C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-century Writings is the journal of the British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS). The journal is dedicated to examining the genres, forms of publication, and circulation of 21st-century writings. C21 Literature is a logical development of the explosion of interest in 21st-century writings, seen in book groups, university courses, and the development of online publishing.
Volume 12 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Spring-Summer 2025
Article
The Novel, Recycled: On Tom Comitta's The Nature Book (2023)
Michael Kalisch
Review
Hope and dread in the here and now: A review essay
Adrienne Mortimer
Posted by Katie da Cunha Lewin on 2025-07-18
We are delighted to announce that Dr Katie da Cunha Lewin and Dr Kiron Ward have been appointed to the Editorship of C21 Literature and that Sunayani Bhattacharya has been appointed to the Deputy Editor Team. Thanks to Dr Caroline Edwards and Professor Sîan Adiseshiah for their stalwart steering of C21 these last three years, and to the many deputy editors past and present. Katie Da Cunha Lewin [...]
Posted by Caroline Edwards on 2025-03-12
C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writings is the journal of the British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS). The journal is dedicated to examining the genres, forms of publication, and circulation of 21st-century writings. C21 Literature engages with, and makes a significant contribution to, the explosion of interest in 21st-century writings, seen in book groups, [...]
Posted by Caroline Edwards on 2025-01-17
We're delighted to have published a special issue on the narraitve ethics of Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet, edited by Agnes Andeweg (Utrecht University) and Jesse van Amelsvoort (University of Amsterdam). The articles published in this special issue originated at the MLA International Symposium held in Glasgow in June 2022, which was themed "Being Hospitable: Languages and Cultures Across [...]
Posted by Siân Adiseshiah on 2024-07-05
The twenty-first century is nearly a quarter done. The contemporary – that category which has so often been theorised, following Barthes and Agamben, as fundamentally out of step with its own time – is starting to synchronise its watch with the temporal bounds of the current century. Despite a flurry of critical efforts to name, characterise, and categorise the paradigm shifts of the present in [...]
Posted by Caroline Edwards on 2024-01-18
The twenty-first century is nearly a quarter done. The contemporary – that category which has so often been theorised, following Barthes and Agamben, as fundamentally out of step with its own time – is starting to synchronise its watch with the temporal bounds of the current century. Despite a flurry of critical efforts to name, characterise, and categorise the paradigm shifts of the present in [...]