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Against world literature : on the politics of untranslatability

01 Jan 2013-
TL;DR: In this paper, Apter argues that incommensurability and what Apter calls the "untranslatable" are insufficiently built into the literary heuristic, and argues that the assumption of translatability should be replaced by a polemical critique of recent efforts to revive World Literature models of literary studies (Moretti, Casanova, etc).
Abstract: The book engages in a polemical critique of recent efforts to revive World Literature models of literary studies (Moretti, Casanova, etc) on the grounds that they construct their curricula on an assumption of translatability. As a result, incommensurability and what Apter calls the "untranslatable" are insufficiently built into the literary heuristic. Drawing on philosophies of translation developed by de Man, Derrida, Sam Weber, Barbara Johnson, Abdelfattah Kilito and Edouard Glissant, as well as on the way in which "the untranslatable" is given substancein the context of Barbara Cassin's Vocabulaire europeen des philosophies: Dictionnaire des intraduisibles, the aim is to activate Untranslatability as a theoretical fulcrum of Comparative Literature with bearing on approaches to world literature, literary world systems and literary history, the politics of periodization, the translation of philosophy and theory, the bounds of non-secular proscription and cultural sanction, free versus privatized authorial property, and the poetics of translational difference.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 2017-Geoforum
TL;DR: The work of the Chicago anti-eviction campaign points to how various modes of collectivism can be asserted through practices of occupation as well as through global frameworks of human rights as discussed by the authors.

197 citations


Cites background from "Against world literature : on the p..."

  • ...Apter (2014), argues that World Literature ‘‘affirms a psychopolitical structure of possessive collectivism.”...

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored the tension that emerges between disciplinary geographical knowledge production and area studies knowledge production, particularly connections to non-western areas on which many geographers work, and suggested three alternative knowledge production tactics aimed at closing any such gaps and democratically reconstitute disciplinary Geography's vanguard.
Abstract: This paper explores tensions that emerge from the injunction to make progress in geographical knowledge production in the globalizing landscape of higher education and research. The paper identifies gaps that emerge between disciplinary geographical knowledge production and area studies knowledge production, particularly connections to non-western areas on which many geographers work. It suggests these gaps are symptomatic and productive of the discipline’s problematically constituted community: the ‘we’ of Geography’s vanguard. The paper charts the precipitation of these tensions within Geography’s disciplinary dispositif before suggesting three alternative knowledge production tactics aimed at closing any such gaps and that in turn democratically reconstitute disciplinary Geography’s ‘we’.

71 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that an approach to literature and space that takes multilingualism within society and literary culture as a structuring and generative principle is more productive for world literature than approaches based only on cosmopolitan perspectives of circulation and recognition.
Abstract: This essay questions the geographical categories used to underpin current theoretical and methodological approaches to “world literature,” which end up making nine-tenths of the world, and of literature produced in the world, drop off the world map or appear “peripheral.” Focusing on the multilingual north Indian region of Awadh in the early modern period, it argues that an approach to literature and space that takes multilingualism within society and literary culture as a structuring and generative principle and holds both local and cosmopolitan perspectives in view is more productive for world literature than approaches based only on cosmopolitan perspectives of circulation and recognition.

60 citations

Dissertation
30 Nov 2017
TL;DR: The role of exile in the work of the Spanish Republican Arturo Barea (1897-1957) is explored in this article, where the authors suggest that, linked to the movements that exile generates (physical, social and intellectual), the concept of "transnational" can be used as an analytical tool with which to interrogate Barea's work and its interpretations.
Abstract: This thesis explores the role of exile in the work of the Spanish Republican Arturo Barea (1897-1957). It suggests that, linked to the movements that exile generates (physical, social and intellectual), the concept of ‘transnational’ can be used as an analytical tool with which to interrogate Barea’s work and its interpretations. It was during his exile in Britain that Barea became a professional writer, a literary critic and a broadcaster for the BBC. He published his autobiographical trilogy The Forging of a Rebel, edited by T.S. Eliot, in London between 1941 and 1946. This work was immediately translated into several languages, but was only printed in Spanish in its Argentinian edition of 1951, and was not published in Spain until 1977. Through a combined reading of the trilogy alongside a larger body of fictional and non-fictional work the thesis offers a detailed historical analysis of the first context of production and reception of Barea’s writing in Britain, focusing on the period of 1938-1945. It highlights the challenges and opportunities of exile as a transnational and cosmopolitan experience, and demonstrates the different ways in which the homeland and the host state intersect in Barea’s work. Barea’s writings are read here as exercises of cross-cultural translation in which Spain, its people and the Spanish Civil War were construed for a British – and later international – public, while Britain, its people and their role in the Second World War were also interpreted for a Latin American audience. This thesis emphasizes the historical importance of the informal intellectual networks, the publishing landscape, and the ‘corporate cosmopolitanism’ of the BBC as the institutional sites in which Barea developed his work. A transnational and cosmopolitan approach can offer an avenue to analyse Spanish Republican exile cultural products in a wider historical setting.

55 citations

01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: The International Baccalaureate (IB) defines international mindedness as "the acceptance of non-western cultures on all three IB programs" as discussed by the authors, and the IB's mission is to "define internationalmindedness in increasingly clear terms".
Abstract: This report provides an account of the conceptualisation of international mindedness and existing instruments for assessing it This report is structured so that throughout, clear coherent links are made to IB documents and 'big' IB ideas are drawn together It describes and captures the evolution of the concept of 'international mindedness' from earlier meanings The report works towards the development of a conception of 'international mindedness' that is relevant to current situations of 21st century education This report contains a range of resource materials for use in workshopping the concept of "21st century international mindedness" The conceptualisation of international mindedness as a basis for internationalising education is a problem For instance, in Towards a continuum of international education the International Baccalaureate (IB) recognises that a key challenge to its programmes is that they "have grown from a western humanist tradition, [and now] the influence of non-western cultures on all three programmes is becoming increasingly important" (G1, 2008 p2) The IB came out of a western humanist philosophy The IB now articulates a particular sensitivity to the risks associated with partisan perspectives and strives to seek a broad range of views It is the issue of broadening the range of knowledge that goes into constituting international mindedness, which is emphasised in this report, providing resources for critical reflection on the constraints and possibilities for doing so In this way, the exploratory study reported here contributes to the IB's mission to "define international mindedness in increasingly clear terms, and the struggle to move closer to that ideal in practice"

49 citations

Trending Questions (1)
What is the main point of the book ( untranslateable : the system world )?

The main point of the book is to critique recent efforts to revive World Literature models of literary studies on the grounds that they assume translatability, and to argue for the importance of the concept of "the untranslatable" in Comparative Literature.