Contemporary Literature is among the most popular areas of literary study but it can be a difficult one to define. This book equips readers with the necessary tools to take an analytical and systematic approach to contemporary texts. The author provides answers to some of the critical questions in the field:

• What makes a literary text contemporary?
• Is it possible to have a canon of contemporary literature?
• How does a reader 's location affect their understanding?
• How do print, electronic, and audio-visual media impact upon contemporary literature?
• Which key concepts and themes are most prevalent?

Containing diverse illustrative examples and discussing the topics which define our current sense of the contemporary, this is an ideal starting point for anyone seeking to engage critically with contemporary literature anywhere.

Digital India and The Poor examines how the poor are evoked in contemporary Indian political discourse. It studies the ways in which the disadvantaged are accounted for in the increasingly digitised political economy, commercial and public policy, media, and academic research. This book: Interrogates the category of the poor in India and how they have come to be classified in economic and policy documents over the past few decades Explores the influential digital education technology 'experiments' conducted in Indian slums from the late 1990s, now popularly known as the 'hole-in-the-wall experiments' Discusses financial inclusion initiatives, predominantly as they converged between 2014 and 2017, such as the Jan Dhan Yojana, the Aadhaar Project, and the banknote demonetisation Presents an in-depth study of the bearing of technology on domestic employment in India The book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian studies, politics, political science and sociology, technology studies, linguistics, and development studies.

This book is a collective journal of the COVID-19 pandemic. With first-hand accounts of the pandemic as it unfolded, it explores the social and the political through the lens of the outbreak. Featuring contributors located in India, the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Bulgaria, the book presents us with simultaneous multiple histories of our time. The volume documents the beginning of social distancing and lockdown measures adopted by countries around the world and analyses how these bore upon prevailing social conditions in specific locations. It presents the authors' personal observations in a lucid conversational style as they reflect on themes such as the reorganization of political debates and issues, the experience of the marginalized, theodicy, government policy responses, and shifts into digital space under lockdown, all of these under an overarching narrative of the healthcare and economic crisis facing the world. A unique and engaging contribution, this book will be useful to students and researchers of sociology, public health, political economy, public policy, and comparative politics. It will also appeal to general readers interested in pandemic literature.

This book is a collective journal of the COVID-19 pandemic. With first-hand accounts of the pandemic as it unfolded, it explores the social and the political through the lens of the outbreak. Featuring contributors located in India, the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Bulgaria, the book presents us with simultaneous multiple histories of our time. The volume documents the beginning of social distancing and lockdown measures adopted by countries around the world and analyses how these bore upon prevailing social conditions in specific locations. It presents the authors' personal observations in a lucid conversational style as they reflect on themes such as the reorganization of political debates and issues, the experience of the marginalized, theodicy, government policy responses, and shifts into digital space under lockdown, all of these under an overarching narrative of the healthcare and economic crisis facing the world. A unique and engaging contribution, this book will be useful to students and researchers of sociology, public health, political economy, public policy, and comparative politics. It will also appeal to general readers interested in pandemic literature.

As the European Union seemingly teetered from a financial crisis to an immigration crisis around 2015 and onwards, discourses of race appeared to congeal in various member states. In some instances, these came with familiarly essentialist constructions; in others these were refracted cautiously through concerns about security, national and cultural integrity, distribution of public resources and employment, and so on. New political alignments surfaced on the back of such concerns, and established organizations changed their agendas accordingly. The border regimes of EU member states became increasingly fraught, both in terms of their everyday operations and in terms of the close attention and vociferous debates they attracted. In most instances, the internal and external borders of the EU hardened, and with increasing frequency the cohesion of the transnational union seemed on the verge of fracturing. Indeed, very real fissures opened up with secessionist moves and referendums. Through each step in this juncture of upheavals, the significance of race has been reiterated in tangential ways and sometimes with unabashed straightforwardness. This volume explores this juncture around 2015, and the constructions of race and of crisis therein, for specific contexts and from a range of disciplinary perspectives. The introduction gives an overview of the juncture, focusing on the rise of Eurosceptic nationalist political parties and their electoral success. Subsequent chapters are addressed to the management and representation of immigrants crossing the Mediterranean, border regimes in the Czech Republic, the narratives that converged on Brexit, riots in England, antagonistic popular movements in Sweden, racialization in crisis management in Italy, perceptions of migrants in Greece, and how race may be structured in and challenged through classroom pedagogy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

This book analyzes constructions of injustice, group identification and participation in news and social media in anti-austerity protests within the European Union (EU). Since 2008, EU member-states have witnessed waves of protests and demonstrations against the adoption of austerity measures and alignment of domestic economies with the prevailing global neoliberal order. Understanding how the media represents dissent and how it influences public deliberation is of critical importance. It is accordingly necessary to explore the strategies deployed and role played by news and social media in representing and perhaps acting upon anti-austerity protests in the Eurozone crisis. This volume undertakes such a critical exploration.

