Introduction

The Globalization of Fiction/the Fiction of Globalization

Bibliographic Data

ID4438486
AuthorsSusie O''Brien, Susie O’brien (0000-0001-5439-893X), Susie O'Brien, Imre Szeman (0000-0002-2957-5049)
Year2001
Volume100
Issue3
Pages603-626
Publication date2001-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSouth Atlantic Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-2876 • E-ISSN: 1527-8026
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00382876-100-3-603
OpenAlexW2081235640
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited16

Forms such as the fabliau, Mennipean satire, and autobiography provide evidence of cultural migrations dating as far back as the medieval period; literature was global, then, before it was ever national.3 And as Stephen Greenblatt points out, ''English literature was always an unsteady amalgam of Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Cornish, and other voices of the vanquished, along with the voices of the dominant English regions, and the English language itself, so securely and apparently imperturbably at the center of the field, is revealed, under the pressure of examination, to be a mixed, impure, and constantly shifting medium.''4 It seems reasonable to suggest, then, that literature in general, and Anglophone literature in particular, is-and perhaps always has been-globalized.It should be clear immediately, however, that this response does not take up the real demand posed by our student's question, which seeks to understand a more fundamental entanglement between literature and the phenomena most commonly associated with globalization-transculturation, the various forms (from cultural to economic) and periods (from the time of Columbus to the present) of imperialism and colonialism, the violent and uneven impact of socio-cultural and economic systems on one another as they come into contact, the eclipse of traditional ways of life, the temporal (modernization) and spatial (nationalism-internationalismtransnationalism) demands of European modernity, the global spread of capitalism and Western liberalism, and so on.How are these processes expressed through, facilitated, and/or inhibited by literature?To ask this question is to think not just about how globalization is reflected thematically in fiction, for example, but also about literature's role in the narrative construction of the numerous discourses or ''fictions'' of globalization.One of the first things to realize about globalization is that its significance can only be grasped through its realization in a variety of narrative forms, spanning the range from accounts of the triumphant coming-into-being of global democracy to laments about the end of nature; literature no doubt has a role to play in how we produce these often contradictory narratives about globalization. 5 Whether one sees globalization as a contemporary phenomenon that defines the character of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, or merely as an extension of a process initiated millennia ago, there can be no doubt that the generation of narratives about globalization has assumed particular urgency over the last few decades.6 While the historical purview of our student's question is open to debate, it is clear that the

Globalization and Cultural Identity · Philippine History and Culture · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies

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