This paper examines literary responses to cultural change and norms in contemporary modernity. It situates itself in the urbanised, transnational spaces in which so much of the world’s population lives as well as the marginalized spaces created by contemporary hegemonic ideals. We will travel to distant lands and then return to plant our feet in Aotearoa. The novels in ENGLI200 engage with countries and cultures that are increasingly interconnected, and explore the losses and gains that this has brought to individuals, communities, and nations. The texts engage with race, gender, abilities, sexuality, nationhood, education, employment, terrorism, and the environment in different cultural and intercultural settings. At the heart of the paper lie questions regarding the intersections of knowledge, power, and culture, in particular in relation to identity and belonging within increasingly corporatized economies. Different world views and knowledge bases clash and connect in these texts, as the paper traces the challenges and rewards that diversity and multicultural landscapes bring.

The literary texts are supplemented by theoretical concepts that provide frameworks through which to read the novels, looking specifically at theories and methodologies associated with postcolonialism, intersectionality, gender, precarity, disability, race, ecocriticism, and world literature. The paper returns throughout to metacritical reflections on the ways in which literary texts and literary theories engage with culture and identity, and thus questions the ways in which the discipline of literature responds to and represents different identities, cultures and cultural knowledge.