Post45 Vs. The World: Literary Perspectives on the Global Contemporary

Book excerpt: Much of the work done on the Post45 literary field carries an implicitly Americanist perspective. Even the name of the field suggests a certain literary history, with certain assumptions and blind spots about national spaces, identities, and histories. But what would Post45 look like when considered from outside of the United States? How do the current contours of the field exclude certain voices, either in the United States or elsewhere in the world? And how would such new perspectives shift the beginning and possible endpoint of that literary period? What new narratives of the contemporary emerge if we begin telling the story in a different year or from a different national or global perspective? This collection attempts to re-frame the discussions in Post45 by engaging with non-American writers, texts, and perspectives. Additionally, productive conversations emerge by attempting to think of canonical American writers like Mark Twain and Ishmael Reed from other national and global perspectives. The authors consider both the ways texts themselves as well as their reception histories approach and challenge our understandings of the contemporary. Ultimately, the collection interrogates prevailing narratives of history, culture, identity, and space within the Post45 field. In so doing, it re-considers the historical periodization of the field, which currently covers approximately 75 years of literary history. The resulting essays thus work towards a new intertwined narrative about what defines the contemporary and how national and global literatures fit into that moment of world history.