The book presents contributions to the 2012 conference of the Austrian Association of University Teachers of English in which scholars of various fields of English Studies discuss aspects of contact and conflict in Anglophone literatures, critical theory, cultural studies, interdisciplinary and comparative English studies and English linguistics. The papers reflect current research in these areas and show that disciplinary classifications are no longer as rigid as they used to be: Topics are as widely spread as linguistic variation, M¿ori English, English as a lingua franca, intergenerational conflict, hip hop discourse, literature and the creative arts, science drama, childhood in crime fiction, and the crisis of «high art».

Contents: Sabine Coelsch-Foisner/Herbert Schendl: Introduction: Contact and Conflict in English Studies - Gabriella Mazzon: The Expression of Societal and Cultural Conflict in Language - Alexander Onysko: Maori English on the Background of Cultural and Linguistic Contact in Aotearoa (New Zealand) - Barbara Seidlhofer/Nora Dorn/Claudio Schekulin/Anita Santner-Wolfartsberger: Research Perspectives on English as a Lingua Franca - Eva Duran Eppler: Language Contact, Culture Contact and Intergenerational Conflict - Julia Averill: Hip Hop Discourse: Identity Formation and Tirolean Youth - David Fuller: «There is no method ...»? Contact and Conflict in Interdisciplinary Studies - Sabine Coelsch-Foisner/Christopher Herzog: The Two Cultures Revisited: Strategies in Science Drama, with an exemplary reading of Caryl Churchill's A Number (2002) and Elfriede Jelinek's Kein Licht (2011/12) - Dorothea Flothow: Evil Encountered? Childhood, Violence and Innocence in British Crime Fiction - Matthias Mösch: Failure, Farce, and Futile Rage: Cultural Criticism and the Crisis of 'High Art' in Thomas Bernhard and William Gaddis.