Alya Ansari is a Ph.D. candidate in the program in Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, with a graduate minor in Moving Image, Media, and Sound Studies. Her research rethinks the logic of novelistic realism as a libidinal function of surplus-value in 19th century British industrial novels and 21st century American and Japanese gig work/post-industrial novels. She is also an Assistant Editor at Cultural Critique.

Image courtesy Maya Rait. Cover illustration courtesy Adam Ahlgrim & Maldo Malacek.