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The main aim of this introduction is to engage critically with the discursive construction of Muslimness in a Western context and, in particular, a European context, through literary narratives. To this end, the chapter examines aspects concerning the problematization of Muslims in Europe and develops a theoretical discussion of the “Muslim question” in relation to Islamophobia and the “Jewish Question.” This provides the necessary contextualization for the analysis of literary narratives of Muslimness in Europe and how these relate to post-Enlightenment anxieties in European secular societies, summarized in what Zygmunt Bauman refers to as our “liquid fear” (2006). This analysis is performed within the framework of transculturality and the emergent field of critical Muslim studies and emphasizes the crucial contribution of the world literature paradigm to the understanding and examination of “Muslim writing” in this collection.

Throughout the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the so-called Muslim question has intermittently, though persistently, taken centre stage in Western media and political discourses. In terms of culture within the European context, there is also a substantial body of literature that has engaged with Western anxieties projected onto the Muslim "Other" and, in particular, the Muslim migrant "Other". Literary criticism of Muslim writing and writing about Muslims in Europe has often highlighted the need to offer a more nuanced articulation of Muslim identity that contributes to challenging such othering practices.

Critical studies on Muslim writing produced over the last two decades have predominantly focused on contemporary literature, and the novel in particular, and they have often centred on specific linguistic and national frameworks. This collection of essays adds complexity to existing analyses of contemporary Muslim writing and writing about Muslims and Islam in the European context by emphasizing the comparative perspective of writings produced in different epochs and different linguistic and cultural contexts. Drawing on transcultural and world literature perspectives, Muslim writing is redefined so as to incorporate genres other than the novel and critical approaches that expand on disciplinary redefinitions of literature and literary studies.

The thematic focus and the rigorous in-depth analysis of the different case studies will make this collection relevant to students and academics within the fields of literary and cultural studies, sociology and anthropology, as well as to those in European studies and global studies.

Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, 8.3 million refugees from Ukraine have been officially recorded across Europe (“Ukraine Data Explorer”). During only the first week of the war 1 million refugees were registered in neighbouring countries, while 3 million sought refuge outside Ukraine in the first three weeks of the invasion, which made this exodus one of the fastest since the Second World War (Garcés Mascareñas; “1 Million Refugees”). It is also the largest displacement of European citizens since the Second World War (ECB), and it prompted the EU to activate the Temporary Protection Directive for the first time since it was passed in 2001. The activation of this directive, which stems from the EU’s concerns about those displaced during the Balkan wars of the 1990s (EUR-Lex), was the official seal of the immediate welcoming response with which Ukrainian refugees, mostly women and children, had been received not only in bordering European countries, but across Europe. As has been observed, such a response is in line with how the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the 1967 Protocol that lifted the Convention’s temporal and spatial restrictions, should theoretically work for the international protection of refugees, with nation-states offering hospitality and refuge to those suffering persecution elsewhere. However, this ideal response to the Ukrainian crisis is in sharp contrast with the reality on the ground, where discriminatory and violently hostile border controls against Asian, African, and Caribbean residents in Ukraine who were also trying to flee the country were denounced during the first days of the crisis (Akinwotu and Strzyżyńska; Ferris-Rottman). The racism and hostility against refugees of colour from Ukraine echoed the “crisis of solidarity” unfolding on European soil since the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015/2016.

Temporalities and Subjectivities in Migration Literature in Europe examines migrant stories through the lens of temporality as seen in the role of such issues as integration, waiting, detention, trauma, crisis, and imagined futures. This book argues that a focus on different time scales and perceptions of time will help us understand how the intimate and affective subjectivities of more complex narratives of migration, as articulated in literature, cross into the public sphere and challenge political ‘bubbles.’ This collection showcases new approaches to and innovative readings of different forms of literary and cultural migration narratives. In addition to developing theoretical tools for the study, the authors present innovative case studies addressing topics such as the European refugee crisis, migration narratives and border crossings in Britain, Spain, and Morocco, as well as experiences of migration in Finland and Norway.

The accruement of crises over the last two decades, with their particular manifestations in the European context, has evoked the feeling of living in exceptional times, as captured in the recurrent claim that we live in the "age of anxiety." The main aim of this collection is to analyse, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the causes and consequences of the current dominance of the discourse of fear, anxiety, and crisis through the experience of distinct and often interdependent moral panics in twenty-first-century Europe.

With its multidisciplinary approach, this volume sheds light on the need to view the interrelationship between different crises and their associated affects as crucial in attaining a more nuanced understanding of the aetiology and effects of the current "age of anxiety." This multidisciplinary scrutiny of the interrelationship of twenty-first-century fears, anxiety and crises signals an original engagement with these complex phenomena in order to make their emergence and profound effects on contemporary society more comprehensible.

The timeliness of the thematic focus and the rigorous in-depth analyses make this collection relevant to students and academics within the fields of sociology, literary and cultural studies, political science and anthropology, as well as to those in European studies and global studies.