Comparative Literature and Comparative Cultural Studies

Front Cover
Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek
Purdue University Press, 2003 - Literary Criticism - 356 pages
Articles in this volume focus on theories and histories of comparative literature and the field of comparative cultural studies. Contributors are Kwaku Asante-Darko on African postcolonial literature; Hendrik Birus on Goethe's concept of world literature; Amiya Dev on comparative literature in India; Marian Galik on interliterariness; Ernst Grabovszki on globalization, new media, and world literature; Jan Walsh Hokenson on the culture of the context; Marko Juvan on literariness; Karl S.Y. Kao on metaphor; Kristof Jacek Kozak on comparative literature in Slovenia; Manuela Mourao on comparative literature in the USA; Jola Skulj on cultural identity; Slobodan Sucur on period styles and theory; Peter Swirski on popular and highbrow literature; Antony Tatlow on textual anthropology; William H. Thornton on East/West power politics in cultural studies; Steven Totosy on comparative cultural studies; and Xiaoyi Zhou and Q.S. Tong on comparative literature in China. The papers are followed by an index and a bibliography of scholarship in comparative literature and cultural studies compiled by Steven Totosy, Steven Aoun, and Wendy C. Nielsen.

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Contents

Theory Period Styles and Comparative Literature as Discipline
152
A Comparative View
183
Comparative Literature as Textual Anthropology
206
Analyzing EastWest Power Politics in Comparative Cultural Studies
216
From Comparative Literature Today Toward Comparative Cultural Studies
235
Comparative Literature in China
268
A Selected Bibliography of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies Theories Methods Histories 1835 to 2002
285
Contributors
343

Comparative Literature in Slovenia
111
Comparative Literature in the United States
130
Comparative Literature and Cultural Identity
142
Index
349
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Page 154 - And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, . And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor: And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted — nevermore...
Page 16 - Nationalliteratur will jetzt nicht viel sagen, die Epoche der Weltliteratur ist an der Zeit, und jeder muß jetzt dazu wirken, diese Epoche zu beschleunigen.
Page 20 - Was nun in den Dichtungen aller Nationen hierauf hindeutet und hinwirkt, dies ist es, was die übrigen sich anzueignen haben. Die Besonderheiten einer jeden muß man kennen lernen, um sie ihr zu lassen, um gerade dadurch mit ihr zu verkehren...
Page 147 - Such a dialogic encounter of two cultures does not result in merging or mixing. Each retains its own unity and open totality, but they are mutually enriched.
Page 157 - Literature is fiction not because it somehow refuses to acknowledge "reality," but because it is not a priori certain that language functions according to principles which are those, or which are like those of the phenomenal world.
Page 17 - Und so ist jeder Übersetzer anzusehen, daß er sich als Vermittler dieses allgemein geistigen Handels bemüht und den Wechseltausch zu befördern sich zum Geschäft macht; denn was man auch von der Unzulänglichkeit des Übersetzens sagen mag, so ist und bleibt es doch eines der wichtigsten und würdigsten Geschäfte in dem allgemeinen Weltverkehr. Der Koran sagt: „Gott hat jedem Volke einen Propheten gegeben in seiner eigenen Sprache.
Page 66 - Conversely, literary history is also highly important for literary criticism as soon as the latter goes beyond the most subjective pronouncement of likes and dislikes. A critic who is content to be ignorant of all historical relationships would constantly go astray in his judgements. He could not know which work is original and which derivative; and, through his ignorance of historical conditions, he would constantly blunder in his understanding of specific works of art. The critic possessed of little...
Page 146 - Quests for my own word are in fact quests for a word that is not my own, a word which is more than myself; this striving to depart from one's own words, with which nothing essential can be said.
Page 154 - Ordinary speech and literary language have thereby changed places (see the work of Vyacheslav Ivanov and many others). And finally, a strong tendency, led by Khlebnikov, to create a new and properly poetic language has emerged. In the light of these developments we can define poetry as attenuated, tortuous speech. Poetic speech is formed speech. Prose is ordinary speech — economical, easy, proper, the goddess of prose [dea prosae] is a goddess of the accurate, facile type, of the 'direct
Page 20 - Offenbar ist das Bestreben der besten Dichter und ästhetischen Schriftsteller aller Nationen schon seit geraumer Zeit auf das allgemein Menschliche gerichtet.

About the author (2003)

Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek's areas of scholarship include comparative literature and cultural studies; comparative media and communication studies; postcolonial studies; migration and ethnic minority studies; film and literature studies; audience studies; and European, US-American and Canadian cultures, among others. His single-authored books include Comparative Cultural Studies and the Future of the Humanities; Comparative Literature: Theory, Method, Application; and The Social Dimensions of Fiction. His edited volumes include New Work in the Study of World Literatures and in Comparative Literature and Comparative Cultural Studies; Digital Humanities and the Study of Intermediality in Comparative Cultural Studies; Perspectives on Identity, Migration, and Displacement; Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies; and Imre Kertész and Holocaust Literature. Zepetnek has published approximately 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals and his work has been translated into Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Macedonian, Marathi, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish. Tötösy de Zepetnek is series editor of the Purdue University Press series Books in Comparative Cultural Studies and editor of the Purdue University Press journal CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture.

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