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, 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 'stranger' in contemporary literature and film; the neo-Victorian novel; the English home tour; fascism in contemporary literature, film and culture.

Recent notable publications by researchers in this field include monographs on Margaret Atwood and on Anne Hébert; on modernism and national identity; on American postmodernist fiction and the past; as well as The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction. Staff have also edited essay collections on spectrality in the neo-Victorian novel; land and identity; war writing and the body; 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 Palgrave, Ashgate, and Continuum.

Researchers working in this area are: