Chapter 12 - World-Systems and Literary Studies

Summary

World-systems analyses emerged in the 1970s as attempts to fuse a Marxist-informed critique of developmental economics with historical sociology. They are best known through the writings of Immanuel Wallerstein (1930-2019), but benefit from multiple others who have contributed to and expanded the topics of interest for the world-systems knowledge movement. This chapter highlights some of the main concerns of world-systems and illustrates their relevance for literary and cultural studies of economics, society, the State, and cultural production. World-systems analyses began as alternatives to forms of developmental and stage theories, both Keynesian-oriented economics in the post-war period, and within post-Russian Revolution Marxism. As a moral protest against the capitalist world-system, world-systems analyses also question the theoretical and epistemological frameworks developed within the modern research university.