This book examines the status of English Studies in India, aspirations pinned on the subject by students, teachers, policy-makers and society in general, and how these are addressed at the higher education level. It presents analytical background discussions of the history and policy environment, and offers open-ended, multi-faceted and multi-vocal accounts of particular aspects of contemporary Indian English Studies, including curriculum, pedagogy, research, employment, relation to Indian vernaculars and translation studies. Reconsidering English Studies in Indian Higher Education is an invaluable source for anyone interested in: The relevant histories and higher education policies Professional concerns, including employment, management, teaching and scholarly practices, and negotiations in terms of socio-cultural life Student attitudes, experiences and aspirations Management ethos and academic work in a comparative perspective, informed by the situation and debates in the United Kingdom and United States of America The context of global English Studies and globalization The book will be of primary interest to academic readers such as students, teachers and researchers in English Studies in India, Britain and wherever the discipline is pursued at higher education level Suman Gupta is Professor and Chair in Literature and Cultural History at The Open University. Richard Allen is Professor Emeritus at the Department of English at The Open University. Subarno Chattarji is Associate Professor at the Department of English, University of Delhi. Supriya Chaudhuri is Professor Emeritus at the Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

This book analyzes constructions of injustice, group identification and participation in news and social media in anti-austerity protests within the European Union (EU). Since 2008, EU member-states have witnessed waves of protests and demonstrations against the adoption of austerity measures and alignment of domestic economies with the prevailing global neoliberal order. Understanding how the media represents dissent and how it influences public deliberation is of critical importance. It is accordingly necessary to explore the strategies deployed and role played by news and social media in representing and perhaps acting upon anti-austerity protests in the Eurozone crisis. This volume undertakes such a critical exploration.

This book examines the status of English Studies in India, aspirations pinned on the subject by students, teachers, policy-makers and society in general, and how these are addressed at the higher education level. It presents analytical background discussions of the history and policy environment, and offers open-ended, multi-faceted and multi-vocal accounts of particular aspects of contemporary Indian English Studies, including curriculum, pedagogy, research, employment, relation to Indian vernaculars and translation studies. Reconsidering English Studies in Indian Higher Education is an invaluable source for anyone interested in: The relevant histories and higher education policies Professional concerns, including employment, management, teaching and scholarly practices, and negotiations in terms of socio-cultural life Student attitudes, experiences and aspirations Management ethos and academic work in a comparative perspective, informed by the situation and debates in the United Kingdom and United States of America The context of global English Studies and globalization The book will be of primary interest to academic readers such as students, teachers and researchers in English Studies in India, Britain and wherever the discipline is pursued at higher education level Suman Gupta is Professor and Chair in Literature and Cultural History at The Open University. Richard Allen is Professor Emeritus at the Department of English at The Open University. Subarno Chattarji is Associate Professor at the Department of English, University of Delhi. Supriya Chaudhuri is Professor Emeritus at the Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

This critical reader is the essential companion to any course in twentieth-century literature. Drawing upon the work of a wide range of key writers and critics, the selected extracts provide:
*a literary-historical overview of the twentieth century
*insight into theoretical discussions around the purpose, value and form of literature which dominated the century
*closer examination of representative texts from the period, around which key critical issues might be debated.
Clearly conveying the excitement generated by twentieth-century literary texts and by the provocative critical ideas and arguments that surrounded them, this reader can be used alongside the two volumes of "Debating Twentieth-Century Literature" or as a core text for any module on the literature of the last century.
Texts examined in detail include: Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard," Mansfield's "Short Stories," poetry of the 1930s, Gibbon's "Sunset Song," Eliot's "Prufrock," Brecht's "Galileo," Woolf's "Orlando," Okigbo's "Selected Poems," du Maurier's "Rebecca," poetry by Ginsburg and O'Hara, Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," Puig's "Kiss" "of the Spiderwoman," Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," Heaney's "New Selected Poems 1966-1987," Gurnah's "Paradise" and Barker's "The Ghost Road."

This textbook ranges from the early twentieth-century to the full array of modernisms emerging between the First and Second World Wars. The editors introduce twentieth-century debates around genre, form and content reflected in both literary and critical writing of the period, as well as differing accounts of the function of literature (aestheticist vs. didactic). They go on to examine debates around modernisms, and the various ways in which authors negotiated the departure of the modern from the past in terms of style, form, ideas and ideology.
This wide-ranging volume is not only ideal as the first part of a course on twentieth-century literature, but also as a companion to courses on modernist literature and culture.
Texts examined in detail include:
Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Mansfield's Short Stories, poetry of the 1930s, Gibbon's Sunset Song, Eliot's Prufrock, Brecht's Galileo, Woolf's Orlando, Okigbo's Selected Poems.

