Contemporary Literature from 1945 to Now

Module code: EN2340

This module examines literature from the mid-twentieth century to today, focusing on how fiction, poetry and drama rewrite dominant British narratives. Examining a key text from each decade, we consider how literature responds to major developments in post-war, late twentieth century and contemporary culture. How did the decline of empire and arrival of Caribbean migrants on the SS Windrush in the 1950s transform Britain? How did the sexual revolution of the Swinging Sixties and the emergence of feminism and the gay rights movement in the 1970s change attitudes to gender and sexuality? How was Britain reshaped by Thatcherism in the 1980s and by debates about multiculturalism in the 1990s?  What are the post-millennial preoccupations that produced Brexit?  Themes include violence, the revision of history, class hierarchy, de/colonisation and cultural hybridity, and gender and sexual diversity. The module pays particular attention to the ways in which writers move beyond realism and reinvent traditional literary forms and genres, ending with rapper and spoken word poet Kae Tempest. Other authors include Sam Selvon, Joe Orton, Seamus Heaney, Jeanette Winterson, Salman Rushdie, Sarah Kane, and Bernardine Evaristo.