Open research questions in Contemporary Literature and Criticism
135 gap statements mined from Contemporary Literature and Criticism papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 3,803 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.
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What the literature leaves open
The traditional humanist idea that humans are the center of the universe, autonomous and strictly distinct from machines and animals. The lack of exploration of the boundaries between biological and artificial life in traditional humanist discourse.
Future research could explore the ways in which the autofiction genre is used by other writers. Future research could also examine the potential applications of the autofiction genre in different literary and cultural contexts.
Az autofikció jelentősége a metamodern prózában Annie Ernaux Az esemény és Lánytörténet című kisregényei alapján · 2026 · DOIThe paper seeks to address this gap by examining the characteristics of the autofiction genre through Ernaux's works.
Az autofikció jelentősége a metamodern prózában Annie Ernaux Az esemény és Lánytörténet című kisregényei alapján · 2026 · DOIFuture research could explore the implications of the paper's findings for political activism and community organizing. The author's framework for understanding alienation and its relationship to politics could be applied to a range of different contexts and case studies. Further research could investigate the ways in which alienation and other negative emotions can be leveraged as a force for positive social change.
The author highlights the need for a new framework for understanding the relationship between affect and politics, one that takes into account the complexities and nuances of human emotion.
It highlights the need to reexamine the concept of subjectivity in the face of destruction.
The study highlights the need to explore the relation between destructiveness and ontological security.
Future research could explore the relevance of The Human Stain to current social issues. Future research could also analyze the impact of Roth's work on contemporary literary and cultural debates.
“THE ECSTASY OF SANCTIMONY”: AMERICAN CULTURE WARS OF THE 1990s IN PHILIP ROTH’s THE HUMAN STAIN · 2026 · DOIThe paper highlights the need to analyze the use of metafiction, intertextuality, and hybridity in the novel.
The gap is related to the role of crises in disrupting continuity and enabling new possibilities.
The series The Lunar Chronicles is an example of YA literature that employs the motif of the cyborg female body, which has not been fully explored.
Ciało – proteza – tożsamość. Saga księżycowa Marissy Meyer jako transhumanistyczna opowieść o kobiecej cielesności dla młodych dorosłych · 2026 · DOIFuture research can further analyze the implications of the narrative strategy on the reader's understanding. Future research can explore the application of the narrative technique in other literary works. Future research can investigate the impact of the narrative strategy on the reader's perception of cultural conflict and identity crisis.
Future research could explore the representation of trauma in other literary works. Future studies could analyze the effects of trauma on individuals and society. Further research could investigate the use of narrative structure and temporalities in representing trauma in literature.
George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty‐Four is one of the most emblematic literary works of the 20th century; however, despite extensive political, linguistic, and psychoanalytic readings of the novel, its relational dimension—understood as a two‐way encounter between psychoanalysis and literature—remains underexplored.
Relational Resistance and Psychic Capture: Objects, Gestures, and Intersubjectivity in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty‐Four · 2026 · DOIFurther study can be done on the application of Lefebvre's spatial theory to other literary works. Research can explore the relationship between urban planning and design and emotional alienation.
Beyond Love Tragedy: A Study on Urban Emotional Alienation in Early Autumn from the Perspective of Spatial Theory · 2026 · DOIThe absence of Foucault's later focus on techniques of the self in post-critical practices. The neglect of the other-than-human world in modern critical theory.
The paper argues that The Human Stain has not been fully appreciated as a commentary on American culture wars.
“THE ECSTASY OF SANCTIMONY”: AMERICAN CULTURE WARS OF THE 1990s IN PHILIP ROTH’s THE HUMAN STAIN · 2026 · DOIThe paper argues that traditional trauma fiction does not adequately account for the representation of jealousy as a traumatic force.
Further analysis of the implications of posthumanism on traditional humanist ideas. Exploration of the boundaries between biological and artificial life in other literary works. Investigation of the potential applications of a relational network of love as the core of humanity.
Future research could further analyze the philosophical approach to understanding chaotic murder and lawlessness, - Future research could further develop the concept of the 'break line', - Future research could further explore the implications of the paper's findings for the development of moral…
The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of the moral impact of literature, - The paper identifies a gap in the analysis of the novel The Break…
The paper identifies a gap in understanding the psychological elements in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. The research aims to fill this gap by using D. W. Winnicott's theoretical framework.
The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of the dual narrative structure of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The paper identifies a gap in the analysis of the implications of the narrative strategy on the reader's understanding.
Future research can further explore the use of narrative strategies in pandemic fiction - The study's findings can inform the development of literary works that address pandemic-related…
Pandemic, Psychological trauma, and Social Collapse: Representations of Disease-Induced Trauma in Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven and Ling Ma’s Severance · 2026 · DOIThe study identifies a gap in the understanding of pandemic fiction as a representation of how individuals and societies react to pandemic diseases - The paper seeks to address this gap by analysing the narrative strategies used in two…
Pandemic, Psychological trauma, and Social Collapse: Representations of Disease-Induced Trauma in Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven and Ling Ma’s Severance · 2026 · DOI
Most-cited papers in Contemporary Literature and Criticism
- From translations to problematic networks: An introduction to co-word analysis · Social Science Information · 1983 · 1,562 citations
- The Fact of Fiction in Organizational Ethnography · Administrative Science Quarterly · 1979 · 1,099 citations
- Fertile Obsession: Validity After Poststructuralism · Sociological Quarterly · 1993 · 524 citations
- Cycles of Collective Action: Between Moments of Madness and the Repertoire of Contention · Social Science History · 1993 · 419 citations
- Shame in the Cybernetic Fold: Reading Silvan Tomkins · Critical Inquiry · 1995 · 287 citations
- Critical Theory, Poststructuralism, Postmodernism: Their Sociological Relevance · Annual Review of Sociology · 1991 · 251 citations
- Critical Consciousness: A Critique and Critical Analysis of the Literature · The Urban Review · 2017 · 249 citations
- Modernity, Self-Identity and the Sequestration of Death · Sociology · 1993 · 244 citations
- The second persona · Quarterly Journal of Speech · 1970 · 241 citations
- The “Stuff” of Archives · Radical History Review · 2014 · 224 citations
Most recent work
- Mimicry and Denial: Proliferating Identities in Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question · 2026
- The Idea of the Organic, or the Constitutional, in Fanon’s Phenomenological Description of the Psychopathology of Racial Alienation · Journal of Humanistic Psychology · 2026
- Alienation and Political Action, Revisited · Polity · 2026
- Throwback fascism: Accelerationist fascination with the faux 50s · Crime Media Culture An International Journal · 2026
- Paranoid Finance, Paranoid Media, Paranoid Readings · Journal of Cultural Economy · 2026
- The Ambiguous Politics of Politicizing, or De-Politicizing, the Aesthetic · Wesleyan University Digital Collections (Wesleyan University) · 2026
- Klara and the Sun : Dystopia, Utopian Desire and Altermodernist Estrangement in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Science Fiction · Critique Studies in Contemporary Fiction · 2026
- A Sense of No Ending: Contemporary Literature and the Refusal to Write the Future Introduction · 2026
- “Populism Is the British Disease”: The Political Metamorphosis in Ian McEwan’s The Cockroach · English Studies · 2026
- From resistance to resilience: vulnerability and narrative in Anne Enright’s The Gathering and The Wren, the Wren · Irish Studies Review · 2026
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