Title: The Literary History of World‐Systems, II: World Literature and Deep Time
Abstract: Abstract This essay is the conclusive piece of a two‐part series on the use of world‐systems theory in literary studies. In it, I continue my discussion of literary world‐systems by turning to the field of world literature. As I show, world‐systems theory owes much of its current popularity in literary studies to the “new” world literature, which has borrowed part of its conceptual language from world‐systems theory. This language includes such key terms as longue durée , circulation, cyclical history, and center and periphery. These terms have helped to revolutionize literary history in a number of ways, three of which I focus on: (1) the pursuit of a more abstract, quantitative account of literary genres; (2) the attempt to reposition European literature within a longer history of global literature; and (3) the theorization of cyclical models of literary history. Taken together, these projects have helped scholars to rewrite the history and geography of world literature in important ways – by reimagining the novel form as a response to risk and insecurity rather than power; by emphasizing Europe's competition with non‐European cultural centers; and by identifying a temporal limit to European and American hegemony.
Publication Year: 2015
Publication Date: 2015-11-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 8
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot