scholarly journals Literary Histories, National Literatures and Early Conceptions of World Literature in the Athenaeum, 1833–1838

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 216-236
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie Millim
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
National Literatures

Boatmen, Wastrels, and Demons: Figures of Literature

CounterText ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Sawhney
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Sanskrit Text ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The World ◽  
National Literatures

Engaging some of the questions opened by Ranjan Ghosh's and J. Hillis Miller's book Thinking Literature Across Continents (2016), this essay begins by returning to Aijaz Ahmad's earlier invocation of World Literature as a project that, like the proletariat itself, must stand in an antithetical relation to the capitalism that produced it. It asks: is there an essential link between a certain idea of literature and a figure of the world? If we try to broach this link through Derrida's enigmatic and repeated reflections on the secret – a secret ‘shared’ by both literature and democracy – how would we grasp Derrida's insistence on the ‘Latinity’ of literature? The groundlessness of reading that we confront most vividly in our encounter with fictional texts is both intensified, and in a way, clarified, by new readings and questions posed by the emergence of new reading publics. The essay contends that rather than being taught as representatives of national literatures, literary texts in ‘World Literature’ courses should be read as sites where serious historical and political debates are staged – debates which, while being local, are the bearers of universal significance. Such readings can only take place if World Literature strengthens its connections with the disciplines Miller calls, in the book, Social Studies. Paying particular attention to the Hindi writer Premchand's last story ‘Kafan’, and a brief section from the Sanskrit text the Natyashastra, it argues that struggles over representation, over the staging of minoritised figures, are integral to fiction and precede the thinking of modern democracy.

Rethinking Diaspora through Borders: Contemporary Somali Literature in English and Italian

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-83
Author(s):  
Gabriele Lazzari
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Diaspora Studies ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Narrative Space ◽  
Diasporic Literature ◽  
Territorial Boundaries ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract This article examines contemporary Somali diasporic literature by proposing a comparative analysis of Nuruddin Farah’s Maps and a selection of texts written by authors of Somali origin currently writing in Italian: Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, Cristina Ubah Ali Farah, and Igiaba Scego. Drawing on diaspora studies, theories of narrative space, and contemporary theories of world literature, this article argues that Somali diasporic literature places at its imaginative and symbolic core the concept of the border. In so doing, Somali diasporic literature interlocks formal and narrative strategies to political and literary histories in order to challenge the naturalized perception of linguistic and territorial boundaries. Through the investigation of how processes of border production and contestation define both the narrative geographies and the dynamics of institutional recognition of Somali literature written by the members of its global diaspora, this article further suggests that Somali diasporic writers engage with border epistemologies to articulate more historically conscious modalities of belonging to place and language.

Epilogue Arab Literature, World Literature

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tahia Abdel Nasser
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Study ◽  
Arab Literature ◽  
Literary Systems ◽  
National Literatures

This chapter looks at the effects of autobiographical production in other languages and translation on the globality of national literatures and world literary study. It examines current theorisations of world literature and considers Arab autobiography within new literary systems.

scholarly journals An Unknown Masterpiece: On Pak Kyongni’sLandand World Literature

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 426-438
Author(s):  
Sowon S. Park
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Final Section ◽  
The World ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Minority Literatures ◽  
Literary Quality

This article explores some of the issues that prevent the existence of a more diverse canon in the field of world literature. It discusses extra-literary issues that have been effectively displaced onto the question of literary quality and outlines some of the concrete hurdles that face minority literatures, with reference to the literature of modern East Asia (China, Korea and Japan). The final section examines Pak Kyongni’sLand(1969–1994), a novel virtually unknown outside of Korea but revered there as the national epic. The discussion of a work that is regarded as ‘the best that has been thought and said in the world’ by one nation yet remains practically unknown to the world will bring to the fore issues of ranking and status produced by the ‘worldification’ of literatures. In the process, it will consider some of the dynamics between nationality and universality, the relations between literature and nation, and what it means for literatures to be in dialogue when literatures and literary histories have been defined along national lines.

scholarly journals Maamesilasena maailmas ehk lihtsalt Jüri Talveti meetodist / On Jüri Talvet’s Comparative Method

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (17/18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne Merilai
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Bumble Bee ◽  
Leaves Of Grass ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
English Speaking World

