Post45
Due Date: 12-01-2025
What happens when the present becomes historical to itself and the contemporary turns into a categorizable literary-historical formation? Is that even possible, that is: can the contemporary ever become historical (to) itself? This special issue seeks to examine the conditions that would allow us to understand the contemporary as a distinct literary period which began in the 1990s—with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of neoliberalism, and the growing sense that postmodern irony had outlived itself—and has now arguably come to an end. Not coincidentally, this was a period of almost uncontested, unipolar US political hegemony on a global scale, a connection that is likely to be registered in literary production of the time.
In positing the contemporary as a period in and of itself, this special issue is not meant to replace the common view of it as a singular moment signifying the immediate present. Rather, we wish to complement and complicate that view by raising questions about the practice of writing literary history and about the function of the period as a meaningful structuring device within any such history.
We invite contributions that address the following concerns:
– the multiple affinities between historical time and storytelling
– the functions of narrative in representations of the contemporary
– literary form as a marker of contemporaneity
– the role of the nation-state in conceptions of contemporary literature
– the aesthetic and political implications of contemporary canon formation
– the institutional history of the contemporary in academic literary studies
– writing and teaching literary history
Abstracts of 300 words or fewer should be submitted electronically by 1 December 2025. Full essays of 10,000 words or fewer, including endnotes and references, are due on 31 March 2026 (submission instructions to follow). For assistance with the submission process, please contact submissions@post45.org. For inquiries about the content of the issue, please contact the coeditors: Laura Bieger and Philipp Löffler, or visit our website.