Read more
"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 "--
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
