Postcolonial Singularity and a World Literature Yet-to-Come

Bibliographic Data

ID4837070
AuthorsLorna Burns (0000-0002-2142-8853, University of St Andrews, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume20
Issue4
Pages243-259
Publication date2015-10-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAngelaki (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0969-725X • E-ISSN: 1469-2899
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0969725x.2015.1096650
OpenAlexW2214647396
LanguageEN
References cited19

This article considers the challenge posed by Gayatri Spivak to rethink world literature along postcolonial lines as an ethical encounter with alterity. Read in this way, Spivak participates in a reframing of world literature that retains the critical gains made by postcolonial theory and suggests that the work of world literary analysis ought not necessarily be de/prescriptive (classifying and ordering) but might involve a contestation of the power relations that structure the world. In developing this argument, I draw on four further perspectives: Pascale Casanova's problematic assertion of literary singularity in The World Republic of Letters; Fredric Jameson's theorization of “third world literature” as counterpoint to Casanova's limiting understanding of national literature; Gilles Deleuze, who offers a way to rethink world literature in a process of becoming; and Édouard Glissant, whose work proposes a “relational” vision of difference that, like that of Spivak, demands an ethical, imaginative response to literature as literature

Alterity · Argument (complex analysis · Assertion · Cognitive reframing · Counterpoint · Epistemology · Immanence · Linguistics · Power (physics · Sociology · World literature · African history and culture studies · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Psychology · South Asian Cinema and Culture

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access