Postcolonial singularity and a world literature yet-to-come
Abstract
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.
Citation
Burns , L M 2015 , ' Postcolonial singularity and a world literature yet-to-come ' , Angelaki : Journal of the Theoretical Humanities , vol. 20 , no. 4 , pp. 243-259 . https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2015.1096650
Publication
Angelaki : Journal of the Theoretical Humanities
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0969-725XType
Journal article
Rights
© 2014. Taylor & Francis. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Angelaki on 27/10/2015, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0969725X.2015.1096650
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