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Comparing the Literatures: Literary Studies in a Global Age
From a leading figure in comparative literature, a major new survey of the field that points the way forward for a discipline undergoing rapid changes
Literary studies are being transformed today by the expansive and disruptive forces of globalization. More works than ever circulate worldwide in English and in translation, and even national traditions are increasingly seen in transnational terms. To encompass this expanding literary universe, scholars and teachers need to expand their linguistic and cultural resources, rethink their methods and training, and reconceive the place of literature and criticism in the world. In Comparing the Literatures, David Damrosch integrates comparative, postcolonial, and world-literary perspectives to offer a comprehensive overview of comparative studies and its prospects in a time of great upheaval and great opportunity.
Comparing the Literatures looks both at institutional forces and at key episodes in the life and work of comparatists who have struggled to define and redefine the terms of literary analysis over the past two centuries, from Johann Gottfried Herder and Germaine de Sta�l to Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Franco Moretti, and Emily Apter. With literary examples ranging from Ovid and Kālidāsa to James Joyce, Yoko Tawada, and the internet artists Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Damrosch shows how the main strands of comparison--philology, literary theory, colonial and postcolonial studies, and the study of world literature--have long been intertwined. A deeper understanding of comparative literature's achievements, persistent contradictions, and even failures can help comparatists in literature and other fields develop creative responses to today's most important questions and debates.
Amid a multitude of challenges and new possibilities for comparative literature, Comparing the Literatures provides an important road map for the discipline's revitalization.
Literary studies are being transformed today by the expansive and disruptive forces of globalization. More works than ever circulate worldwide in English and in translation, and even national traditions are increasingly seen in transnational terms. To encompass this expanding literary universe, scholars and teachers need to expand their linguistic and cultural resources, rethink their methods and training, and reconceive the place of literature and criticism in the world. In Comparing the Literatures, David Damrosch integrates comparative, postcolonial, and world-literary perspectives to offer a comprehensive overview of comparative studies and its prospects in a time of great upheaval and great opportunity.
Comparing the Literatures looks both at institutional forces and at key episodes in the life and work of comparatists who have struggled to define and redefine the terms of literary analysis over the past two centuries, from Johann Gottfried Herder and Germaine de Sta�l to Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Franco Moretti, and Emily Apter. With literary examples ranging from Ovid and Kālidāsa to James Joyce, Yoko Tawada, and the internet artists Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Damrosch shows how the main strands of comparison--philology, literary theory, colonial and postcolonial studies, and the study of world literature--have long been intertwined. A deeper understanding of comparative literature's achievements, persistent contradictions, and even failures can help comparatists in literature and other fields develop creative responses to today's most important questions and debates.
Amid a multitude of challenges and new possibilities for comparative literature, Comparing the Literatures provides an important road map for the discipline's revitalization.
408 pages, Hardcover
Published April 7, 2020
12 people are currently reading
83 people want to read
About the author
David Damrosch
146 books96 followersA past president of the American Comparative Literature Association, David Damrosch has written widely on comparative and world literature from antiquity to the present. His books include The Narrative Covenant: Transformations of Genre in the Growth of Biblical Literature (1987), We Scholars: Changing the Culture of the University (1995), What Is World Literature? (2003), The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh (2007), and How to Read World Literature (2008). He is the founding general editor of the six-volume Longman Anthology of World Literature (2004) and the editor of Teaching World Literature (2009) and co-editor of The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature (2009), The Routledge Companion to World Literature (2011), and Xin fangxiang: bijiao wenxue yu shijie wenxue duben [New Directions: A Reader of Comparative and World Literature], Peking U. P., 2010. He is presently completing a book entitled Comparing the Literatures: What Every Comparatist Needs to Know, and starting a book on the role of global scripts in the formation of national literatures.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 21, 2024
O carte utilă nu doar studenților și comparatiștilor de azi și de mâine. De altfel, ar putea fi o introducere în domeniul destinat atât curioșilor cât și celor care vor să se dedice acestor studii.
Volumul este o panoramă a comparatismului de la începuturi până în prezent, sunt trecute în revistă predecesorii, personalitățile și principalele teorii și evoluția acestora, dezvoltarea și ramificarea cercetării în literatura comparată, problematicii și limitările domeniului și cum sunt reflectate tendințele actuale în cercetare: problema traducerii, studiile vest/est, viziunile feministe, queer sau post-coloniale, literatură și noile media, ce comparăm și cum comparăm, aplicarea conceptelor europene asupra unor literaturi non-europene, canon-contracanon, stratificate canonului, ce înseamnă literatură mondială, hegemonia unor literaturi, a unor limbi și a unor țări, periferia-centru, etc.
Personal am învățat că niciun domeniu nu scapă de politică, deci nici literatură, și ca toți trăim la periferie.
Volumul este o panoramă a comparatismului de la începuturi până în prezent, sunt trecute în revistă predecesorii, personalitățile și principalele teorii și evoluția acestora, dezvoltarea și ramificarea cercetării în literatura comparată, problematicii și limitările domeniului și cum sunt reflectate tendințele actuale în cercetare: problema traducerii, studiile vest/est, viziunile feministe, queer sau post-coloniale, literatură și noile media, ce comparăm și cum comparăm, aplicarea conceptelor europene asupra unor literaturi non-europene, canon-contracanon, stratificate canonului, ce înseamnă literatură mondială, hegemonia unor literaturi, a unor limbi și a unor țări, periferia-centru, etc.
Personal am învățat că niciun domeniu nu scapă de politică, deci nici literatură, și ca toți trăim la periferie.
Displaying 1 of 1 review