Literature and the Making of the World
Cosmopolitan Texts, Vernacular Practices
Published on 29. June 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
350 pages
978-1-5013-7419-7 (ISBN)
Description
This open access book positions itself at the intersection of world literature studies, literary anthropology and philosophical critiques of 'world' and 'globe' concepts. Doing so, it investigates how literature imagines and shapes worlds for its readers through linguistically specific cosmopolitan-vernacular dynamics, both at the level of textual engagement and on a material level of textual production and circulation. Moving from textual analyses in Part One - 'Worlds in Texts' - to combined analyses of texts, media and agents in the literary field in Part Two - 'Texts in Worlds' - the concerns of these nine chapters range from multilingualism, genre and style to material forms such as the little magazine or the scrapbook archive and finally to activities such as travel (as a writing profession) and literary promotion.
With this focus on practice - which geographically engages with Constantinople, China, Russia, western Europe, North America, southern Africa and India - contributors demonstrate methodologically how world literature studies can bring the empirically specific detail to bear on global modes of analysis. It is precisely through such a dual optic that the world-making capacity of literature becomes apparent.
The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.
With this focus on practice - which geographically engages with Constantinople, China, Russia, western Europe, North America, southern Africa and India - contributors demonstrate methodologically how world literature studies can bring the empirically specific detail to bear on global modes of analysis. It is precisely through such a dual optic that the world-making capacity of literature becomes apparent.
The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.
Reviews / Votes
A tour de force in world literature studies. A brilliant, wide-ranging and deeply reflective account that opens up new vistas of theory and critical practice on the cosmopolitan-vernacular dynamics in world literature. * Debjani Ganguly, Professor of English, University of Virginia, USA, and Editor of The Cambridge History of World Literature (2021) * This volume offers a fascinating insight into the interplay between the cosmopolitan and the vernacular in a wide-ranging group of examples from different cultures and periods. The series introduction provides an incisive overview of how this approach to literary studies relates to other theories of world literature, setting out its difference from theories of systems and circulation, as well as from other relational pairs, such as the centre and periphery or the global and local. The emphasis in this particular volume is on how the polysemic concept of the world embraces the linguistic, the anthropological and the cultural, among others; literature contributes to making these worlds on overlapping intratextual and extratextual levels. The nine essays collected here explore the cosmopolitan-vernacular dynamic through a mixture of close reading and cultural analysis, always sensitive to context, nuance and plurality. Literature and the Making of the World is warmly recommended not just to readers interested in the debates surrounding world literature, or to readers interested in the specific case studies, but also to those who are interested in how literature contributes to the ways that we create and make sense of the world around us. * Richard Hibbitt, Co-Director of the Centre for World Literatures, University of Leeds, UK * World literature in this collection is less a stable system and more a dynamic set of constellations, constantly made, unmade and remade. Cosmopolitan and vernacular become unfixed and take on many guises in this theoretically and empirically rich and exciting collection. * Francesca Orsini, Professor Emerita of Hindi and South Asian Literatures, SOAS, University of London, UK *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
6 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-5013-7419-7 (9781501374197)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Stefan Helgesson is Professor of English Literary Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden, and a senior research associate at Rhodes University, South Africa. He currently leads the Swedish research initiative 'Cosmopolitan and Vernacular Dynamics in World Literatures'.
Helena Bodin is Professor of Literature in the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University, Sweden.
Annika Moerte Alling is Associate Professor of French Literature at Ostfold University College, Norway.
Helena Bodin is Professor of Literature in the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University, Sweden.
Annika Moerte Alling is Associate Professor of French Literature at Ostfold University College, Norway.
Content
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Series Introduction - The Cosmopolitan-Vernacular Dynamic: Conjunctions of World Literature
Stefan Helgesson (Stockholm University, Sweden), Christina Kulberg (Uppsala University, Sweden), Paul Tenngart (Lund University, Sweden) and Helena Wulff (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Introduction - Literature and the Making of the World
Stefan Helgesson (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Part 1 Worlds in Texts: Languages and Narrative
1. Narrating the Crisis of Constantinople 1908-1922: A Lost World in Greek, Armenian, Turkish and Russian
Helena Bodin (Stockholm University, Sweden)
2. The Worlds of Multiglossia in Modern Chinese Fiction: Lu Xun's 'A Madman's Diary' and the 'Shaky House'
Lena Rydholm (Uppsala University, Sweden)
3. Writing Vulnerable Worlds: Siberian Exile and the Anthropology of World-Making
Mattias Viktorin (Stockholm University, Sweden)
4. The Making of Paris in Novels by Balzac and Flaubert
Annika Moerte Alling (Lund University, Sweden)
5. Joseph Brodsky's Returns to Venice in Watermark: Old-World Cosmopolitanism Revisited
Anna Ljunggren (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Part 2 Texts in Worlds: Production and Material Practices
6. A Homemade History: Documenting the Harlem Renaissance in Alexander Gumby's Scrapbooks
Irina Rasmussen (Stockholm University, Sweden)
7. The Little Magazine as a World-Making Form: Literary Distance and Political Contestation in Southern African Journals
Stefan Helgesson (Stockholm University, Sweden)
8. Worlds in a Tangle: The Promotion of Writing in India between the Vernacular and the Global
Per Stahlberg (Soedertoern University, Sweden)
9. Loss of Words and End of Worlds: Transitions and Troubles of Travel Writing
Anette Nyqvist (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Afterword - World Literature in the Making
Co-written by the contributors
Index
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Series Introduction - The Cosmopolitan-Vernacular Dynamic: Conjunctions of World Literature
Stefan Helgesson (Stockholm University, Sweden), Christina Kulberg (Uppsala University, Sweden), Paul Tenngart (Lund University, Sweden) and Helena Wulff (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Introduction - Literature and the Making of the World
Stefan Helgesson (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Part 1 Worlds in Texts: Languages and Narrative
1. Narrating the Crisis of Constantinople 1908-1922: A Lost World in Greek, Armenian, Turkish and Russian
Helena Bodin (Stockholm University, Sweden)
2. The Worlds of Multiglossia in Modern Chinese Fiction: Lu Xun's 'A Madman's Diary' and the 'Shaky House'
Lena Rydholm (Uppsala University, Sweden)
3. Writing Vulnerable Worlds: Siberian Exile and the Anthropology of World-Making
Mattias Viktorin (Stockholm University, Sweden)
4. The Making of Paris in Novels by Balzac and Flaubert
Annika Moerte Alling (Lund University, Sweden)
5. Joseph Brodsky's Returns to Venice in Watermark: Old-World Cosmopolitanism Revisited
Anna Ljunggren (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Part 2 Texts in Worlds: Production and Material Practices
6. A Homemade History: Documenting the Harlem Renaissance in Alexander Gumby's Scrapbooks
Irina Rasmussen (Stockholm University, Sweden)
7. The Little Magazine as a World-Making Form: Literary Distance and Political Contestation in Southern African Journals
Stefan Helgesson (Stockholm University, Sweden)
8. Worlds in a Tangle: The Promotion of Writing in India between the Vernacular and the Global
Per Stahlberg (Soedertoern University, Sweden)
9. Loss of Words and End of Worlds: Transitions and Troubles of Travel Writing
Anette Nyqvist (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Afterword - World Literature in the Making
Co-written by the contributors
Index