A Cosmopolitan Approach to Literature: Against Origins and Destinations

Description

This cross-disciplinary approach to literary reading of any provenance based on an “experimental cosmopolitan” epistemology de- and recontextualizes the texts from the points of view of multiple cultures and historical moments, enriching interpretation and aesthetic experience beyond the backgrounds of the present reader and the origin of a particular literary discourse. Trusting the authority of an author or an “original” text and ignoring the fundamental plurilingualism of the literary experience obstructs the wealth of cosmopolitan reading in a globalized and fragmented world. A thorough critique of both local and overarching theories in clear dissent from the binaries of “decolonial theory” and the overextension of “nomadic theory” supports a precise research and teaching methodology at variance with past trends of Comparative and World Literature. Considering literature as the aestheticized use of language, which is universal, the many analyses provided can be extrapolated to other genres, eras, and cultural areas. Cover Endorsement Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Cosmopolitan Reading, How and Why? Notes Part I Theory in Motion 1 “Power Failure in Paris”: Against Local Theory Theory as Process (1) Anti-Theory as Covert Theory Anti-Theory as Eurocentric Ideology How Global Can Theory Be in America? Live Theory De-Theorization of the Center Proactive Theorization Notes 2 Locations and Dis-Locations of Theory: Toward a Theory Without a Fixed Address Theory as Process (2) Where Can We Find Theory and Theories? Theory Across Continents World Theory Or Wandering Theory? Platforms Notes Part II Universals and World Literature 3 Universals in Theory and Practice Where Do You Speak From? Is a Non-Global Universe Possible? Theory and Universals Toward a Comparative Universalism Notes 4 The World Literature Controversy The Politics of Small and Large Worlds What “World” for “World Literature”? Remote Control, Planetary, Trading, and Zonal Models Franco Moretti’s Computational World-System Gayatri Spivak’s Planetarity David Damrosch’s Border Crossing Model Emily Apter’s “Translation Zone” (Anti)Model Of Fortresses, Trojan Horses, and Airport Lounges The Glocal Paradigm The World Literature Podium The Comparing Castaway and the Besieged City Waiting for Charlotte, Or Doubles On the Departure Screen A New Stage for Weltliteratur? Notes 5 Worlding and Localizing Fiction What Is It to World? Parallel Lives of the Historical Repressed Self-Worlding and Self-Minorizing Strategies of “Minor”/“Small” Literatures How Minor Is “Minor”? Wide Small Worlds The World in the Village and Out The World in a Wandering Mind The Postcolonial Rhetoric of Worlding Notes Part III Cosmopolitanism Revisited 6 Cross-Cultural Negotiation, Comparison, Comprehension Cross-Cultural Negotiation and Cosmopolitanism Negotiation, Comparison, and Comprehension Notes 7 Cultural Cosmopolitanism as Experiment Worlds With and Without Nutshells Cosmopolitanism, Singular, and Plural Experimenting and Experiencing Possible Reading Worlds, Shared Planet For a Cosmopolitan Bricolage Notes 8 The Literary Construction of Cosmopolitan Consciousness Vagrancy and Jewishness Some Cosmopolitans and Their Doubles Narrative Identities and Dialogical Selves Portable Jews It Is All Margins Cosmopolitan Narrative and Narrative Identities Notes Part IV Elusive Identities, Deceptive Origins and Destinations 9 Unselfing Literary Studies: Against “Idemtity” Of Selfies, Belonging(s), and “Idemtity” Versus “Personality” How Can Comparative Literature Do Away With Identity? Communitarian Identities Canons Othering the Cardinal Points Flight and Refuge, Divided Consciousnesses On Estrangement, Hospitality, and Adoption Diogenes, Neither Guest Nor Host Ghostly Misfits A Gentle Revenant Notes 10 The Ironies of Authenticity Authenticity as a Forged Value Ulysses in Wonderland, Or the Problem With Nativism Warped Spaces and the Great Loop of No-Homeness Schizoid Topologies The Vicious Loop Around the Self in A Long Way From Home Authenticity Transmogrified Notes 11 Ambiguous Mobilities: How Cosmopolitan Is Nomadism? Three Post-Romantic, Confusing Essays One’s Way Or Out of It? Imitation Nomadism and Gender Mobility A Nomad in Her (Trans-)gendered Head? Tragic Encounters Humanizing the Other, Defamiliarizing the Self Nomadic Theory, Again? Mappamundi of a Thousand Plateaus Nomadology After Deleuze and Guattari Alternatives to Nomadic Identities Notes 12 A Labyrinth of Margins: Mimetic Desire and Native Impersonation A Home in the East? Ruskin Bond’s Cosmo-Indianness The Godden Sisters Under the Indian Sun Women Converts A Border Running Through Us? Ali-ases Deconstructing Nativism Multiple We Stand A Comedy of Mirrors A Cosmopolitan Caucasus? Othered Bodies Back to New-Baku Notes Part V The Pragmatics of Outgoing and Incoming 13 Exos as Eros, and Vice Versa Exos, Exoticism, Unholy Grails Metamorphic Eros Translation Versus Conversion The Hermeneutic Concept: Translation as Amplification and Explicitation The Transportation Concept: Translation as Displacement and Placement The Dialogic-Conversational Concept Self-Translation Notes 14 Heteroglossia as Experiment and Cosmopolitan Performance Kinds of Heteroglossia Heteroglossia in Plurilingual Texts and Cultures Jhumpa Lahiri’s Versus Indian Heteroglossia Foreignness and Familiarity in Lahiri’s English Fiction The Heteroglossia of Monolingual Texts: Jhumpa Lahiri’s Leap Across to Italian A New Love: Experiment and Identity An Italian Loneliness Indian, American, and Italian Fictions as Genres Notes Excipit The Personal Touch Bibliography Name Index Subject Index