This critical reader is the essential companion to any course in twentieth-century literature. Drawing upon the work of a wide range of key writers and critics, the selected extracts provide:
*a literary-historical overview of the twentieth century
*insight into theoretical discussions around the purpose, value and form of literature which dominated the century
*closer examination of representative texts from the period, around which key critical issues might be debated.
Clearly conveying the excitement generated by twentieth-century literary texts and by the provocative critical ideas and arguments that surrounded them, this reader can be used alongside the two volumes of "Debating Twentieth-Century Literature" or as a core text for any module on the literature of the last century.
Texts examined in detail include: Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard," Mansfield's "Short Stories," poetry of the 1930s, Gibbon's "Sunset Song," Eliot's "Prufrock," Brecht's "Galileo," Woolf's "Orlando," Okigbo's "Selected Poems," du Maurier's "Rebecca," poetry by Ginsburg and O'Hara, Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," Puig's "Kiss" "of the Spiderwoman," Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," Heaney's "New Selected Poems 1966-1987," Gurnah's "Paradise" and Barker's "The Ghost Road."

As the European Union seemingly teetered from a financial crisis to an immigration crisis around 2015 and onwards, discourses of race appeared to congeal in various member states. In some instances, these came with familiarly essentialist constructions; in others these were refracted cautiously through concerns about security, national and cultural integrity, distribution of public resources and employment, and so on. New political alignments surfaced on the back of such concerns, and established organizations changed their agendas accordingly. The border regimes of EU member states became increasingly fraught, both in terms of their everyday operations and in terms of the close attention and vociferous debates they attracted. In most instances, the internal and external borders of the EU hardened, and with increasing frequency the cohesion of the transnational union seemed on the verge of fracturing. Indeed, very real fissures opened up with secessionist moves and referendums. Through each step in this juncture of upheavals, the significance of race has been reiterated in tangential ways and sometimes with unabashed straightforwardness. This volume explores this juncture around 2015, and the constructions of race and of crisis therein, for specific contexts and from a range of disciplinary perspectives. The introduction gives an overview of the juncture, focusing on the rise of Eurosceptic nationalist political parties and their electoral success. Subsequent chapters are addressed to the management and representation of immigrants crossing the Mediterranean, border regimes in the Czech Republic, the narratives that converged on Brexit, riots in England, antagonistic popular movements in Sweden, racialization in crisis management in Italy, perceptions of migrants in Greece, and how race may be structured in and challenged through classroom pedagogy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

This volume explores the processes of economic migration, the social conditions that follow it and the discourses that underlie research into it. Reflecting critically on economic migration and on the process of studying and creating knowledge about it, the contributors address the question of whether recent enquiries into modernity bring a newer and better comprehension of the nature of dislocation and movement, or whether these serve simply to replicate familiar modes of placing people and individuals. The book is organized into perspectives in and on specific continents - Europe, Asia and Africa - in order to explore notions regarding economic migration within and across regions as well as towards displacing the Eurocentrism of many studies of migration.

This volume explores the processes of economic migration, the social conditions that follow it and the discourses that underlie research into it. Reflecting critically on economic migration and on the process of studying and creating knowledge about it, the contributors address the question of whether recent enquiries into modernity bring a newer and better comprehension of the nature of dislocation and movement, or whether these serve simply to replicate familiar modes of placing people and individuals. The book is organized into perspectives in and on specific continents - Europe, Asia and Africa - in order to explore notions regarding economic migration within and across regions as well as towards displacing the Eurocentrism of many studies of migration.

This book retraces the formation of modern English Studies by departing from philological scholarship along two lines: in terms of institutional histories and in terms of the separation of literary criticism and linguistics.

The Practical Philosophy of AI-Assistants presents a formal conversation between an AI engineer, Peter, and a humanities researcher, Suman. It is written so that specialist terms and concepts in AI research are accessible to a humanities researcher and humanities theories are easily grasped by an AI engineer. The argument concerns setting up ground rules to design an AI-Assistant, i.e. an AI system that could act as a personal friend, consultant and confidante for every individual and be integrated into our everyday life. These rules apply to four large areas of AI development: recognition and identification, communication, explanation, and civility.In discussing these areas, this book also gives an accessible account of the current state of AI research, as well as adding nuance to the underpinning assumptions of relevant technologies and reflecting on their social implications.The broader ideological objective of The Practical Philosophy of AI-Assistants is captured by the phrase 'practical philosophy', which expresses a commitment to bringing AI development to work towards a good life for all.

