In July 2026, Rose Horowitch, a staff writer for The Atlantic, penned a take that many academics have feared in the last few years, that we are now in a ‘post-literate society’, where a fewer number of readers are drawn to engage deeply with complex texts. In ‘The End of Reading’, Horowitch sees 2026 as a watershed, where many turn to literature as a place to be entertained, distracted or removed from their reality, with fewer readers engaging deeply with texts to understand the world around them. With many readers missing the satire used in Caro Claire Burke’s recent bestseller Yesteryear, do authors respond to the changing literary landscape, or continue their experimentation with form and genre? In particular, in narratives of violence, trauma, illness and pain, how does the ethical demand of the reader as witness function in this new literary landscape? Does it still hold, or does it mean something difference to write from embodied experience in this context? 

In this seminar, we will explore what the role of the contemporary author has become in this context, particularly for authors drawing from lived experience to create their texts. With a simultaenous wave of challenging, hybrid texts such as Rozie Kelly Kingfisher on the Women's Prize for Fiction list, what does it mean to write pain and witness pain as a reader in 2026? Is the author's risk of being misunderstood heightened, or does this risk create more provocative writing and foster innovation? 

We welcome papers engaging with these questions across disciplines and traditions, particularly with an interdisciplinary and creative critical approach. 

Possible topics include: 

• the role of social media in contemporary fiction
• the construction of the self in auto-fiction
• the 'internet novel'
• sincerity and realism in contemporary fiction
• genre-bending in contemporary writing
• illness and trauma narratives
• satire and comedy
• the contemporary memoir