Quarterly of scholarly essays on contemporary writing. Published @UWiscPress.
Madison, WI
Joined May 2018
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To our readers and contributors: while we will continue to post here for the moment, Contemporary Literature is seeking bluer skies at cl-journal.bsky.social.
Follow us there to stay up to date on recent issues, CFPs, and more! 🦋✍️
Issue 67.2 highlight: Maria Christou writes about the "literary heroic" and a conceptually flexible understanding of heroism. Read it here: cl.uwpress.org/content/curre…
Contemporary Literature issue 67.2 is out now, featuring exciting new work from Maria Christou, Penny Fielding, Sophia Gatzionis, Mara Reisman, Caitlin Simmons, and Nicole Dib! Read it here: cl.uwpress.org/content/curre…
You can read both articles for free here: cl.uwpress.org/content/curre…
And in "Linked In: Ecopoems as Connectomes," Peter J. Schmidt suggests that lyric poetry might have something to teach us about understanding the networked nature of ecosystems.
In “This Is Our Time”: Timescapes of the Anthropocene Event and Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods, Maxim Shadurski explores anthropocene discourses alongside theories of the chronotope and situated narratology.
CL can be a beach read too! Check out our newest issue--67.1--for incisive new work by Jeffrey J. Williams, Adam Hill, Peter J. Schmidt, Maxim Shadurski, and Xuibing Yu cl.uwpress.org/content/67/1?…
What kind of body-politic emerges as the body itself unravels? In "The Coloniality of Sodomy: Culeros, Erotic Sovereignty, and the Unraveling of Man in Héctor Tobar’s The Tattooed Soldier, Salomé Herrera explores bodies, borders, and the queer erotics of material disintegration.
Our newest issue, Contemporary Literature 66.4, is now live, with exciting recent work by Fatmah Al Thobaiti, Salomé Herrera, Tori McCandless, Michael Trask, and Matthew Hart. Read it here: cl.uwpress.org/content/curre…
Congratulations to Dr. Raquel Kennon, CL Book Review Editor and recent winner of the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award at UW-Madison! Raquel's work shines both inside and outside the classroom, and we're lucky to have her on board at CL. news.wisc.edu/meet-the-2026-…
"Is poetry of any use in the face of actual planetary crisis?" In Contemporary Literature 66.3, Elin Käck tackles poetry, politics, environment and emergency. cl.uwpress.org/content/curre…
Our newest issue, Contemporary Literature 66.3, is now live, with exciting recent work by Laura García Moreno, Elin Käck, Kasia Mika-Bresolin, Monika Szuba, Rachele Puddu, Miriam Jaffe and Aimee Pozorski. Read it here: cl.uwpress.org/content/curre…
From @beatdomjournal, an interview with CL author Brett Sigurdson about Jack Kerouac's archives: beatdom.substack.com/p/a-mul…
Contemporary Literature issue 66.2 is out now, featuring new work on the poetics of recipes, small-press publishing, neurohumanities, and more! Contributors include Lucy Biederman, Monika Kaup, Pei-Chen Liao, Emmy Waldman, and Nayound Yang. Read it here: cl.uwpress.org/content/curre…
How was the future of literary criticism imagined in the past?
From the archives: two essays by Hayden White and Edward Said, included in Contemporary literature V17.N3.
Read it here: tinyurl.com/mr2r6de3
How have poets post Black Arts Movement navigated the politics of form? In 66.1, Lizzy LeRud explores interplays of formalism and (non)conformity in recent radical poetry. Read "A Thousand 'We Real Cools':New Forms in Recent African American Poetry" here: cl.uwpress.org/content/curre…
Contemporary Literature issue 66.1 is out now, featuring exciting new work by Inbar Gidron, Cynthia Hogue, Lizzy LeRud, Brett Sigurdson, and Emily K. Yoon. Read it here: cl.uwpress.org/content/curre….
How does digital celebrity shape the self-consciousness of contemporary autofiction? Hannah A. Jorgensen answers in "Authentic Flesh, Digital Bits," featured in CL 65.4. Read it here: cl.uwpress.org/content/65/4/…
Contemporary Literature issue 65.4 is out now, featuring new work by Brooke Conti, Katy Dadacz, Kristin Emanuel, Hannah A. Jorgensen, and Weishun Lu. Read it here: cl.uwpress.org/content/curre….
We are thrilled to announce that Jessica Swoboda has been awarded the 2025 L.S. Dembo prize for her wonderful article, "Rachel Cusk's Attention Ecology."
Honorable mention also goes to Georgina Colby and Michael Dowdy. Details to follow... 🧵
To read Swoboda's narratological treatment of attention economies/ecologies, click here: cl.uwpress.org/content/64/3/…
Read Georgina Colby and Michael Dowdy's stunning essays in 64.1 and 64.4:
"Housing the Stranger: Feminist Sheltering in the Work of Bhanu Kapil" (cl.uwpress.org/content/64/1/…)
"'Mexican or Something': Reading the Novels of Mexicanesque Appalachia (cl.uwpress.org/content/64/4/…