lesser importance to the past.

The label of "New Literatures" includes the literary productions of a geographically and culturally vast and non-contiguous area that includes the former British colonies (for example, from Canada to Australia, from Singapore to Pakistant and India). Some critics debate whether or not to include the USA in this area, although their independence from Britain in the eighteenth century and the position of world power that hey have enjoyed have led many to exclude them. Yet, the case is often made for minority groups within the US (African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and other hyphenated groups) to be included in the New Literatures group. In addition to writers living in the formers colonies or writers of the past living under the colonial regime, authors uprooted from their native land because of colonialism such as Rushdie are also included in this group. The point of these introductory remarks is to make you aware that, although used as an umbrella term, "New Literatures" (significantly in the plural) incorporates very different literary products, each with its own cultural and geographical specificity. I think it is important to be aware of this specificity as it was long denied by the colonialist project which denied different identities.

Because of this denial, the search for a meaningful identity and a local cultural specificity to oppose to the cutlural assimilation of colonial rule or contemporary globalization is an important theme of New Literatures. This search for identity has been particularly meaningful for writers coming from minority groups such as women and queers. Their challenging of the established norms is to be seen as a fight against patriarchy/heteronormativity and colonialism (or its contemporary legacy in the globalization process) at the same time (see the works by Shyam Selvadurai and Arundhati Roy).

If we consider the term “contemporary literature” to mean today’s literature that makes a claim to lasting literary history, it is sometimes difficult to separate it from merely “popular” literature.  Is the Harry Potter series “contemporary literature”?  Or the werewolf stuff?   There was a time when Tolkien’s work was not considered real “literature”, or Narnia, or even Alice in Wonderland. Twentieth-century science fiction (Isaac Asimov or A.E. van Vogt or Robert Heinlein or Anthony Burgess, etc.) used to be seen as childish fantasy/science fiction, but all of these works have since undergone serious literary study.  So “thematic concerns” is a little ambiguous--yes, Armageddon worries, etc.  Perhaps we can say that “realistic” literature has given way to “imagination literature”, literature that explores the non-Aristotilean world beyond logic and reason, to a world that invents its own reality and its own rules (for example, the world of Harry Potter has plenty of rules).  Another point that must be addressed is the putative waning of “reading” itself.  With so many other means for telling a story (television, movies, “illustrated” novels, etc.), it can be argued that we are only a few generations from no literature at all!

While New Literature is mainly concerned with the elements of language, new ways of using words, etc.—stylistic experimentation—a few themes emerge as well, such as “Ways of knowing” (epistemology) and its partner, “unreliable narration”—William Faulkner and John Steinback come to mind.  Another central concern of the New Literature of the mid- to late 20th century was social identity—who are we in terms of our own self-consciousness, our own identity.  Of course, Kafka is the best example, but he did not write in English—perhaps Stephen Hero, Joyce’s creation, is a good example.  Finally, a theme driven home by Samuel Beckett and others—the nature of our existence—why or for what end are humans existing. Absent from thematic lists in New Literature are serious concern for changing society itself, or even pointing out society’s imperfections, political themes, etc.