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Global Comparatism and the Question of Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

David Damrosch
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Extract

As she struggles to get her bearings in the subterranean world of wonderland, a disoriented alice finds that the act of fanning herself or eating a cake has become uncanny; instead of refreshing her and lifting her spirits, the items she encounters alternately telescope her body, nearly breaking her neck, and shrink her down toward the point of nonexistence. At least Alice experienced these dizzying changes sequentially; her scholarly successors in comparative literature are not so lucky. We find ourselves caught in the turmoil of a field that is exploding to global proportions even as enrollments shrink to levels not seen for half a century, putting severe downward pressure on faculty size, and no helpful mushroom is at hand to help us achieve a stable comfort level. Our inability to encompass the world by adding a wealth of new hires is a practical problem with theoretical consequences. Traditionally focused on the relations of a few literary “great powers,” our discipline increasingly needs to take into account a much wider range of cultures, and of languages, than ever before. If we wish to respond to the opportunities and the challenges offered to comparatism by globalization, we will need to rethink our relation to the national languages and literatures that have long been the focus of comparative study.

Type
Theories and Methodologies
Information
PMLA , Volume 128 , Issue 3 , May 2013 , pp. 622 - 628
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by The Modern Language Association of America

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