The Nobel Prize And The Formation Of Contemporary World Literature

An exploration of the history, ambitions, and impact of the Nobel Prize in literature as it gained a central position in 20th-century global literary culture. Few scholars would deny that the Nobel Prize is the most prestigious literary award in the world. But what mechanisms made it possible for 18 Swedish intellectuals to become the world's most influential literary critics? Paul Tenngart argues that the Nobel Prize in literature has become a special kind of international canonization: exerted from a non-central, semi-peripheral position, the award sometimes confirms and reinforces hierarchical relations between literary languages and cultures, and sometimes disturbs established patterns of dominance and dependence. Drawing from a wide range of contemporary theories and methods, this multifaceted history of the Nobel Prize questions how the Swedish Academy has managed to keep the prize's global status through all the violent international crises of the last 120 years; how the selection of laureates shaped the idea of 'universal' literary values and defined literary quality across languages and cultures; and what impact the prize has had on the distribution and significance of particular works, literatures and languages. The Nobel Prize and the Formation of Contemporary World Literature explores the history and impact of the Nobel Prize in literature from the first award in 1901 through recent controversies involving Bob Dylan and #MeToo, arguing that the prize is a unique performative act that has been - and still is - central in our continual and collective construction of world literature.

An exploration of the history, ambitions, and impact of the Nobel Prize in literature as it gained a central position in 20th-century global literary culture. Few scholars would deny that the Nobel Prize is the most prestigious literary award in the world. But what mechanisms made it possible for 18 Swedish intellectuals to become the world's most influential literary critics? Paul Tenngart argues that the Nobel Prize in literature has become a special kind of international canonization: exerted from a non-central, semi-peripheral position, the award sometimes confirms and reinforces hierarchical relations between literary languages and cultures, and sometimes disturbs established patterns of dominance and dependence. Drawing from a wide range of contemporary theories and methods, this multifaceted history of the Nobel Prize questions how the Swedish Academy has managed to keep the prize's global status through all the violent international crises of the last 120 years; how the selection of laureates shaped the idea of 'universal' literary values and defined literary quality across languages and cultures; and what impact the prize has had on the distribution and significance of particular works, literatures and languages. The Nobel Prize and the Formation of Contemporary World Literature explores the history and impact of the Nobel Prize in literature from the first award in 1901 through recent controversies involving Bob Dylan and #MeToo, arguing that the prize is a unique performative act that has been – and still is – central in our continual and collective construction of world literature.

The Nobel Prize in Literature is the highest honor a writer can achieve, elevating laureates to literary geniuses. Established by Alfred Nobel, this international award recognizes remarkable contributions to literature. Over the years, it has celebrated diverse voices from around the world, creating a pantheon of literary giants from various cultures. This book invites readers on a fascinating journey through contemporary world literature, exploring the lives and works of Nobel laureates from 1901 to the present day.

The result of meticulous research by Professor Abram Blokh, this book presents facts, documents, thoughts and comments on the system of the Nobel Prize awards to Russian and Soviet scientists. It provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between the ideas expressed by the Nobel Foundation and those expressed by the autocratic and totalitarian regimes in Russia and the ex-Soviet Union during the 20th century who had the same attitude of revulsion toward the intellectual and humanistic values represented by the Nobel Prizes.To do his research, the author had access to the declassified documents in the archives of the Nobel Foundation for many years. Also included in the book are new materials obtained and developed by the author after the publication of the first two editions (in Russian). This additional information is from the archives of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Soviet Writers' Union et al. in Moscow and St Petersburg. These documents shed new light on the difficulties encountered during the attempts to integrate Russian and Soviet science into the world's intellectual community.This book would be of utmost interest to those who are interested in the history of science in Russia and the ex-Soviet Union, related to the Nobel Prize.

From today’s vantage point it can be denied that the confidence in the abilities of globalism, mobility, and cosmopolitanism to illuminate cultural signification processes of our time has been severely shaken. In the face of this crisis, a key concept of this globalizing optimism as World Literature has been for the past twenty years necessarily is in the need of a comprehensive revision. World Literature, Cosmopolitanism, Globality: Beyond, Against, Post, Otherwise offers a wide range of contributions approaching the blind spots of the globally oriented Humanities for phenomena that in one way or another have gone beyond the discourses, aesthetics, and political positions of liberal cosmopolitanism and neoliberal globalization. Departing basically (but not exclusively) from different examples of Latin American literatures and cultures in globalized contexts, this volume provides innovative insights into critical readings of World Literature and its related conceptualizations. A timely book that embraces highly innovative perspectives, it will be a mustread for all scholars involved in the field of the global dimensions of literature.

Covers authors who are currently active or who died after December 31, 1959. Profiles novelists, poets, playwrights and other creative and nonfiction writers by providing criticism taken from books, magazines, literary reviews, newspapers and scholarly journals.