Literature and Literary Studies in the Twenty-First Century Kartoniert (TB)

In the 21st century the discipline of literary studies is faced with a considerable number of new challenges and cultural concerns which demand problem-solving strategies different from those envisaged by established approaches and theories. The present volume explores innovative pathways with regard to the question of how literary studies can be reconceptualised and engage with the key challenges of our time - from digitalisation climate change terrorism animal rights and urbanisation to fake news the financial crisis global migration flows resurgent nationalisms changes in labour an d many more. The volume's 24 contributions are dedicated to three main tasks: firstly to rethinking literary studies by mapping out new models and approaches secondly to examining new forms and storytelling practices in contemporary literature thirdly to exploring literature's engagement with current cultural concerns in British US-American and Anglophone contexts. CONTENTS Preface & Acknowledgements ............................................................................ ix ANSGAR NÜNNING VERA NÜNNING & ALEXANDER SCHERR Passion Pleasure Problem-Solving and Purpose: Reinvigorating Literary Studies for the Twenty-First Century and Coping with Challenges Changing Contexts Concerns and New Concepts ................... 1 I. NEW ORIENTATIONS AND APPROACHES IN LITERARY STUDIES JAN ALBER Towards a Critical Ethical Narratology: Narrative Strategies and World Views ................................................................51 SIBYLLE BAUMBACH Only Connect: The Aesthetics of Fragmentation and Mindful Literary Studies .....................................................................................73 VERA NÜNNING Empathy as a Key Twenty-First-Century Issue: Disciplinary Challenges and the Value of Literature ..........................................93 ELIZABETH KOVACH & IMKE POLLAND-SCHMANDT The Cultural Work of Forms: Methods of New Formalism in the Twenty-First Century ................................117 II. EMERGING TRENDS FORMS AND GENRES IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE ELIZABETH KOVACH Absurdly on the Job: A New Spirit of Humour Work Ethics and Narrative Aesthetics in Twenty-First-Century Office Fictions ...................137 ALEXANDER SCHERR Cultural Concerns in Twenty-First-Century Plotless Fiction: Everyday Experience Form and 'Possibilitarianism' in Ben Lerner's Leaving the Atocha Station (2011) ....................................................................151 ALEXANDRA EFFE Autofiction in the Anthropocene: Ben Lerner's 10:04 (2014) ..........................167 CHRISTINE SCHWANECKE Crashing Finances Clashing Genres: David Hare's The Power of Yes (2009) as an Analysis of the 2007 8 Financial Crisis in 'Journalist-Academic-Narrative-Dramatic' Terms .......................................185 III. KEY CULTURAL CONCERNS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY LITERATURE (I): POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN TIMES OF CHANGE IMKE POLLAND-SCHMANDT Gauging the State of the Nation in 'BrexLit': Literary Negotiations of Resurgent Nationalism and Regionalism ...................203 CLAIRE EARNSHAW Groups and Group Identities in Contemporary British Fiction .........................221 GESINE BOWEN Rituals and Ritual Change in the Twenty-First-Century Novel ........................233 CHRISTINA JORDAN Staging Britain's (A)Political Leader: Queen Elizabeth II in Peter Morg