Scales of comparison: the paths of comparative literature and the return of ‘world literature’

Abstract :

In this talk I trace the early flourishing, subsequent languishing, and, eventually, rapid rehabilitation of "world literature" as a particular discourse on literature. The continuous history of "world literature" as a discourse is interrupted by the long domination of "comparative literature" which operates a different scale of comparison. To understand why "world literature" fails to gain prominence until the early 21st century, despite its early visibility from the 1770s to the mid-nineteenth century, we need to explain the factors that facilitate the rise of "comparative literature" as a competing prism. It is in this context that I briefly address, at the end of this talk, the return of "world literature" as a discourse responding more adequately (though far from unproblematically) to a transnationally organised world.

Дата: 24.02.2021

Время: 17:00

Платформа: Zoom