Contemporary Drift - Genre, Historicism, and the Problem of the Present

What does it mean to call something "contemporary"? More than simply denoting what's new, it speaks to how we come to know the present we're living in and how we develop a shared story about it. The story of trying to understand the present is an integral, yet often unnoticed, part of the literature and film of our moment. In Contemporary Drift, Theodore Martin argues that the contemporary is not just a historical period but also a conceptual problem, and he claims that contemporary genre fiction offers a much-needed resource for resolving that problem.

List of contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Concept of the Contemporary
1. Decade: Period Pieces
2. Revival: Situating Noir
3. Waiting: Mysterious Circumstances
4. Weather: Western Climes
5. Survival: Work and Plague
Conclusion: How to Historicize the Present
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Theodore Martin is associate professor of English at the University of California, Irvine.

Summary

Contemporary Drift combines a theoretical focus on the challenge of conceptualizing the present with a historical account of contemporary literature and film.

Product details

• Authors: Sir Theodore Martin, Theodore Martin
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 23.05.2017
• EAN: 9780231181921
• ISBN: 978-0-231-18192-1
• No. of pages: 264
• Series: Literature Now; Literature Now
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; USA, English, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, United Kingdom, Great Britain, United States of America, USA, Literary studies: general, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / History & Criticism, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Film Theory & Criticism, Film history, theory or criticism, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form