Contemporary Literature

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! 🦋✍️

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/current

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/current

From @beatdomjournal, an interview with CL author Brett Sigurdson about Jack Kerouac's archives: beatdom.substack.com/p/a-multicultu…

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/current

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/current

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/current.

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/65/4/5…

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/current.

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/64/1/24) "'Mexican or Something': Reading the Novels of Mexicanesque Appalachia (cl.uwpress.org/content/64/4/4…

To read Swoboda's narratological treatment of attention economies/ecologies, click here: cl.uwpress.org/content/64/3/3…

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... 🧵

Corinna Norrick-Rühl and Alexander Starre go "book-clubbing" in their new #openaccess article: "Genre, Diversity, and Metanarrative in Reese's Book Club" cl.uwpress.org/content/current

A new wave of Chinese science fiction "depict[s] waste, not ordered progress, as the substance of China’s contemporary reality and the genre’s primary concern." In issue 65.3, Martha Swift examines the underside of science fiction's high-tech futures. cl.uwpress.org/content/current

Contemporary Literature issue 65.3 is out now, featuring new work by Charlie Ericson, Sam Ladkin, Corinna Norrick-Rühl, Alexander Starre, Matt Prout, and Martha Swift! Read it here: cl.uwpress.org/content/current

CL 65.3 is shaping up to be an exciting issue. Stay tuned this week for its release and remember to follow us at cl-journal.bsky.social for future updates on releases, issue highlights, and more!

How does autofiction contend with technologically mediated ways of seeing and projecting the self? In our read of the week, Marek Makowski produces “A New Exercise in Looking”: Experiments in Autofiction and the Novels of Olga Tokarczuk. Read it here: cl.uwpress.org/content/current

How do modern managerialism, short-termism, and the information economy shape narrative resistance to work and capital? Huw Marsh offers a salient analysis in our read of the week: "'Bullshit' Jobs and Ticklish Comedy: Humor and Sadness in the Contemporary Novel."