Modern and Contemporary Literature

English Literature research theme

Our research covers the full sweep of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from modernism to contemporary media and culture.

We analyse literature and reading cultures across the world including English and Irish fantasy fiction, African American literary and visual culture, Black British and British Asian fiction, and authors in West and East Africa.

We believe in literature's importance for global infrastructures and human rights, exploring the effects and ethics of refugee narratives, postcolonial literature, life writing, queer poetics and environmental activism.

Our interdisciplinary approach shows how literature shapes and reflects fields such as law, evolutionary biology and the history of science. We investigate emerging forms and genres from early twentieth century magazines to contemporary popular fiction, and trace the impact of technologies like mass production, social media and artificial intelligence.

Researchers

Honorary and Emeritus

Projects and Networks