World Literature in Theory

"World Literature in Theory provides a definitive exploration of the pressing questions facing those studying world literature today. Coverage is split into four parts which examine the origins and seminal formulations of world literature, world literature in the age of globalization, contemporary debates on world literature, and localized versions of world literature Contains more than 30 important theoretical essays by the most influential scholars, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hugo Meltzl, Edward Said, Franco Moretti, Jorge Luis Borges, and Gayatri Spivak Includes substantive introductions to each essay, as well as an annotated bibliography for further reading Allows students to understand, articulate, and debate the most important issuesin this rapidly changing field of study "--

List of contents

Introduction: World Literature in Theory and Practice 1
 
Part One: Origins 13
 
1 Conversations with Eckermann on Weltliteratur (1827) 15
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 
2 The Emergence of Weltliteratur: Goethe and the Romantic School (2006) 22
John Pizer
 
3 Present Tasks of Comparative Literature (1877) 35
Hugo Meltzl
 
4 What Is World Literature? (1886) 42
Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett
 
5 World Literature (1907) 47
Rabindranath Tagore
 
6 A View on the Unification of Literature (1922) 58
Zheng Zhenduo
 
Part Two: World Literature in the Age of Globalization 69
 
7 Reflections on Yiddish World Literature (1938-1939) 71
Melekh Ravitsh and Borekh Rivkin
 
8 Should We Rethink the Notion of World Literature? (1974) 85
René Etiemble
 
9 Constructing Comparables (2000) 99
Marcel Detienne
 
10 Traveling Theory (1982) 114
Edward W. Said
 
11 Toward World Literary Knowledges: Theory in the Age of Globalization (2010) 134
Revathi Krishnaswamy
 
12 Conjectures on World Literature (2000) and More Conjectures (2003) 159
Franco Moretti
 
13 World Literature without a Hyphen: Towards a Typology of Literary Systems (2008) 180
Alexander Beecroft
 
14 Literature as a World (2005) 192
Pascale Casanova
 
15 Globalization and Cultural Diversity in the Book Market: The Case of Literary Translations in the US and in France (2010) 209
Gisèle Sapiro
 
16 From Cultural Turn to Translational Turn: A Transnational Journey (2011) 234
Susan Bassnett
 
Part Three: Debating World Literature 247
 
17 Stepping Forward and Back: Issues and Possibilities for "World" Poetry (2004) 249
Stephen Owen
 
18 To World, to Globalize: World Literature's Crossroads (2004) 264
Djelal Kadir
 
19 For a World-Literature in French (2007) 271
Michel Le Bris et al.
 
20 For a Living and Popular Francophonie (2007) 276
Nicolas Sarkozy
 
21 Francophonie and Universality: The Ideological Challenges of Littérature-monde (2009) 279
Jacqueline Dutton
 
22 Universalisms and Francophonies (2009) 293
Françoise Lionnet
 
23 Orientalism and the Institution of World Literatures (2010) 313
Aamir R. Mufti
 
24 Against World Literature (2013) 345
Emily Apter
 
25 Comparative Literature/World Literature: A Discussion (2011) 363
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and David Damrosch
 
Part Four: World Literature in the World 389
 
26 The Argentine Writer and Tradition (1943) 391
Jorge Luis Borges
 
27 Cultures and Contexts (2001) 398
Tania Franco Carvalhal
 
28 An Idea of Literature: South Africa, India, the West (2001) 405
Michael Chapman
 
29 The Deterritorialization of American Literature (2007) 416
Paul Giles
 
30 Islamic Literary Networks in South and Southeast Asia (2010) 437
Ronit Ricci
 
31 Rethinking the World in World Literature: East Asia and Literary Contact Nebulae (2009) 460
Karen Laura Thornber
 
32 Global Cinema, World Cinema (2010) 480
Denilson Lopes
 
33 The Strategy of Digital Modernism: Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries' Dakota (2008) 493
Jessica Pressman
 
Epilogue: The Changing Concept of World Literature 513
Zhang Longxi
 
Index 524

About the author

David Damrosch is Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He is the founding general editor of the six-volume Longman Anthology of World Literature (2004), the editor of Teaching World Literature (2009), and co-editor of the Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature (2009). He is also the author of How to Read World Literature (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008) and The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh (2007). His current research projects include a book on the discipline of comparative literature and a book on the role of global scripts in the formation of national literatures. He is the founding director of the Institute for World Literature at Harvard University.

Summary

World Literature in Theory provides a definitive exploration of the pressing questions facing those studying world literature today.

Report

"With this collection of essays, David Damrosch takes us on a breathtaking ride through the history and geography of the term "world literature" - and demonstrates that it is quite simply the most productive concept in literary theory today."
--Martin Puchner, Harvard University
 
"Vigorous and capacious, featuring unexpected contributors such as Nicolas Sarkozy, and covering material ranging from the globe-trotting work of Apuleius to the digital modernism of Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries, this impressive volume recovers genealogies of world literature from India, China, Brazil, Ireland. Putting the problematics of translation front and center, it creates a rich dialogue across languages and regions, even as it brings new energies to world literature in the age of globalization."
--Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University

Product details

• Authors: Damrosch, D Damrosch, David Damrosch, David (Columbia University) Damrosch
• Assisted by: Davi Damrosch (Editor), David Damrosch (Editor), Damrosch David (Editor)
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.01.2014
• EAN: 9781118407684
• ISBN: 978-1-118-40768-4
• No. of pages: 544
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Literaturwissenschaft, Literaturtheorie, Literature, Literary theory, Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft u. Weltliteratur, Comparative & World Literature