Approaches to World Literature WeltLiteraturen World Literatures Band 1 Schriftenreihe der Friedrich Schlegel Graduiertenschule für literaturwissenschaftliche Studien Herausgegeben von Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Stefan Keppler-Tasaki und Joachim Küpper Wissenschaftlicher Beirat Nicholas Boyle (University of Cambridge), Elisabeth Bronfen (Universität Zürich), Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht (Stanford University), Renate Lachmann (Universität Konstanz), Kenichi Mishima (Osaka University), Glenn W. Most (Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa /University of Chicago) ,Jean-Marie Schaeffer (EHESS Paris), Janet A. Walker (Rutgers University), David Wellbery (University of Chicago), Christopher Young (University of Cambridge) Joachim Küpper (Ed.) Approaches to World Literature Akademie Verlag Cover picture: Typus orbis terrarum, copper engraving, colored, 1571. akg-images. Cover design: hauser lacour ACIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA. 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ISBN 978-3-05-006271-6 eISBN 978-3-05-006495-6 Content Joachim Küpper Preface........................................................................................................................7 Jérôme David The Four Genealogiesof“World Literature”.............................................................13 Robert J. C. Young World Literature andLanguage Anxiety.................................................................... 27 Jane O. Newman Auerbach’s Dante: Poetical Theology as aPointofDeparture for aPhilology of WorldLiterature............................................................................ 39 AymanA.El-Desouky BeyondSpatiality: Theorising the Local andUntranslatability as Comparative CriticalMethod................................................................................ 59 David Damrosch GlobalScripts and the Formation of Literary Traditions ...........................................85 Vilashini Cooppan Codes for World Literature:Network Theory and the Field Imaginary..................... 103 C. Rajendran The Actualand theImagined: Perspectivesand Approachesin IndianClassical Poetics.............................................................................................. 121 Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit On Bookstores,Suicides, and theGlobal Marketplace: East Asia in the Context of WorldLiterature.............................................................133 6 Content Mitsuyoshi Numano Shifting Borders in Contemporary Japanese Literature: Toward aThird Vision ............................................................................................. 147 JoachimKüpper Some Remarks on World Literature.......................................................................... 167 Notes on Contributors ............................................................................................... 177 JOACHIM KÜPPER Preface: Approaches to World Literature The present volumecontains the revisedversions of papersreadatthe conference “Approaches to WorldLiterature,” generously fundedbythe German Federal Ministry of Educationand Research(BMBF), which took place at theDahlem Humanities Center andthe Friedrich SchlegelGraduate School of Literary Studies in June 2012. Both institutionsare based at theFreie Universität Berlin,Germany, and are dedicated to theinvestigation of theprinciples of culturaldynamics, as well as to an interna- tionally oriented type of comparative literary studies.1 The volumeisthe firstinaseries named“WorldLiteratures” (edd. Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, StefanKeppler-Tasaki and Joachim Küpper),inwhich outstanding dissertations, “second books” written by post- doctoralresearchers, andselectedconferenceproceedings pertainingtothe topic emblematizedinthe series’ title willappearover theyears to come. Theconcept to whichthisvolumeand theseriesasawhole refer,“World Literature,” is frequently associatedwith Goethe’s name, thoughthe central figureofGerman liter- ary history did notcreate it,but ratherhelped popularizing it.Its basicidea, namely that the study of literaturewithin the limits of boundaries defined by specific languagesis largelyinsufficient, seemstobemorerelevant than everinanage of all-encompassing globalization. Present-day endeavors, however, have to go beyond the framesGoetheand his 19th century successors had in mind. They willaim at comprehending as “world literature” not only the texts produced in thelarger Mediterranean world(which reaches fromEgypt to Norway and fromPortugaltothe Euphrates, andhas ramifications com- prisingthe Americas and India); butratherintegrateintoliterary studies also East Asian literatures,especially Japaneseand Chinese. Thereseem to be twodifferentoptions of how to make suchavastcorpus of texts viablewithinliterary studies.One way is to deal withthe texts by way of translations and so-called “world literature readers.”Analternative approach consists in bringing together expertsinawiderange of national literatures, in order to focusonacross-dis- 1 For furtherinformation see:DHC: www.fu-berlin.de/en/sites/dhc; Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School: www.fsgs.fu-berlin.de/en/fsgs 8 JoachimKüpper ciplinary discussionofcertain theoretical tools andconcepts. Take,for instance, the dichotomy of fictional vs. non-fictional:Doesitexist—andifso, how is it shaped withintraditions other than theOccidental ones?Which ways of systematizingthe huge field of textualproductions and practices were developed by non-Western traditions, and how might these various modes of ordering have influencedeachother?Which are theconsequences of amorecalligraphic, or evenanideogrammicscript system on the opposition familiar in the Occidental traditionbetween text andimage?Theseand similar questions arediscussedinthe papers collectedhere. As willbeevident fromthe footnotes of many of the present articles, the discussion of “world literature in our time”has been mainly conductedinUSacademia. Hundreds of articles andsomedozenvolumes have been dedicated to thetopic overthe last thirty years. The reasons for this arenot astonishingatall.Right from its founding, theUnited States have been considering themselves apost-nation State whose constitutional basis is asecularized(Christian) universalism.Over thecenturies, theculturalhybridity of the country has increased in amost impressive way.Within aUSframework it would be dif- ficult to hold today that the literary canon consists onlyoftexts writteninEnglish—with some Classical, Romance andGermantexts added to the mix. Nevertheless, the USA—as the by farmostpowerfulactor on the international scene—are committedtoone specific idiom, namely English, and to astrictlydefined pattern of cultural normsand codes deriving fromCalvinism. It maybeseen againstthe backdropofthis constellation that discussions concerning world literature havesofar beenmarkedbyastrong tendency of countering allpossible reproachesalleging that propagatingsuchaconcept wouldbepart of an attempt to secure, or even strengthen, the dominance of Anglophone cultures in the present-day global arena. The corresponding attitude materializes in almost all publications available, namelyintheir stressingthe importance of includingtexts from non-Western, “minor” and “subaltern”backgrounds into thepanoramatobeconsidered. Frequently,the anti- hegemonic attitude reaches thepoint of conveying, in amoreorless veiled fashion,that the Classical Westerncorecanon better be excluded fromafuture study of world literature. The secondfeature characterizing the scholarly debates so far derives fromwhat I term thephase of Gramscianism in Western intellectual history.With the waning pros- pectsfor a“classical” socialist revolution, theidolofMarxbecamereplacedbyAntonio Gramsci—or rather, by his “new”theorizing of theway to be takeninorder to achieve the goal of an egalitariansociety. Gramsciheldthat, under 20th centuryconditions, the directway of expropriation is no longer possible. The revolution, thecontrol of physical as well as economicpower, has to be preceded by aprocess thatsecures thecontrol overdiscursivepower. Theway in whichasociety speaks andthinks is decisive for the way in which it evolves. Since themoreorless tacitadoptionofGramscianism as afirm groundfor Western (mainstream) intellectualdebates, politicization has become the commontrait of allof Preface 9 these discussions. There is no fieldofscholarshipthatwouldescape this tendencyto conceive thehumanities’research as abattleground, where it is all about conquering discursive terrain. One pivotalpoint of these controversies has been theconcept of identity, meaning that there is alegitimate way of self-conceptionwhich is notbound to the features of “Western,” “male,” “white,” “Judeo-Christian” and“normal” (in terms of sexual orientation). Untilnow,debates on canonhavebeenlargelyabsorbed into this all-encompassing syndromeof“identity