The Routledge Companion to Literature and Social Justice is a comprehensive and multi-purpose collection on this important topic. With contributors working in various fields, the Companion provides in-depth analyses of both the cumulative and emergent issues, obstacles, praxes, propositions, and theories of social justice.
The Routledge Companion to Literature and Social Justice is a comprehensive and multi-purpose collection on this important topic. With contributors working in various fields, the Companion provides in-depth analyses of both the cumulative and emergent issues, obstacles, praxes, propositions, and theories of social justice.
The first section offers a historical overview of major developments and debates in the field, while the following sections look in more detail at the key traditions and show how literature and theory can be applied as analytical tools to real-world inequalities and the impact of doing so. The contributors provide reviews of major theoretical traditions, including Marxism, feminism, Critical Race Theory, disability studies, and queer studies. They also share literary analyses of influential authors including W. E. B. Du Bois, Yang Kui, Edwidge Danticat, Octavia Butler, and Rivers Solomon amongst others. The final section considers future possibilities for theory and action of justice, drawing specifically from theories and knowledges in decolonial, Indigenous, environmental, and posthumanist studies.
This authoritative volume draws on the intersections between literary studies and social movements in order to provide scholars, students, and activists alike with a complete collection of the most up-to-date information on both canonical and emerging texts and case studies globally.
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Note to the Readers
Beyond Awareness: Introduction
Part I: Introducing Social Justice
Chapter 1: Pedagogy Advancing Social Justice through the Study of Literature:
Basic Pedagogical Principles
Mark Bracher
Chapter 2: Literary Analysis: Social Justice: A Philosophical Introduction
Nick T. C. Lu and Hue Woodson
Chapter 3: Praxis: The Solitary Reader and the General Strike
Andrew David King
Part II: Theoretical Interventions in Social Justice
Chapter 4: Feminism and Social Justice: Translating Private Problems into
Public Problems
Robin Truth Goodman
Chapter 5: Disabled Diaspora: Transnational Models of Disability Justice
Anna Hinton
Chapter 7: Critical Race Theory: A Theoretical Overview
Aja Y. Martinez
Chapter 8: Ecocriticism: From the Wilderness Idea to Just Multispecies
Futures
Delia Byrnes
Chapter 9: Marxist Theory
Peter Hudis
Chapter 10: Postcolonial Theory: A Theoretical Overview
Hella Bloom Cohen
Chapter 11: Bringing Theory Home: Decoloniality and the Global South
Antonette Talaue-Arogo
Chapter 12: A Short History of Liberation Theology: From Latin America to the
United States, Palestine, and India, 1968-1989
Hue Woodson
Part III: Social Justice and Antiracism
Chapter 13: Praxis: Life Among the Lowly: The African American Struggle to
Make a Home in America
Kavon Franklin
Chapter 14: Literary Analysis: W. E. B. Du Bios, James Cone, and the Black
Christ: The History and Legacy of Black Liberation Theology
Kevin Pyon
Chapter 15: Literary Analysis: "To Be on Fire for Justice": James Cones
Legacy and Cornel Wests Prophetic Commitments to Liberational-Theological
Social Justice
Hue Woodson
Chapter 16: Literary Analysis: Navigating the Gaze: The Gaze,
Double-Consciousness, and the Politics of Passing in Nella Larsens Passing
Emily Fontenot
Chapter 17: Literary Analysis: Black Futurities Beyond the Human in Rivers
Solomons An Unkindness of Ghosts
Kristen Reynolds
