No. 43 (2025): Cruel Meritocracy in 21st-Century U.S. Literary Narratives

Special Isuue “Cruel Meritocracy in 21st-Century U.S. Literary Narratives” coordined by Virginia Pignagnoli (University of Barcelona, Spain) and Laura Roldán-Sevillano (University of Zaragoza, Spain).

Published: 30-07-2025

Introduction

Cruel Meritocracy in 21st-Century U.S. Literary Narratives: An Introduction

Virginia Pignagnoli, Laura Roldán-Sevillano

7-16
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Special Issue

The Spectral Afterlives of Slavery and the Fallacious U.S. Meritocracy in Jesmyn Ward’s and Quntos KunQuest’s Narratives of Prison

Vanesa Lado-Pazos

17-37
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Problematizing the Fantasy of the Good Life in Akhil Sharma’s Family Life (2014) and Gary Shteyngart’s Little Failure (2014)

Martyna Bryla

39-59
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The American Dream, (Cruel) Meritocracy and DREAMers in Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s The Undocumented Americans

Amaia Soroa-Bacaicoa

61-80
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Confronting the Labor-Market and Housing Crises in Post-Recession U.S. Drama: Lisa D’Amour’s Detroit and Stephen Karam’s The Humans

Ana Fernández-Caparrós

81-99
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Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts: Cruel Optimism and Meritocracy in an Engendered Critical Dystopia

Merve Sarikaya-Şen

101-118
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Miscellaneous

Gossiping in an Internet Forum: A Corpus-Based Study of the Use of Anglicisms

Carmen Lujan García

119-138
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The Role of Place in the Fluctuations of Ged’s Identity in Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle

Jon Alkorta

139-155
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Subjectivity Adrift: Jhumpa Lahiri’s Whereabouts, Loneliness, and the Composite Novel

Sergio López Sande

157-175
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