This document provides an overview of several key themes and movements in contemporary world literature from the post-World War II era to today. It discusses periods of resistance and rebellion in the late 1960s, the effects of globalization and increased migration, epidemics like AIDS, the gay rights movement beginning with the Stonewall uprising, the growth of feminist activism and thought, characteristics of contemporary literature, diverse voices from different cultures and experiences, magical realism, and postmodernism. The document aims to give the reader a sense of some of the major social, political and cultural influences that have shaped world literatures in recent decades.

1. Copyright © 2017 W. W. Norton & Company
Contemporary World
Literature
Volume F

2. Resistance and Rebellion
This era of history is marked by resistance movements
that reacted to harsh governmental systems or
policies that restricted human rights.
The 1968 student rebellions in Prague, Paris, and
Mexico City, and elsewhere served as an ignition of
the spark for people’s movements to protest the
Vietnam War in the United States, to call for the
destruction of the Berlin Wall and all that it
symbolized to East and West Germany and around the
world, to undo apartheid policies that legislated
segregation in South Africa, and to rebel against the
communist ruling of the People’s Republic of China, a
rebellion that ended with a massacre in Tiananmen
Square. Nelson Mandela

3. Globalization, Migration, and Cultural Hybridity
The years since World War II
have been an era of
globalization in investment,
knowledge, politics and culture.
The political upheavals of the
twentieth century created
millions of refugees and
entrenched conflicts. Today the
world is one of increased
migration, in which the
movements of people have
created dialogue—and often
conflict—over cultural hybridity.
Syrian refugees

4. Epidemics
• New epidemics, particularly AIDS,
ravaged populations in the West and
broadly in Africa. In Europe and North
America, AIDS first affected mostly
homosexuals.
• The decimation of gay communities by
the disease led to more militant forms
of activism, which built on anti-
discrimination efforts dating back to the
Stonewall uprising in the United States
and other activist movements around
the world.
• UNAIDS reports that in 2016, almost 37
million people were living with HIV. Its
goal is to end the epidemic by 2030
through education and other
prevention methods.
AIDS awareness billboard in Africa

5. Gay Rights around the World
Patrons of the Stonewall, a popular
gay bar in the Greenwich Village
neighborhood of New York City, and
their supporters resisted arrest in
June 1969, marking a watershed
moment in the world’s global gay
rights movements.
Another result of the gay rights
movement was the introduction of
same-sex marriage legislation in
countries around the world.
Homosexual writers have more
voice within global literatures,
though many authors are still
persecuted or are in danger. LGBT community members and allies rallying at a pride parade
in Madurai, 2017

6. Feminisms and Feminist Activism
• Feminist activism and thought affected much of the
twentieth century. From gains in women’s suffrage to
workplace rights to reproductive freedoms, feminists taught
the world about issues of gender inequity implicit in laws,
households, and educational settings.
• In the 1980s, many feminists began to see the importance
of intersectionality, a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw.
Further, many feminists began to talk more about the
intersections of gender, race, and class oppression and
worked toward ending all oppression—not just the
oppression of white women, a critique of many Second
Wave feminists.
• More current feminist practice considers the challenges of
rigid gender norms on all people, especially on those in the
transgender community.
• The Women’s March in 2017 is emblematic of new thinking
about gender and the ways feminists approach resistance to
oppression.
intersectional feminist icons Gloria Steinem and Maya
Angelou marching together

7. Characteristics of Contemporary Literature
(some, one, or all these elements might be found in contemporary literature-difficult period to
label)
1. Emphasis on an even more accurate picture of society.
2. Nationalism- possible emphasis on country, loyalty, etc.
3. Possible ambiguity in theme, contents, character, and plot.
4. More experimental use of dialogue. Possible play with language, inclusion of dialects,
more profane usage, etc.
5. Ambiguous chronology; time sequence disconnected or vague.
6. Prevalence of multicultural themes-awareness of different ethnic, sexual, and cultural
identities.
7. Increasing specific historical reference.

8. Diverse Voices
• With the cultural hybridity that attends the movement of peoples and the sharing of information,
nostalgia for tradition and the past is heightened.
• Writers are conscious of having an audience beyond their nation or region and even beyond their
language.
• Diverse literatures chronicle a variety of experiences and create empathy and connection.
• The twenty-first century began with reminders of the interconnectedness of a global society linked
by industrial capitalism and communications technology but divided by institutions such as religion or
politics.
• While war, poverty, oppression, and poverty are events that divide us, world literatures that share
diverse experiences can unite us through the experience of reading.

9. Magical Realism
Magical realism draws on the realist tradition of the historical novel and the nightmarish worlds of
writers like Kafka.
Writers including Marquéz, Fuentes, Allende, Morrison, and Rushdie combine realistic historical
narration with fanciful folktales.
These works have the greatest impact in zones of uneven economic development, where educated
writers have incorporated the folk wisdom of their rural, sometimes illiterate communities.

10. Postmodernism
• Texts question the boundary between fiction
and history
• Distortions of historical reality
• Unreliable narrators

11. This concludes the Lecture PowerPoint presentation for
The Norton Anthology
of World Literature