• A close up of a painted portrait of James Macpherson.

The Classical Tradition in Modern American Fiction

By Tessa Roynon In recent weeks, the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. has been much in the public eye. Whether stormed by President Trump’s supporters on 6th January, or as the “hallowed ground” that formed the backdrop to President Biden’s…

About William S. Burroughs

By Stanley Gontarski American outlier writer, William S. Burroughs, was a creative force, as a writer in his own right, and as a cultural theorist, particularly his anticipation of what we now regularly call “a society of control” or “a…

Ellroy and Me

By Nathan Ashman It was 2006 and James Ellroy was in the midst of penning the much anticipated third volume in his ‘Underworld USA Trilogy’, an epic criminal history of post-war America. I, meanwhile, was just about to begin my…

CounterText is five years old

CounterText: A Journal for the Study of the Post-Literary is five years old! To celebrate the occasion, Edinburgh University Press and the journal’s editorial team (based at the Department of English at the University of Malta) have put together a…