Atlantic Afterlives in Contemporary Fiction: The Oceanic Imaginary in Literature since the Information Age (The New Urban Atlantic)

In selected twentieth- and twenty-first-century texts, ranging from Plath to Roth, Ahlberg reads contemporary narratives, particularly "transatlantic literature", as it imagines and navigates today's virtual spaces. Ultimately, Ahlberg's argument empowers the reader to reimagine a future for narrative in the Information Age. Atlantic Afterlives in Contemporary Fiction offers fresh readings of what has been called "transatlantic literature". In selected twentieth- and twenty-first-century texts it discovers a shift from oceanic, place-based knowledge to an atmospheric, placeless circulation of information. Consonant with the displacements of the Information Age, this book reads contemporary narrative as it imagines and navigates today's virtual spaces. An important conclusion of the book is that intellectual resources are finite and should be used sustainably. Thus, arguing against a conventional comparative approach, this book proposes reading practices that resist the tendency toward an oversupply of reworked literary contexts that seems bent on matching the reach of the World Wide Web. Instead, the book reimagines place as a practice in the way it is communicated and narrated. Ultimately, this book empowers the reader to reimagine a future for narrative in the Information Age. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-15 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 Narrative without Borders....Pages 19-43 Apocalypse Then and Now....Pages 45-68 Front Matter....Pages 69-69 Through a Border Darkly....Pages 71-95 A Post-Atlantic Divorce....Pages 97-122 Front Matter....Pages 123-123 Bridging Bereavement....Pages 125-145 Future Perfect....Pages 147-175 Conclusion....Pages 177-185 Back Matter....Pages 187-212