This chapter synthesises empirical methodology with detailed contextual analysis to reflect on the ways in which anthologies of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century constructed or de-prioritised national, canonical and generational frames. Noting previous interpretative frameworks such as ‘new lyricism’, this chapter argues that a number of anthologies during this era reflected an ethical turn in Australian poetry and emerged out of or postulated literary communities and networks. The chapter includes an analysis of the two Best Australian anthology series and an analysis of anthologies with canonical impetus. Lastly, it considers the shift in definitional terms from the ‘modern’, ‘new’ or ‘now’ to the ‘contemporary’, as well as forms of discontent with such a term.

This chapter examines specifically oriented poetry anthologies of the twenty-first century, observing their interstitial and multivalent nature. It argues that they fall into two kinds. one is deployed towards institutional consolidation; the other, which is the principal focus of the chapter, is a strategic gathering around a cultural identity, or a thematic, aesthetic, formal or dialogical imperative. The chapter discerns that many such anthologies extend recuperative, topical or other discursive trajectories established in the late twentieth century. Many exceed national-historical formations, track evolving conceptual frames of literary and cultural studies, and map material changes in, and significant structures of feeling around, social, political, intellectual and artistic life. It also includes a discussion of the challenges and significance of translation.

French Muslim leaders regularly engage in praxis of self-restraint, politeness, and social upliftment in the context of strong assimilationist pressures. Their everyday acts of piety indicate the crafting of a discreet Islam, geared toward appeasing tensions around Muslim presence in France and encouraging justice and respect for minority citizens. These self-limiting forms of political claims – which have gone hitherto unexplored – should be understood as their politics of respectability. This concept, borrowed from Black studies in the US, is used to shed light on the multifaceted dimensions of discreet Islam, whether its incorporation through morals and manners, its grounding in middle-class attributes, or its political ambivalence, resulting in both conservative and emancipatory outcomes for minority citizens. Moreover, studying the respectability politics of French Muslim leaders allows for important epistemological acts, such as moving beyond the images of in-your-face Muslim politics that saturate public discussions, taking the religious commitment of minority citizens seriously, and opening a transatlantic conversation on class and morals in minority politics. To do so, the book builds on an ethnographic inquiry with one of France’s most influential Muslim organizations, the Union des organisations islamiques de France (UOIF, the Union of Islamic Organizations of France), in the context of a tense France following the 2015 terror attacks.

This critical study places Giovanni Boccaccio’s fourteenth-century story-collection in the context of the wide array of didactic narrative traditions that his tales are largely based on and frequently parody, including Aesopic fables, framed narrative collections of Islamicate origin, medieval compilations of sermon stories and of saints’ lives, and classical anthologies of historical anecdotes. In Boccaccio’s revisions, the inherited stories suggest very different ethical paradigms (more skeptical, more tolerant of natural impulses) than in earlier contexts. The book examines Boccaccio’s texts not only in relation to both premodern notions of literary exemplarity, but also to recent critical claims about narrative’s ability to promote empathy and emotional intelligence. Boccaccio asserts in the Decameron’s Preface that his tales provide readers with useful advice by showing the consequences of human behavior, but the very plethora of different teachings and variant outcomes that are proposed undermines the assumption that a specific narrative lesson can ever be universally applied.