In the run-up to, during and after the invasion of Iraq a large number of literary texts addressing that context were produced, circulated and viewed as taking a position for or against the invasion, or contributing political insights. This book provides an in-depth survey of such texts to examine what they reveal about the condition of literature.

In the run-up to, during and after the invasion of Iraq a large number of literary texts addressing that context were produced, circulated and viewed as taking a position for or against the invasion, or contributing political insights. This book provides an in-depth survey of such texts to examine what they reveal about the condition of literature.

This is the first extended text-based analysis of the social and political implications of the "Harry Potter" phenomenon. Arguments are primarily based on close readings of the first four "Harry Potter" books and the first two films - in other words, a 'text-to-world' method is followed. This study does not assume that the phenomenon concerns children alone, or should be lightly dismissed as a matter of pure entertainment. The amount of money, media coverage, and ideological unease involved indicates otherwise. The first part provides a survey of responses (both of general readers and critics) to the "Harry Potter" books. Some of the methodological decisions underlying this study itself are also explained here. The second part examines the presentation of certain themes, including gender, race and desire, in the "Harry Potter" books, with a view to understanding how these may impinge on social and political concerns of our world.

Digital India and The Poor examines how the poor are evoked in contemporary Indian political discourse. It studies the ways in which the disadvantaged are accounted for in the increasingly digitised political economy, commercial and public policy, media, and academic research. This book: Interrogates the category of the poor in India and how they have come to be classified in economic and policy documents over the past few decades Explores the influential digital education technology 'experiments' conducted in Indian slums from the late 1990s, now popularly known as the 'hole-in-the-wall experiments' Discusses financial inclusion initiatives, predominantly as they converged between 2014 and 2017, such as the Jan Dhan Yojana, the Aadhaar Project, and the banknote demonetisation Presents an in-depth study of the bearing of technology on domestic employment in India The book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian studies, politics, political science and sociology, technology studies, linguistics, and development studies.

Contemporary Literature is among the most popular areas of literary study but it can be a difficult one to define. This book equips readers with the necessary tools to take an analytical and systematic approach to contemporary texts. The author provides answers to some of the critical questions in the field:

• What makes a literary text contemporary?
• Is it possible to have a canon of contemporary literature?
• How does a reader 's location affect their understanding?
• How do print, electronic, and audio-visual media impact upon contemporary literature?
• Which key concepts and themes are most prevalent?

Containing diverse illustrative examples and discussing the topics which define our current sense of the contemporary, this is an ideal starting point for anyone seeking to engage critically with contemporary literature anywhere.

This book explores how the kinds of world-wide restructurings of higher education and research work that are underway today have not only increased employment insecurity in academia but may actually be producing unemployment both for those within academia and for graduate job-seekers in other sectors. Recent and current re-organisations of higher education and research work, and re-orientations of academic life (as students, researchers, teachers) generally, which are taking place around the world, achieve exactly the opposite of what they claim: though ostensibly undertaken to facilitate employment, these moves actually produce unemployment both for those within academia and for graduate job-seekers in other sectors.

This is the first extended text-based analysis of the social and political implications of the "Harry Potter" phenomenon. Arguments are primarily based on close readings of the first four "Harry Potter" books and the first two films - in other words, a 'text-to-world' method is followed. This study does not assume that the phenomenon concerns children alone, or should be lightly dismissed as a matter of pure entertainment. The amount of money, media coverage, and ideological unease involved indicates otherwise. The first part provides a survey of responses (both of general readers and critics) to the "Harry Potter" books. Some of the methodological decisions underlying this study itself are also explained here. The second part examines the presentation of certain themes, including gender, race and desire, in the "Harry Potter" books, with a view to understanding how these may impinge on social and political concerns of our world.

Political Catchphrases and Contemporary History presents an historical account of the period 2001-2020 by focusing on the shifting connotations of certain political catchphrases and words. These allow for a linked-up narrative covering areas such as politics and policy, business and investing, austerity and inequality, identity, climate change, crowd protests, flexible working, and online education. Key junctures are 9/11, the 2002 dot-com crash and the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the Occupy movements of 2011-2012, China's economic policy from 2014 onwards, and the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. Half the book is devoted to the unusually pervasive usage of the catchphrase 'new normal'. Chapters are also given to 'we are the 99%' and the catchwords 'austerity' and 'resilience'. Case studies of these catchphrases and words occupy much of the book. The final chapter makes conceptual inferences and proposes both a theory of political catchphrases and a distinctive approach to contemporary history. The source materials are predominantly from the UK and USA, but refer, naturally, to issues of global moment.