Chapter 18: Literary Analysis: From Politics to Ethical Aesthetics: Literary
Peace Activism, Social Emotions and Poetic Justice in Australian Minorities
Fiction
Jean-Francois Vernay
Chapter 19: Pedagogy: Challenging Racial and Religious Stereotypes through
Literature
Nisreen Yamany
Chapter 20: Pedagogy: Examining Students Critical-Ethical Interruptions of
Racial Discourse in Singapore Literature Classrooms
Nah Dominic and Suzanne Choo
Part IV: Social Justice for Diverse Bodyminds
Chapter 21: Praxis: Trans Youth Movements
Eli Erlick
Chapter 22: Praxis: Making Sense of the Disability Autonomy and Collectivity
Binary: A Review of Informal Disability Justice Pedagogy (IDJP) across
Cultures
Sona Kazemi and Hemachandran Karah
Chapter 23: Literary Analysis: "It Hurts, Thats All I Know": Hyperempathy,
Race and Gender Disability, and the Possibilities of Social Animacy in
Octavia E. Butlers Parable of the Sower
Jennifer Cho
Chapter 24: Praxis: Postcolonial Feminism: Womens Digital Activism and Its
Challenges in South Asia with a Focus on Pakistan
Naila Sahar
Chapter 25: Literary Analysis: Re-Defining Dalit Female Identity: A Case
Study of Dalit Feminist Movement and Dalit Womens Writings
Rashmi Attri and Neha Arora
Chapter 26: Pedagogy: "World"-Traveling in the Classroom as an Enactment of
Critical Pedagogies
Julia Reade
Part V: Social Justice and Democracy
Chapter 27: Pedagogy: Teaching Literature as Equipment for Living
Democratically
Ryan Skinnell
Chapter 28: Literary Analysis: Collaging the Vox Populi: The Crowdsourced
Poetics of Hong Kongs Anti-Extradition Law Protest
Wayne CF Yeung
Chapter 29: Literary Analysis: Blasphemy, Religiosity, and Digitality: An
Enchanted Pakistan
Iqra Cheema
Chapter 30: Literary Analysis: "Without Inspection" and the Poetics of
Abolition
Ryan Augustyniak
Chapter 31: Praxis: Romanias "White Revolution": A Case Study on Social
Movements for Civil Rights and Democracy in Eastern Europe
Cringuta Irina Pelea
Part VI: Global Justice and Anti-Imperialism
Chapter 32: Literary Analysis: Happiness, Social Justice, and the
Bildungsroman: On the Postcolonial Biopolitics of Waiting for Happiness
Jefferey R. Di Leo
Chapter 33: Literary Analysis: Class-Nation, Nation-Class: Anticolonial
Marxism as Justice Politics for Redistribution and Recognition in Yang Kuis
"Newspaper Carrier" and "A Model Village"
Nick T. C. Lu
Chapter 34: Literary Analysis: To Read for Suffering: Using the Film Burn! To
Challenge Imperialism
Alexander C. Ruhsenberger
Chapter 35: Speak Up and Dance: The Convergence of Palestinian and
African/Black Struggles in Afrodabke
Ha Dong
Chapter 36: Pedagogy: The 1947 Partition Archive: A Contemporary Pedagogical
Resources to Teach the Rival History of the Partition of India
Priyanka Bisht and Merlyn Sharma
Part VII: Future Justice for a World More Than Human
Chapter 37: Literary Analysis: Artificial Beings, Servitude and Rights: Kazuo
Ishiguros Klara and the Sun
Pramod K. Nayar
Chapter 38: Literary Analysis: Toward an Oceanic Taiwanese Imagery: Syaman
Rapongans Sea Writing and Liao Hongjis Cetacean Narrative
Pei-yin Lin
Chapter 39: Praxis: The Standing Rock Water Protectors: Indigenous
Sovereignty as a Refutation to Extractive Settler Colonialism
Jeff Gessas
Chapter 40: Pedagogy: Teaching Climate Change under Capitalist Realism
Claire Ravenscroft
Index
Masood Ashraf Raja was formerly Associate Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the University of North Texas, USA. His publications include Democratic Criticism: Poetics of Incitement and the Muslim Sacred (2023).
Nick T. C. Lu is Assistant Professor of English at Marist College, USA. His work has appeared in Research in African Literatures.
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