The processes of globalisation and digitalisation have complicated the traditional understanding of otherness. In an age where all boundaries are relative, being other has become what we all have in common. Consequently, exploring otherness in terms of the proverbial act of knowing ourselves is as inevitable as it is seemingly paradoxical. Since literature is by definition bound to words, it is the medium best equipped to articulate the conceptual and semantic alterations in the notion of otherness. This volume offers a wide array of insights on how the other and otherness feature in contemporary literature and literary studies, covering the spectrum of the established branches of literary scholarship: from literary theory and history, national and postcolonial literatures, imagology, genre studies and literary translation, to the ways in which literature is and might be taught to future generations. Despite the diversity of focus, the underlying message of the fourteen contributions is the same: to confront otherness is to encounter ourselves in the mirror of culture.
