Centre for Contemporary Literature and Culture

Visiting speaker, Professor Joseph Slaughter, described his lecture as a critique of the new historiography of human rights. He began this critique with an analysis of Milan Kundera’s story ‘The gesture of protest against a violation of human rights’, from his 1991 Immortality, in which the principle character, Brigitte, attempts to buy an expensive bottle … Continue reading “Hijacking Human Rights: Neoliberalism, the New Historiography, and the End of the Third World (21/11/2018)”

This semester’s Queer and Now reading group, led by Angus Brown, centred around Ezili’s Mirrors: Imagining Black Queer Genders (2018). This new book by Omise’eke Tinsley explores the ways in which black Atlantic sexuality is mediated through the imagery, symbolism and cultural traditions of Caribbean spirituality, with emphasis on the polysemous, multi-formal Ezili, a senior … Continue reading “Queer and Now: Ezili’s Mirrors (15/11/2018)”

At around 5pm, we gathered together in the Barber Institute of Fine Art for an evening of poetry reading, written and performed by students of the university during a workshop run by celebrated artist Dzifa Benson. The workshop ran earlier that October with the aim of drawing out and interrogating the histories of people of … Continue reading “Unveiling Hidden Stories: Black History Month & The Creative Archive (29/10/2018)”

.                           . During this reading group on Islamophobia, we focused on three pieces: ‘The Voice of the Lonely Crowd’ by Martin Amis (2002), ‘The Protestant Aesthetic and Islamophobia’ by Jo Carruthers (2011), and ‘Free Speech, Blasphemy and Secular Criticism’ by Talal Assad (2013). Peter Morey began the reading … Continue reading “CSN Reading Group: Islamophobia (10/10/2018)”

Welcome to the new blog for the Centre for Contemporary Literature and Culture. Founded in 2015, CCLC provides a home for staff and students working on late twentieth to early twenty-first-century literature, film, TV, theory, and popular culture. Based at the University of Birmingham, CCLC regularly hosts visiting speakers, public lectures, conferences and symposia, as … Continue reading “Welcome!”