Author：Ying Zhou

Abstract: Critics tend to cast a suspicious eye on Derek Mahon’s seemingly obsessive revisions of his works. Though it needs to be acknowledged that Mahon’s habitual practice of revision does not always lead to a definite improvement of the poems’ quality, this article argues that the poet revises to destabiliz...

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022      Time：2023-01-03 View Citation

Author：Katie Bradshaw

Abstract: José Garcia Villa’s “comma poem,” in which he introduces “a new, special and poetic use” for the comma, is arguably the poet’s most contentious innovation. Starting from an appropriation of Leonard Caspar’s description of the comma poems as “demonstrably malfunctional as a dragging foot,” this essay argues that the comma poem was a visual performance whereby Villa dis-oriented and de-naturalized poetic “flows” through a queer/crip aesthetic of hesitation and brokenness. Read as footsteps and/or footnotes, the comma’s minor mark interrupts and dis-ables normative flow, forcing the reader to adopt a nonnormative “gait.” Utilizing Sara Ahmed’s phenomenological theory of “queer orientation,” I examine how the comma ...

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022      Time：2023-01-03 View Citation

Author：A. J. Carruthers

Abstract: Australian avant-garde raises all the contradictions of avant-garde studies in the present time. Antipodal vanguards in the 20th and 21st centuries would grapple with various aspects of Australian national history, being in various ways and times between East and West, the aligned and non-aligned, the political and geopolitical in p...

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022      Time：2023-01-03 View Citation

Author：Hui Chen, Shilei Zhai

Abstract: The translation equivalence between龍/lung and dragon as well as夷/i and barbarian embodies the way of discourse power competition between China and the United Kingdom of Great Britain with different discourse pedigrees and discourse systems. The translation equivalence between龍/lung and dragon was constructed by means of mutation and discourse rewriting, and the political implication and cultural value of龍/lung in Chinese context were ablated. The equivalence between 夷/i and barbarian in the English context was established through the translation manipulation of the British, and the meaning of夷/i was separated from the Chinese historical context forcibly. The British operated discourse mutation on core Chinese political discourses via translation manipulation to weaken the subjectivity of China and bring China into the ...

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022      Time：2023-01-03 View Citation

Author：

Abstract: Vol.6 No.2 2022 Notes on Contributors

Vol. 6 No. 2 Dec. 2022      Time：2023-01-03 View Citation

Author：Zhang Longxi, Omid Azadibougar

Abstract: This introductory essay discusses the Eurocentrism of Comparative Literature and argues that as an effect of the structures of the modern humanities, the study of non-European literatures has been mostly consigned to area studies and not literary studies departments at universities. Therefore, despite the efforts to overcome this condition of the field, including the rise of World Literature since the turn of the 21st century, scholarship has reproduced the status quo to the extent that World Literature also remains a largely Eurocentric project. We argue that revisionist efforts have so far operated within the European theoretical space and referred to a limited number of languages. The essays collected in the present issue address this problem and propose diverse solutions for overcoming the Eurocentrism of the discipline.

Vol. 6 No. 1 June 2022      Time：2022-06-20 View Citation

Author：Ben Hutchinson

Abstract: In this essay, I suggest that the study of comparative literature is subject to the same distorting pressures as the study of the Orient. "Comparativism," as I call it, is like orientalism: both a description and a distortion. Constructing its critique in the process of comparing, it inherits deep foundations of historical, cultural, and geographical prejudgment. As with Said's orientalism, the cornerstone of this construction is West-Eastern (and North-Southern) paternalism, but it is far from the only building block: other obstacles include predetermined views of genre, medium, and even language. There is little, in fact, that is not grist to the will of Western-educated critics....

Vol. 6 No. 1 June 2022      Time：2022-06-20 View Citation

Author：José Luís Jobim

Abstract: In this essay I will use the expression New Worldism to refer to a particular representation of the New World, developed in Europe. I will take some theories related to this expression (theories of lack and acclimatization) to provide a short introduction to them, taking into special consideration their connection to comparatism as it was developed in 19th-century Brazil.

Vol. 6 No. 1 June 2022      Time：2022-06-20 View Citation

Author：Ali Behdad, Dominic Thomas

Abstract: This essay explores recent incursions into comparative modalities and highlights how global comparative literature better reflects the ways in which borders and mobility have become defining elements of the 21st century. However, the humanities remain under attack. Recent openings towards decolonizing the curriculum and strengthening synergies between various social justice approaches may prove fruitful in coordinating defenses. Today, economic and historical circumstances are such that it has become increasingly hard to think of literary traditions in monolithic terms since globalization has dramatically transformed the circulation of literary works. In our understanding, a comparativist is not necessarily invested either in demonstrating the intrinsic connections between cultural or...

Vol. 6 No. 1 June 2022      Time：2022-06-20 View Citation

Author：David Damrosch

Abstract: The Eurocentrism of Comparative Literature has meant that non-European literary texts have been studied through either vague universalism or imperialist exoticism. What can correct, or complement, such orientalist knowledge is contrapuntal reading with local knowledge, to tackle cultural difference not as an anomaly but a fact to be analytically accommodated. Engaging previous theoretical work in literary studies and anthropology that have struggled with the Eurocentric foundations of scholarly disciplines, this paper presents a sample of contrapuntal reading by examining the 1976 English translation of Kālidāsa’s Meghadūta,...

Vol. 6 No. 1 June 2022      Time：2022-06-20 View Citation