Literary Activism

Literary Activism - activism that revisits and interrogates an idea of literature - emerges from a radically altered landscape for both publishing and academia, where market pressures are effecting changes - on language, on the measuring of value, on the concept of influence - we might struggle to recognise. Taking in the roles of writer, critic, translator, academic and publisher, the essays in this volume follow no single line of enquiry. Rather, they offer the beginnings of an analysis of the literary world at a certain moment of globalization, while also questioning whether a literary world exists and, if it does, where its boundaries lie. The collection moves in many directions - from Arun Kolatkar and his near-heroic refusal of both market place and reputation; to Derek Attridge, who argues for a form of affirmative criticism which positions the critic as a 'lover of the text'; while, from Amsterdam, Dubravka Ugresic;reflects on life in a literary 'out of nation zone', adrift in a territory where intellectual protest has been stripped of ideological impetus and subsumed by the voraciousness of the market. Taken together, these essays initiate a series of conversations about who reads what and why, about the practice of writing and criticism at this particular contemporary moment, and about the activities and institutions that shape an understanding of what literature is and what it can do. Literary Activism, edited by Amit Chaudhuri, features writing from Derek Attridge, Tim Parks, Dubravka Ugresic, Laetitia Zecchini, Peter D. Macdonald, Saikat Majumdar, Jamie McKendrick, and Swapan Chakravorty, with an afterword byJon Cook.

Literary Activism revisits and interrogates, and looks to renew, the force of the literary. It's a movement that emerges from a radically altered landscape for both publishing and academia, where what Amit Chaudhuri calls ‘market activism’ has effected changes – on language, on the measuring of value, on the concept of influence – in ways we struggle to recognise. Encompassing the perspectives of the writer, critic, translator, academic, and publisher, the essays in this volume follow no single line of enquiry. Rather, they offer the beginnings of an analysis of the literary world at a certain moment of globalisation, while also questioning whether a literary world exists and, if it does, where its boundaries lie. The collection moves in many directions – from Arun Kolatkar and his near-heroic refusal of both marketplace and reputation; to Derek Attridge, who argues for a form of affirmative criticism which positions the critic as a ‘lover of the text’; while, from Amsterdam, Dubravka Ugrešić reflects on life in a literary ‘out of nation zone’, adrift in a territory where intellectual protest has been stripped of ideological impetus and subsumed by the voraciousness of the market. Taken together, these essays initiate a series of conversations about who reads what and why, about the practice of writing and criticism at this particular contemporary moment, and about the activities and institutions that shape an understanding of what literature is and what it can do.

Violence against Indigenous women in Canada is an ongoing crisis, with roots deep in the nation’s colonial history. Despite numerous policies and programs developed to address the issue, Indigenous women continue to be targeted for violence at disproportionate rates. What insights can literature contribute where dominant anti-violence initiatives have failed? Centring the voices of contemporary Indigenous women writers, this book argues for the important role that literature and storytelling can play in response to gendered colonial violence. Indigenous communities have been organizing against violence since newcomers first arrived, but the cases of missing and murdered women have only recently garnered broad public attention. Violence Against Indigenous Women joins the conversation by analyzing the socially interventionist work of Indigenous women poets, playwrights, filmmakers, and fiction-writers. Organized as a series of case studies that pair literary interventions with recent sites of activism and policy-critique, the book puts literature in dialogue with anti-violence debate to illuminate new pathways toward action. With the advent of provincial and national inquiries into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, a larger public conversation is now underway. Indigenous women’s literature is a critical site of knowledge-making and critique. Violence Against Indigenous Women provides a foundation for reading this literature in the context of Indigenous feminist scholarship and activism and the ongoing intellectual history of Indigenous women’s resistance.

In the early decades of the twenty-first century, we are grappling with the legacies of past centuries and their cascading effects upon children and all people. We realize anew how imperialism, globalization, industrialization, and revolution continue to reshape our world and that of new generations. At a volatile moment, this collection asks how twenty-first century literature and related media represent and shape the contemporary child, childhood, and youth. Because literary representations construct ideal childhoods as well as model the rights, privileges, and respect afforded to actual young people, this collection surveys examples from popular culture and from scholarly practice. Chapters investigate the human rights of children in literature and international policy; the potential subjective agency and power of the child; the role models proposed for young people; the diverse identities children embody and encounter; and the environmental well-being of future human and nonhuman generations. As a snapshot of our developing historical moment, this collection identifies emergent trends, considers theories and critiques of childhood and literature, and observes how new technologies and paradigms are destabilizing past conventions of storytelling and lived experience.

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism provides an accessible, diverse and ground-breaking overview of literary, cultural, and political translation across a range of activist contexts. As the first extended collection to offer perspectives on translation and activism from a global perspective, this handbook includes case studies and histories of oppressed and marginalised people from over twenty different languages. The contributions will make visible the role of translation in promoting and enabling social change, in promoting equality, in fighting discrimination, in supporting human rights, and in challenging autocracy and injustice across the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, East Asia, the US and Europe. With a substantial introduction, thirty-one chapters, and an extensive bibliography, this Handbook is an indispensable resource for all activists, translators, students and researchers of translation and activism within translation and interpreting studies.

Examining how nineteenth-century Black women writers engaged radical reform, sentiment and their various readerships

This incisive study analyzes young adult (YA) literature as a cultural phenomenon, explaining why this explosion of books written for and marketed to teen readers has important consequences for how we understand reading in America. As visible and volatile shorthand for competing views of teen reading, YA literature has become a lightning rod for a variety of aesthetic, pedagogical, and popular literature controversies. Noted scholar Loretta Gaffney not only examines how YA literature is defended and critiqued within the context of rapid cultural and technological changes, but also highlights how struggles about teen reading matter to—and matter in—the future of librarianship and education. The workbridges divides between literary criticism, professional practices, canon building, literature appreciation, genre classifications and recommendations, standard histories, and commentary. It will be useful in YA literature course settings in Library and Information Science, Education, and English departments. It will also be of interest to those who study right wing culture and movements in media studies, cultural studies, American studies, sociology, political science, and history. It is of additional interest to those who study print culture, publishing and the book, histories of teenagers, and research on teen reading. Finally, it will offer those interested in teenagers, literature, libraries, technology, and politics a fresh way to look at book challenges and controversies over YA literature.