We are in the midst of the third tectonic social transformation in human history. Our current transition toward greater forms of transnational interconnection, consumption- and finance-driven rather than production-based capitalism, digital information and cultural flows, and the attendant large-scale social and ecological consequences of these are drastically remaking our world, cultural producers from across the globe are seeking to make sense of, and provide insights into, these complex changes. Imagining Neoliberal Globalization in Contemporary World Fiction takes a broad cross-cultural approach to analyzing the literature of our increasingly transnationalized world system, considering how its key constituent features and local-level manifestations have been thematized and imaginatively seized upon by literary fiction produced from the perspective of the periphery of the capitalist world system. Textual renderings of globalization are not simply second-order approximations of it, but constitutive elements of globalization that condition how it will be understood and responded to, and so coming to terms with the narrativizations of globalization is vital scholarly work, as, among other things, it allows us to see to what extent it is currently possible to imagine alternatives to globalization’s more baleful aspects. This work will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of areas including contemporary literary/cultural studies, globalization studies, international relations, and international political economy.

This book examines the relationship between empathy and neoliberalism as it unfolded in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and through the turbulent 2010s. Via close readings of contemporary novels, as well as various non-fictional texts, it traces the changing approaches to empathy in the post-financial-crisis imagination, highlighting a crucial re-conceptualization of empathy as a boundaryless force, untethered to local or social circumstance. This reconceptualization implicitly aligns empathy with the neoliberal ethos of globalism and distances it from the traditional notion of “sympathy.” Via complex dialogue with the novelistic tradition of sympathy, contemporary novelists highlight the problematics of boundaryless empathy, while exploring ways to resist neoliberal views and values. Analyzing engagements with empathy in post-2008 literature and culture, the book sheds light on the underlying affective dynamics that enabled the persistence of neoliberalism after the 2008 financial crisis, alongside efforts to challenge its dominance.

This encyclopaedia will be an indispensable resource and recourse for all who are thinking about cities and the urban, and the relation of cities to literature, and to ways of writing about cities. Covering a vast terrain, this work will include entries on theorists, individual writers, individual cities, countries, cities in relation to the arts, film and music, urban space, pre/early and modern cities, concepts and movements and definitions amongst others. Written by an international team of contributors, this will be the first resource of its kind to pull together such a comprehensive overview of the field.

This dissertation seeks to establish science fiction as a critical framework for interrogating contemporary neocolonial structures. Specifically, I examine the ways an emerging subgenre of "postcolonial science fiction" provides valuable conceptual tools for imagining what postcolonial relations might look like in an era defined by globalization and multinational capitalism. By linking a critique of the genre's colonial drive to the logic of advanced capitalism, postcolonial science fiction offers a critical lens through which to examine the continuation of contemporary neocolonial structures. For example, postcolonial science fiction questions several of the assumptions that underpin science fiction, including the genre's colonial gaze, the appeal to an ideology of progress, focus on the "future" and the construction of an assumed cosmopolitan future, and an implicit faith in technological solutions or the inclination towards techno-optimism. Postcolonial science fiction links these generic qualities to the dominance of certain ideological frameworks in contemporary neoliberal culture, revealing the colonial underpinnings of both genre and the "real-world" socio-historical contexts from which genres emerge. Importantly, postcolonial science fiction is also constructivist, offering alternative epistemological frameworks for understanding our relationship to the future beyond colonial paradigms. Through the process of deconstructing and reconstructing sf's colonial assumptions, I see postcolonial science fiction produced from diverse national contexts as expressions of a transnational desire to understand such questions as: what do we need to do so that tomorrow is not characterized by the violence against others we exhibit today? Or, more specifically, how can we create new visions of "postcolonialism" that will materialize into more ethical practice? By explicitly foregrounding these questions postcolonial science fiction transforms the genre's world building into a strategy of postcolonial experimentation that strives to understand the complexity of problems facing diverse global communities. Postcolonial studies might also benefit from thinking through the lens of science fiction, where creative projects function as ethical experiments towards mapping out the possibilities of transnational affiliation. As this study emphasizes, I therefore see postcolonial science fiction as simultaneously a subgenre and a process, strategy, or mode of relation established between people committed to imagining less exploitative futures.

Why has crime fiction become a global genre? How do writers use crime fiction to reflect upon the changing nature of crime and policing in our contemporary world? This book argues that the globalization of crime fiction should not be celebrated uncritically. Instead, it looks at the new forms and techniques writers are using to examine the crimes and policing practices that define a rapidly changing world. In doing so, this collection of essays examines how the relationship between global crime, capitalism, and policing produces new configurations of violence in crime fiction – and asks whether the genre can find ways of analyzing and even opposing such violence as part of its necessarily limited search for justice both within and beyond the state.

Joss Whedon is known for exploring philosophical questions through socially progressive narratives in his films, television shows and comics. His work critiques racial stereotypes, sometimes repudiating them, sometimes reinvesting in them (sometimes both at once). This collection of new essays explores his representations of racial power dynamics between individuals and institutions and how the Whedonverse constructs race, ethnicity and nationality relationships.