Contemporary literature

Explore our research

The Institute is concerned with writing from the 20th century and beyond that informs an understanding of the contemporary moment. We research across a wide range of fields: world literature, postcolonialism and race, women’s writing, environmentalism, migration and mobilities, the everyday, and the theory and poetics of life writing. Seeking to disrupt and expand the category of literature, our work is generally characterised by a commitment to the lives and writing of marginalised and overlooked social groups. We are interested in the crossing of borders and breaching of boundaries, in well-travelled roads and unmapped terrain. Current projects include War Widows Stories; attachments to place in Antarctica; the black Mediterranean; maritime heterotopias; and the ecopoetics of swimming.

People

Meet the researchers working within this research group.