Wilderness of Time: Timescapes of Contemporary US Literature

The project Wilderness of Time: Timescapes of Contemporary US Literature (WOT) proposes a novel and compelling interpretative framework for US fiction, herein named wilderness of time and which arises from the need to promote a reading of US literature that truly acknowledges its impact in framing the world we live in.

WOT reworks and reframes the symbolism of the wilderness by considering time as the dimension in which the wilderness experience takes place nowadays and by retracing this metamorphosis in contemporary literary texts.

By doing so, it fills a gap in American Studies, broadening the conception of US identity and culture as seen through its literature, starting from and going beyond its funding myths.

WOT thus introduces an innovative perspective for both the scholarship concerning the study of time and temporality in contemporary US literature and that concerning the study of the wilderness, envisioning new ways through which literature can serve as an agent for social change.

The research question concerns whether the combination of wilderness and time can provide a much needed framework to understand, through literature, how US identity has been changing, as well as the impact of such changeboth within and outside its borders.

Thus, WOT would enhance the importance of EU institutions as valuable teaching and research centers (if not as counter-environmental institutions) in this field, to be achieved also through the implementation of sustainable and inclusive teaching/research tools.

In the present geopolitical context, this will also bring a crucial contribution to a renovated European vision concerning current societal challenges.

Engaging with universities in Italy and in the US and making use of DH tools, the project brings a significant contribution to American Studies by introducing a novel approach on US literature and culture, developed through creative and collaborative practices and methods for teaching and research in this field.