Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE IN AN AGE OF GLOBALIZATION:
Utrecht University The bylaws of the American Comparative Literature Association stipulate the writ-ing every ten years of "a report on the state of the discipline." The present collection Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization represents the latest in the series and is a follow up to Charles Bernheimer's Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism (1994). The structural similarities between the two titles, with their repetition of "Comparative Literature in the âge of " is striking, and I will corne back toit. The nineteen essays in the collection hâve been written by a team of eminent scholars and they respond not only to Bernheimer's collection and to the general thème of "globalization" but also to each other. The resuit is an interesting series of kaleidoscopic interventions, some highly readable and pulling lots of punch; others less user-friendly and, in attempting to arise to the occasion, somewhat convoluted and over-written. Granted: the "report" is a very awkward genre for which there are no rules and, given this need to improvise, the editer Haun Saussy has made a good job of providing a nuanced and multiperspectival account of the "state of the discipline". It would hâve enhanced the impact of the present volume, however, had it been at times less an inward looking colloquy among seniors and more inviting to the as-yet not initiated graduate student. As it is, it makes very interesting reading for the diehard senior member of staff (and presumably the members of the ACL A) while being less accessible to the future scholar or to those working in other disciplines and interested in finding out what Comparative Literature stands for, where it is going to, and why it might be important.
Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée
CRCL DECEMBER 2008 DÉCEMBRE RCLC
0319-051x708/35.4/353 ©Canadian Comparative Literature Association
354/
Utrecht University The bylaws of the American Comparative Literature Association stipulate the writ-ing every ten years of "a report on the state of the discipline." The present collection Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization represents the latest in the series and is a follow up to Charles Bernheimer's Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism (1994). The structural similarities between the two titles, with their repetition of "Comparative Literature in the âge of " is striking, and I will corne back toit. The nineteen essays in the collection hâve been written by a team of eminent scholars and they respond not only to Bernheimer's collection and to the general thème of "globalization" but also to each other. The resuit is an interesting series of kaleidoscopic interventions, some highly readable and pulling lots of punch; others less user-friendly and, in attempting to arise to the occasion, somewhat convoluted and over-written. Granted: the "report" is a very awkward genre for which there are no rules and, given this need to improvise, the editer Haun Saussy has made a good job of providing a nuanced and multiperspectival account of the "state of the discipline". It would hâve enhanced the impact of the present volume, however, had it been at times less an inward looking colloquy among seniors and more inviting to the as-yet not initiated graduate student. As it is, it makes very interesting reading for the diehard senior member of staff (and presumably the members of the ACL A) while being less accessible to the future scholar or to those working in other disciplines and interested in finding out what Comparative Literature stands for, where it is going to, and why it might be important.
Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée
CRCL DECEMBER 2008 DÉCEMBRE RCLC
0319-051x708/35.4/353 ©Canadian Comparative Literature Association
354/