Teesid: Artikkel defineerib maailmakirjanduse professor Jüri Talveti komparativistlikku meetodit nii maamesilase metafoori kui ka tema poolt tutvustatud mõistete edaphos (’pind’) ja episteme (’teadmine’) kaudu. Võrdleva kirjandusteadlase ülesanne on kahesuunaline: tutvustada eesti kirjandust maailmas ja vahendada mujal loodut meie kultuurile. Kuigi õpetlaste teoreetiline metasüsteem ja mõistevõrk – episteme – võib areneda väga keeruliseks, peab see alati juurduma edaphos’es kui toitvas pinnases, mille loovad sõnakunstiteosed ja rahvuslikud kirjanduslood. Avardades võrdlevat edaphos’t, aktiveerime ja rikastame ka maailma episteme’t. The article aims at defining the comparative method of Jüri Talvet, professor of comparative literature. This can be carried out by an application of Talvet’s own metaphor for himself – a bumble bee, or via two concepts elaborated by him – edaphos (base) and episteme (knowledge). The bumble bee, by nature more reclusive and peaceful but somehow more attractive looks than a regular bee flies out from its modest sod nest across blooming meadows, disseminating homely pollen among the leaves of grass of the wide world. Then it faithfully returns with nourishing nectar that feeds its family. As chairman of the Estonian Comparative Literature Association, and founder and editor-in-chief of the comparative literature journal Interlitteraria, Talvet has written: “Its purpose is to channel new literary-philosophical ideas from the international area to Estonia and, at the same time, to spread knowledge about Estonian literary and philosophical studies outside Estonia, as well as to let the wider world have some idea of Estonian literature itself which, because of the language barrier, has belonged traditionally to the majority of “silent” literatures of the world, unjustly ignored by the area of the dominant Western languages.” Yet, no matter how complex our theoretical meta-systems and conceptual framework – episteme – might develop, it always needs to be firmly based on edaphos as its foundation, that is, on works of literature and national literary histories. By extending the comparative edaphos, we also enrich the world’s episteme. It is therefore not surprising that, as a scholar with extensive knowledge of world literature, Talvet has great affinity for tellurism, an aesthetic concept used in Hispanic cultures that is largely unknown to the English-speaking world. 

Eurafrasiachronologies

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28
Author(s):  
Alexander Beecroft
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Temporal Dimension ◽  
Old World ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Literature Theory

Critical accounts of World Literature theory often speak of the dangers of “Eurochronology,” of the tendency to impose the narrative (and teleology) of the history of European cultures upon other regions of the world. This temporal dimension of Eurocentrism is of course to be avoided assiduously. At the same time, a synthetic reading of the literary histories of many of the larger cultures of premodern Eurasia suggests that there may in fact be room for a “Eurasiachronology,” or indeed a “Eurafrasiachronology,” which would identify parallels and connections across the entire so-called “Old World,” and offer a chronological basis for thinking about world literary history in a comparative way.

scholarly journals Title Museality as a Trend in the World Literature of the Last Fifty Years

2021 ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
L. S. Mitina
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The World ◽  
Literary Trend ◽  
National Literatures

The aim of this study is to define the concept of the title museality, the selection and analysis of relevant works of the world literature both separately and as a unified group of narratives, and determining the existence of a separate literary trend. Research methodology. The author uses analysis, synthesis, abstraction, concretization and generalization of scientific sources and literary texts with features of title museality. Results. The main characteristic evidence of the concept of “title museality” is determined and a group of literary narratives is identified. These features correspond to: “The Heritage” by Siegfried Lenz (Germany), “Outside the Dog Museum” by Jonathan Carroll (USA), “The Night at the Museum” by Milan Trenc (Croatia), “Behind the Scenes at the Museum” by Kate Atkinson (Great Britain), “The Museum of Innocence” by Orhan Pamuk (Turkey), “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” by Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine) and “Museum of Thieves” by Lian Tanner (Australia). We considered and analyzed the museological features of each of these texts of the novel form, belonging to the seven national literatures of the world. The general and distinctive features of the considered works are revealed and their museological properties are established as a unified group of narratives. It is argued that the title museality is a trend in world literature of the last fifty years and this trend is steadily growing. Novelty. An attempt is made to formulate a new museal­literary concept, to highlight and analyze the relevant literary works as a unified group of narratives and identify a certain trend in world literature. The practical significance. The key results of this study can be used for further research of other literary works with signs of the title museum that is reviewed, and also other national literatures of the world. They also can be used in studying of museological aspects of the literary studies or literary aspects of the museology.

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