Leverhulme International Network for Contemporary Studies (LINCS): What is the contemporary?

In its adjectival form, ‘contemporary’ has been part of our institutions and cultural practices for decades, albeit with constantly evolving notions of how it qualifies its subjects and practices. It is, however, only in the last ten years or so that ‘the contemporary’ has emerged both as a research term and in non-academic discourses. Why? What has this term created, facilitated and legitimised? In what social, institutional, political and geographic contexts? These are some of the questions which will be explored by the LINCS partners via a series of academic and public events held across three continents.

Principal Investigator Professor Margaret-Anne Hutton (University of St Andrews)

Partners: Professor Bertrand Gervais (University of Quebec at Montreal); Professor Johnny Rodger (Glasgow School of Art); Professor Lionel Ruffel (University Paris 8);  Professor Ravi Sundaram (Sarai Programme, CSDS, Delhi)

Project events:

• Delhi, 14 to 16 December 2017: ‘What Time Is It? Technologies of Life in the Contemporary’
• St Andrews, 20 to 21 June 2018:  A series of events exploring the relationship between video games and literature
• St Andrews, 21 June 2018: Masterclass in short story writing by A L Kennedy