Studying Transcultural Literary History

In our globalised world, literature is less and less confined to national spaces. Europe-centred frameworks for literary studies have become insufficient; academics are increasingly called upon to address matters of cultural difference. In this unique volume, leading scholars discuss the critical and methodical challenges that these developments pose to the writing of literary history. What is the object of literary history? What is the meaning of the term “world literature”? How do we compare different cultural systems of genres? How do we account theoretically for literary transculturation? What are the implications of postcolonial studies for the discipline of comparative literature? Ranging in focus from the Persian epic of Majnun Layla and Zulu praise poetry to South Korean novels and Brazilian antropofagismo, the essays offer a concise overview of these and related questions. Their aim is not to reach a consensus on these matters. They show instead what is at stake in the emergent field of global comparatism.

Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective is a research project funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). Initiated in 1996 and launched in 1999, it aims at finding suitable methods and approaches for studying and analysing literature globally, emphasizing the comparative and intercultural aspect. Even though we nowadays have fast and easy access to any kind of information on literature and literary history, we encounter, more than ever, the difficulty of finding a credible overall perspective on world literary history. Until today, literary cultures and traditions have usually been studied separately, each field using its own principles and methods. Even the conceptual basis itself varies from section to section and the genre concepts employed are not mutually compatible. As a consequence, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for the interested layperson as well as for the professional student, to gain a clear and fair perspective both on the literary traditions of other peoples and on one's own traditions. The project can be considered as a contribution to gradually removing this problem and helping to gain a better understanding of literature and literary history by means of a concerted empirical research and deeper conceptual reflection. The contributions to the four volumes are written in English by specialists from a large number of disciplines, primarily from the fields of comparative literature, Oriental studies and African studies in Sweden. All of the literary texts discussed in the articles are in the original language. Each one of the four volumes is devoted to a special research topic.

In Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility, Arianna Dagnino analyzes a new type of literature emerging from artists' increased movement and cultural flows spawned by globalization. This ""transcultural"" literature is produced by authors who write across cultural and national boundaries and who transcend in their lives and creative production the borders of a single culture. Dagnino's book contains a creative rendition of interviews conducted with five internationally renowned writers--Inez Baranay, Brian Castro, Alberto Manguel, Tim Parks, and Ilija Trojanow--and a critical exegesis reflecting on thematical, critical, and stylistical aspects. By studying the selected authors' corpus of work, life experiences, and cultural orientations, Dagnino explores the implicit, often subconscious, process of cultural and imaginative metamorphosis that leads transcultural writers and their fictionalized characters beyond ethnic, national, racial, or religious loci of identity and identity formation. Drawing on the theoretical framework of comparative cultural studies, she offers insight into transcultural writing related to belonging, hybridity, cultural errancy, the ""Other,"" worldviews, translingualism, deterritorialization, neonomadism, as well as genre, thematic patterns, and narrative techniques. Dagnino also outlines the implications of transcultural writing within the wider context of world literature(s) and identifies some of the main traits that characterize "transcultural novels." "Starting from the idea that we live in an age of increasing interconnectedness, the book focuses on the biographical experiences and literary outputs of a group of culturally mobile writers it defines as transcultural. The text combines a wide-ranging and systematic theoretical approach to transcultural literature with a section in which the author recounts imaginatively the in-depth interviews she had with five authors. The work is a significant contribution to scholarship, for it increases our theoretical awareness of today's literary developments, providing us with critical tools that enable us to approach literary texts with an innovative perspective." Maurizio Ascari, Universit� di Bologna.

Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective is a research project funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). Initiated in 1996 and launched in 1999, it aims at finding suitable methods and approaches for studying and analysing literature globally, emphasizing the comparative and intercultural aspect. Even though we nowadays have fast and easy access to any kind of information on literature and literary history, we encounter, more than ever, the difficulty of finding a credible overall perspective on world literary history. Until today, literary cultures and traditions have usually been studied separately, each field using its own principles and methods. Even the conceptual basis itself varies from section to section and the genre concepts employed are not mutually compatible. As a consequence, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for the interested layperson as well as for the professional student, to gain a clear and fair perspective both on the literary traditions of other peoples and on one's own traditions. The project can be considered as a contribution to gradually removing this problem and helping to gain a better understanding of literature and literary history by means of a concerted empirical research and deeper conceptual reflection. The contributions to the four volumes are written in English by specialists from a large number of disciplines, primarily from the fields of comparative literature, Oriental studies and African studies in Sweden. All of the literary texts discussed in the articles are in the original language. Each one of the four volumes is devoted to a special research topic.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Transcultural Literary Studies: Politics, Theory, and Literary Analysis" that was published in Humanities

What is most strikingly new about the transcultural is its sudden ubiquity. Following in the wake of previous concepts in cultural and literary studies such as creolization, hybridity, and syncretism, and signalling a family relationship to terms such as transnationality, translocality, and transmigration, 'transcultural' terminology has unobtrusively but powerfully edged its way into contemporary theoretical and critical discourse. The four sections of this volume denote major areas where 'transcultural' questions and problematics have come to the fore: theories of culture and literature that have sought to account for the complexity of culture in a world increasingly characterized by globalization, transnationalization, and interdependence; realities of individual and collective life-worlds shaped by the ubiquity of phenomena and experiences relating to transnational connections and the blurring of cultural boundaries; fictions in literature and other media that explore these realities, negotiate the fuzzy edges of 'ethnic' or 'national' cultures, and participate in the creation of transnational public spheres as well as transcultural imaginations and memories; and, finally, pedagogy and didactics, where earlier models of teaching 'other' cultures are faced with the challenge of coming to terms with cultural complexity both in what is being taught and in the people it is taught to, and where 'target cultures' have become elusive. The idea of 'locating' culture and literature exclusively in the context of ethnicities or nations is rapidly losing plausibility throughout an 'English-speaking world' that has long since been multi- rather than monolingual. Exploring the prospects and contours of 'Transcultural English Studies' thus reflects a set of common challenges and predicaments that in recent years have increasingly moved centre stage not only in the New Literatures in English, but also in British and American studies.

On what terms and concepts can we ground the comparative study of Anglophone literatures and cultures around the world today? What, if anything, unites the novels of Witi Ihimaera, the speculative fiction of Nnedi Okorafor, the life-writings by Stuart Hall, and the emerging Anglophone Arab literature by writers like Omar Robert Hamilton? This volume explores the globality of Anglophone fiction both as a conceptual framing and as a literary imaginary. It highlights the diversity of lives and worlds represented in Anglophone writing, as well as the diverse imaginations of transnational connections articulated in it. Featuring a variety of internationally renowned scholars, this book thinks through Anglophone literature not as a problematic legacy of colonial rule or as exoticizing commodity in a global literary marketplace but examines it as an inherently transcultural literary medium. Contributors provide new insights into how it facilitates the articulation of divergent experiences of modernity and the critique of hierarchies and inequalities within, among, and beyond post-colonial societies.

This remarkably broad and informative book offers an introduction to and overview of World Literature. Tracing the term from its earliest roots and situating it within a number of relevant contexts from postcolonialism to postmodernism, Theo D’haen examines: the return of the term "world literature" and its changing meaning Goethe’s concept of Weltliteratur and how this relates to current debates theories and theorists who have had an impact on world literature non-canonical and less-known literatures from around the globe the possibility and implications of a definition of world literature. This book is the ideal guide to an increasingly popular and important term in literary studies. It is accessible and engaging and will be invaluable to students of world literature, comparative literature, translation and postcolonial studies and anyone with an interest in these or related topics.