets. Staff have also edited essay collections on spectrality in the neo-Victorian novel; land and identity; modernism, trust and deception; and crime cultures.
Twentieth and Twenty-First Century British and American Literature staff sit on editorial boards of peer-reviewed journals, referee articles and book proposals for journals including TLS, Body & Society, Atlantis, Mosaic, Modern Fiction Studies, Women: A Cultural Review, and Textual Practice, and publishers including Edinburgh University Press, Palgrave, Ashgate, and Continuum.
The cluster also owns the Fiction.Network - 1950s to the Present JISC mailing list which aims to foster debate and discussion around Contemporary Fiction. Read more about Fiction.Network, including details on the list and information on how to join it.
Researchers working in this area are: