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This article proposes to examine the theoretical and critical "new normality" of the figure of the witch, as well as its limits in Chloé Delaume's Les Sorcières de la République (2016). In doing so, it also seeks to question the performative power of literary discourse (by analogy with magical and political speech) and the definition of a possible "sororal" literary canon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Daljit Nagra's engagement with concepts of canon and tradition in British Museum (2017). Throughout the collection, Nagra provides readers with a multifaceted insight into the ways in which a plurality of 'cultures' and 'traditions' — literary, historical, political, religious — inform contemporary notions of Britishness and shape his work as a writer living with the legacies of literary heritage. British Museum, this paper argues, explores how Nagra's work relates to canons of English Literature, and how he makes sense of his own position. The discussion is framed by a consideration of what happens when we review canons of culture and their place within an increasingly diverse society. Underlying the inevitable conflicts and dislocation involved in (re-)defining traditions and cultural canons, this paper considers the ways in which Nagra identifies, through plurality, a fundamental desire for the meaningful connection of canonical culture with the diverse 21st century world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article opens by considering how contemporary Italian Studies scholarship is situated in relation to the long-standing dominance of literary culture as a major disciplinary concern, and the persistence of traditionally conceived canons, questions, and methods. The authors discuss how the scope of literary research has expanded in recent years and become more enmeshed with sociological, political, and ideological enquiry. They review how previous definitions of literary cultures and practices have been refreshed with new theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches, and through transnational dialogues and collaborative modes of research. A diachronic survey discusses key innovations both in the study of canonical or 'high culture' literary phenomena – such as Dante, Leopardi, or Futurism –, and in engagements with previously overlooked writing in popular genres or media, or by socially marginalised authors. It concludes by reflecting on how literary studies is both critiqued and defended within current debates over the standing of humanities research within and beyond the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a literary canon founded on dialectical principles, using South Africa as our historical example. In order to do so, we first trace the development of dialectical thought, moving from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to Karl Marx to Steve Biko; from Eurocentrism to class consciousness to Black Consciousness. Second, we plot the influence of Hegel and Marx as well as Sartre and Fanon on Biko's elaboration of dialectics for the Black Consciousness Movement. Third, and in response to Marxist critiques of Black Consciousness, we register the moment of class consciousness that underpins Biko's politics, especially his critique of institutions. Finally, and based on our exposition of Biko's reading of Hegel via Marx and Sartre, we suggest a 'polythetic' dialectic to rework the post-Apartheid literary canon and to accommodate intersectional complexity within it. The canon, in our model, does not emerge from a settled consensus, but instead re-coalesces on every occasion that it is submitted to contestation or is approached via conflicts in the social. A transitive or dialectical canon might variously retain or negate institutionally-privileged texts while still making them momentarily visible via the 'popular' traditions of struggle that contest institutional privilege. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of the professional author in the mid-nineteenth century was accompanied by serious concerns about the future of national literature. As market pressures and censorship increasingly shaped the landscape of literary production, post-patronage writing thematized the plight of the author. This article focuses on the work of Karl Gutzkow (1811–78), who as a professional writer campaigned for authors’ rights and insisted on the need to support new talent instead of fixating on memorialization. Through a consideration of Gutzkow's writings on prominent as well as marginalized German authors, the article traces his development of a theory for writing Künstlerromane and -novellen focusing specifically on historic authors. Finally, a reading of Gutzkow's fictionalized Rousseau biographyWie kam es, daß Rousseau seine Kinder aussetzte?reveals that Gutzkow put this theory into practice with a view to exposing the material hardships that could compromise an author's ability to produce serious literature worthy of the national canon. Rather than celebrating literary heroes of the past, the Künstlernovelle becomes a political statement: a literary genre with the potential to effect change by shining a light on the material obstacles to authorial success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fields of Korean classical literature and Korean TV drama do not often intermingle. Viewers of K-dramas can sometimes watch their protagonists thumb through certain books onstage, but these books are usually of foreign origin and do not belong to the so-called canon of traditional Korean literature. As a covert parody of theThe Dream of the Nine Clouds,My Love from the Staris an exception. It does not only explicitly allude to the novel, but shares semantic and structural parallels with it. In order to illuminate the intertextual references between the two works, I combine John Fiske’s concept of intertextuality with Linda Hutcheon’sA Theory of Parody. The tension between the novel and drama generates a dichotomy between tradition andhallyuthat eventually leads to the self-mockery ofhallyuitself. The fact thatMy Love from the Starwas not widely recognized amonghallyufans as a parody ofThe Dream of the Nine Cloudsmight ironically support the drama’s mockery of the superficiality ofhallyu. It might also prove that the pleasure viewers derive from a drama has less to do with the communication of meaning than with the way they are moved by it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay examines the characteristics of the anthology as a literary “meta-genre”. It looks at a range of English-language anthologies of South Asian writing published after independence, and discusses how they have shaped an idea of the subcontinent and its literature for national and transnational audiences. By examining these diverse anthologies, the essay aims to expand prevailing notions of a South Asian literary canon beyond the dominance of the Indian English novel and the nation as a unifying factor for literary production. In the process, the essay explores the relationship between literary value and socio-political engagement in our reading of South Asian writing, with specific reference to the role of the anthology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the changing status of English studies through English textbooks in contemporary West-Bengal, India. The texts are marked by the cross-currents of the post-colonial impulse to discard the English literary canon, the acceptance of the historical role of English literature in the Bengal Renaissance, and the new demand for English language proficiency in a globalising India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay addresses the ‘neither here nor there’ rhetoric of not belonging in Anglophone Chinese Australian literature. Jacques Derrida's recent work on hospitality and cosmopolitanism, together with Ien Ang's work on being ‘hosted’ as an Asian person in Australia, provides a theoretical framework to approach recent Chinese Australian texts such as Simone Lazaroo's The World Waiting to be Made , Arlene Chai's The Last Time I Saw Mother , and Hsu-Ming Teo's Behind the Moon . My analyslis highlights the ambivalence that surrounds ideas of ‘home’ in the context of migration (Lazaroo), the return to ‘homeland’ (Chai), and the refugee experience (Teo), as nationalism asserts itself as a force that denies true belonging to those who are nonetheless ‘hosted’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]