Author：João Cezar de Castro Rocha

Abstract: Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents may offer an innovative way of framing the project behind this issue of the Journal of Foreign Languages and Cultures . In Freud’s terms, civilization is made possible through a paradoxical structure that at once allows and prohibits, favors and contains, engenders and represses.1 In other words, desire moves us towards intersubjective relationships but at the same time we can only manage to live in society if we...

Vol. 7 No. 1 June 2023      Time：2023-08-07 View Citation

Author：Larissa Moreira Fidalgo

Abstract: By establishing a critical dialogue with the observations of David Damrosch in Comparing the Literatures: Literary Studies in a Global Age concerning the challenges posed to Comparatism by the current state of the discipline, the question that we will address in the present work is, above all, a position on what it means to make a comparative study in a scenario marked by the reemergence of the phenomenon of world literature in literary studies. After directing our attention to The Longman Anthology of World Literature and The Norton Anthology of World Literature, we were able to see how both still describe an unequal system of legitimation and...

Vol. 7 No. 1 June 2023      Time：2023-08-07 View Citation

Author：Ren Haiyan

Abstract: Robinson Crusoe is more than a myth of modern individualism as labeled by Ian Watt, it is an embodiment of Enlightenment ideology. Since this modern myth first arrived in China via Japan at the turn of the 20th century, it was intentionally appropriated. This paper proposes the use of the concept of trans-vision to examine the first published Chinese translation of Robinson Crusoe, Juedao Piaoliu Ji, to reflect on its migration into China and on how, in an attempt to continue the Chinese tradition of wenren (literati), translated discourses are expected to contribute to the renewal and transformation of society in a painful period of transition.

Vol. 7 No. 1 June 2023      Time：2023-08-07 View Citation

Author：Helena Carvalhão Buescu

Abstract: In this interview, Helena Carvalhão Buescu develops her unique approach to comparative world literature, as she has proposed to reframe the concept. Within the scope of her approach, translation is given a new place in comparative literature, widening the horizons of literary experience.

Vol. 7 No. 1 June 2023      Time：2023-08-07 View Citation

Author：Simão Valente

Abstract: An analysis of Helena Buescu’s book The Experience of the Uncommon and Good Neighborhood: Comparative Literature and World Literature, published in Portuguese by Porto Editora, is undertaken as the best way of introducing her work to an international readership. A pride of place is given to the broadening of the concept of world literature as well as to the importance of translation.

Vol. 7 No. 1 June 2023      Time：2023-08-07 View Citation

Author：David Damrosch

Abstract: In this interview, David Damrosch ties the ends of his prolific and relevant contribution to literary studies. From the modern development of the concept of world literature to the organization of ambitious projects of World Literature anthologies; from the embracing of many worlds of world literary scholarship to the consideration of the emergence of A.I. and its possible consequences for the literary experience.

Vol. 7 No. 1 June 2023      Time：2023-08-07 View Citation

Author：José Luís Jobim

Abstract: This paper will present and discuss a few questions raised in David Damrosch’s Comparing the Literatures: Literary Studies in a Global Age, a book that, divided into chapters based on some selected keywords, develops relevant thematic nuclei, bringing to the fore literary authors, critics, and theorists.

Vol. 7 No. 1 June 2023      Time：2023-08-07 View Citation

Author：Zhang Longxi

Abstract: In this interview, Zhang Longxi explores topics and approaches that have made him one of the leading scholars on cross-cultural studies in the world. Longxi’s innovative understanding of both the relationship between East and West and literary hermeneutics is clarified in his latest contribution...

Vol. 7 No. 1 June 2023      Time：2023-08-07 View Citation

Author：Chao Ling

Abstract: This essay reviews Zhang Longxi’s A History of Chinese Literature. The book covers Chinese literature from its very beginning to modern times. It emphasizes texts’ literary and aesthetic qualities when evaluating and historicizing literature. The book demonstrates the importance of canons in literary history, using Chinese tradition as an example. Therefore, it also brings the Chinese tradition into the broader framework of world literature. Reading Zhang’s concise historical overview of Chinese literature, we can better understand the interplay between literary tradition and the individual talent. Zhang Longxi has skillfully...

Vol. 7 No. 1 June 2023      Time：2023-08-07 View Citation

Author：Andrea Almeida Campos

Abstract: Literature and psychoanalysis are put into dialogue in order to perform an innovative reading of Machado de Assis’s The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, which is considered one of his masterpieces, alongside Quincas Borba and Dom Casmurro. The psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan is used as a theoretical reference.

Vol. 7 No. 1 June 2023      Time：2023-08-07 View Citation