Contemporary Literature in English

This module explores different kinds of contemporary literature: postmodern, Gothic, postcolonial/world, post-9/11, feminist/queer, experimental, etc. Beginning in the 1950s, we consider the explosion of new literatures from the decolonising/newly postcolonial world and the rise of new literary forms in the post-war period. Recurrent themes include borders, margins, haunting, apocalypse, rewriting, migration, and metamorphosis. Texts currently studied include Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958), Alan Moore,?& D. Gibbons, Watchmen (1987), Jeanette Winterson, The World and Other Places (2000), Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000), Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2003), Marlene NourbeSe Philip, Zong! (2008), Mary Talbot and Bryan Talbot, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes (2012), and Sally Rooney, Normal People (2018).

The details of this module (for example the texts or authors studied) may vary from year to year.