21st Century Literature

by Isagani Cruz
The proposed curriculum for Senior High School (SHS)
contains two literature subjects – “21st Century Literatures of
the World” and “21st Century Literatures from the (Philippine)
Regions.” (It has been suggested that the latter be changed to
“Contemporary Philippine Literature and the Arts from the
Regions.”)
These are derived from the two literature subjects in the old
General Education Curriculum (GEC), namely, “Literatures
of the World” and “Literatures of the Philippines.” In the new
GEC, these two literature subjects are no longer included,
because the new core subjects are all interdisciplinary rather
then disciplinal.
 21st Century Literature
by Isagani Cruz
The two subjects in SHS are disciplinal. They are meant to
ensure that all Filipino high school graduates
have a good understanding of what is happening today in the field
of literature, and by extension, in the arts.
Why 21st century only? Simply because SHS students were all
born in or just before the 21st century. This century is their
century. For them, the 20th century is what the 19th century is to us
teachers.
There is also another reason. Just as the British writer Virginia
Woolf said of the turn of the 20th century, namely, that “on or
about December 1910 human character changed,” something
major happened to literature on or about December 2000.
 C21: Centre for Research in Twenty-first Century
Writings, based in the University of Brighton, puts it
succinctly: “The first decade of the new millennium
witnessed a range of exciting developments in
contemporary writings in English, from innovations in
recognised forms such as the novel, poem, play and short
story to developments in digital writings, creative writings
and genres. Alongside these developments, the publishing
industry also changed, with technological advances giving
rise to the dawn of the eBook and corporate sponsorship
igniting debates about the usefulness of literary prizes and
festivals.”
 Elsewhere in the world, writers are doing things they did
not do much until recently. Think of prose novels being
serialized on blogs, with readers suggesting to authors (and
authors obediently accepting) that the plot or the characters
should be changed. Think of hypertextual poems, where
readers move from one website to another because of
embedded links in the words, sometimes not returning to the
original pages at all. Think of enhanced eBooks, where
readers are treated to audiovisual clips that not only support
the narrative in a novel, but actually are crucial to the
development of plot and character. Think of flash fiction,
which has been brought to an extreme with six-word and
even one-word short stories.
 Of course, none of these forms of literature were born only in the 21st
century. Hypertext, for example, has been around for at least two
decades.
Six-word short stories have been around for a long time. The best-
known is Ernest Hemingway’s six-word story: “For sale: baby shoes, never
worn.” Urban legend (which may actually be true) says Hemingway called it
his best work.
Pre-21st century writers like Margaret Atwood have written such stories.
Atwood, for example, wrote this: “Longed for him. Got him. Shit.”
Neil Gaiman (perhaps the best example of a 20th century writer who has
successfully transformed himself into a 21st century writer) wrote this:
“I’m dead. I’ve missed you. Kiss …?” There is a growing body of literary
criticism on 21st century literature. There is, for example, an entire journal
devoted to it, “C21 Literature: Journal of 21st Century Writing.”
 There have been several professional conferences on
the topic, such as “E-reading between the lines: 21st
century literature, digital platforms and literacies” last July
in Brighton. The paper titles reveal some of the main
trends in the emergent field: “Digital Theory on Literature
Reading Lists, The Digitisation of Reader Response, Star
Texts: The Next Generation, The Book App, Digital
Literatures: Digital Democracies [or] Digital Threats?”
The conference raised a practical question: “Should
readers be given the choice of both printed and electronic
formats – or is the (printed) book set to become the vinyl
of the twenty-first century?”
 In our country, graphic novels such as Ferdinand Benedict G. Tan and
Jonathan A. Baldisimo’s “Trese 5: Midnight Tribunal” and Carlo
Vergara’s “Zsazsa Zaturnnah sa Kalakhang Maynila 1” are challenging
the traditional definition of fiction. Even more in-your-face is Alan
Navarra’s “Ang Panlimang Alas ay Nakabaon sa Iyong Dibdib,” a
literary text that defies classification into any of the traditional categories
of “poetry, fiction, and drama.” (Even if we added the genre-come-lately
Creative Nonfiction, Navarra’s work still does not quite fit in.)
Since curricular reform happens only every decade, the SHS
curriculum will still be in place by the year 2022. By that year, the 20th
century will no longer be in the memory of our students. We pre-digital
teachers of the two literature subjects must ensure that their frame of
reference will be theirs and not ours.
— http://www.philstar.com/education-and-
home/2013/10/24/1248724/21st-century-literature