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‘World literature’ as a problem and challenge
https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2018-6-13-33
Abstract
The article focuses on the conception, transformation, and operation of the term ‘world literature’, including its historical origins and modern problematics. When meaning is problematized, and the reality of world history is radically revised, the changes cannot but affect the derivative phenomenon of world literature, where historical challenges give rise to the need for reconstruction of its very concept and clarification of its components (language, culture, nation, and territory), as well as of the nature of their connection. The author distinguishes between world, or global, literature, on the one hand, and globalization, multiculturalism, and other concepts, on the other. He argues that cultural references in a ‘post-national’ world are doomed, and that world literature, rather than neutralizing cultural differences, should identify and define them, also by comparison.
Keywords
world literature,
national cultures,
national languages,
multiculturalism,
globalization,
comparative studies
Supporting agencies: Russian Science Foundation (project No. 17-78-30029)
About the Author
I. O. Shaytanov
Russian State University for the Humanities;
Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Igor O. Shaytanov – Doctor of Philology
6/1 Miusskaya Sq., Moscow, 125993
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Review
For citations:
Shaytanov I.O. ‘World literature’ as a problem and challenge. Voprosy literatury. 2018;(6):13-33. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2018-6-13-33
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