Description: Empowerment as a concept is making its impact on the field of literary studies. This volume shows its intricate relation to contemporary fiction in English, applying a broad range of approaches such as feminist, transcultural, and intersectional studies. Dealing with genres as diverse as dystopia, science fiction, TV adaptations, the historical novel, and immigrant fiction, this collection offers the first in-depth study of empowerment in literature. How, and to which end, do texts endow characters with power? In which ways can fiction become a tool of authorial self-empowerment? And which effects do such narratives have on readers? With this book, empowerment is put on the map of literary studies as a new, highly relevant critical concept stimulating fresh perspectives on contemporary fiction. Contributors: Peter Childs, Britta Maria Colligs, Sarah Dillon, Paul Hamann-Rose, Ralf Hertel, David Malcolm, Diana Thiesen, Eleanor Ty, Eva-Maria Windberger.
Brief description:
Ralf Hertel is Professor of English Literature (University of Trier) and has published widely on contemporary fiction, including Making Sense: Sense Perception in the British Novel of the 1980s and 1990s and On John Berger (co-edited with David Malcolm).
Eva-Maria Windberger is a lecturer in the English Department at the University of Trier. Her PhD project investigated the poetics of empowerment in David Mitchell's novels.