21st Century Literature (PAMLA 2020)

Networks, broadly defined, share tasks and information between nodes through a unique spatial constellation which allows them to distribute power evenly and, in the process, eliminates the need for a concentrated source of directives. For this reason, they have been looked at within various disciplinary communities as harbingers of negative and positive possibilities in the 21st Century. What are networks capable of, and how does literature address the significance of networks, both locally and globally? Are authors working to alter, exploit, or combat modes of power through their portrayal of various networks? This standing session invites papers from all fields, but has a particular interest in papers that address the local and global. Presenters are also invited to consider how the city figures into such networks as crucial nodes in politics, migration, the supply chain, and as participant in various kinds of contemporary terror.