Comparative Literature

Bystrom, Kerry;Hofmeyr, Isabel;

2017 Comparative Literature

doi: 10.1215/00104124-3794549

This article outlines the genesis and intellectual framing of the American Comparative Literature Association Forum on Oceanic Routes. Marshaling both “Routes” and “Oceanic,” the introduction sketches out the scholarly vectors associated with these terms as a way to assess the current field of Oceanic Studies. “Routes” points to work on the chronotope of the ship; vernacular and subaltern cosmopolitanisms at sea; inter-imperial assemblages; new metageographies; and the resource exploitation, militarization, and securitization of the ocean. “Oceanic” points to recent work on the hydromateriality of the seas from a post-human and planetary perspective. To these streams of scholarship, the article adds the notion of “hydrocolonialism.” The article ends with a summary of the contributions that make up the forum. Oceanic Studies oceanic routes hydro-colonialism amphibian aesthetics sea ontologies

Cohen, Ashley L.;

2017 Comparative Literature

doi: 10.1215/00104124-3794559

This essay begins by observing that the Indian and Atlantic Ocean worlds were deeply linked in eighteenth-century British literature and colonial discourse—so deeply, in fact, that they shared a common name: “the Indies.” Theorizing outward from this case study, this essay advocates a historicist approach to Oceanic Studies. Given that the shape of the world system has proved remarkably malleable over time, it argues that we need to pay more attention to the periodic reorganizations of oceanic space that have occurred over the course of the longue durée . More specifically, this essay suggests that literary scholars should attend to the ideological formations, or metageographies, that have been produced by—and in some cases helped to engender—these systemic shifts in the organization of global space. Finally, it argues that so doing will require adopting new methodologies around spatial scale. Atlantic world Indian Ocean world British Empire eighteenth-century literature transnational

Samuelson, Meg;

2017 Comparative Literature

doi: 10.1215/00104124-3794569

This essay makes a case for the categories of littoral literature and coastal form through which it aims to take up the expansive possibilities of the maritime turn while keeping both the materiality of the ocean and the locality of the shore in sight. It elaborates the notion of coastal form through a focus on the African Indian Ocean littoral and with reference to the oeuvres of Mia Couto and Abdulrazak Gurnah. Both are shown to muddle the inside-outside binary that delineates nations and continents, and which has been particularly stark in framing Africa in both imperial and nativist thought. At the same time, coastal form is found to decenter, extend, and thicken constructions of world literature, while opening to a planetary perspective sensible to the prodigious and implacable forces of the Anthropocene. Indian Ocean African literature Mia Couto Abdulrazak Gurnah Anthropocene

Somerville, Alice Te Punga;

2017 Comparative Literature

doi: 10.1215/00104124-3794579

Tracing the various names used for the Pacific Ocean and drawing on Pacific scholarship and poetry, this article suggests alternative genealogies for the field of Ocean Studies that are visible from the Pacific region. Observing that the claim that Ocean Studies began in the North Atlantic echoes the history of European colonialism, and suggesting that one particular element of the Pacific Ocean is ongoing and diverse Indigenous presence, it reflects on the lack of engagement with Pacific scholarship in academic work globally. Rather than Ocean Studies turning its attention to the Pacific, it would benefit from reconsidering and reconfiguring its own genealogies in relation to multiple sites, perspectives, and oceans. Pacific Oceania Indigenous Pacific Studies Ocean Studies

DeLoughrey, Elizabeth;

2017 Comparative Literature

doi: 10.1215/00104124-3794589

This essay outlines the development of the “oceanic turn” and the rise of “critical ocean studies” as vital to figuring the Anthropocene. It builds upon the work of Elizabeth Povinelli's theory of “geontologies,” and by turning to the submarine sculptures of Jason deCaires Taylor it argues for a provocative Caribbean aesthetic of “sea ontologies.” By examining the multispecies collaborations of coral and reef ecologies, it suggests a new oceanic imaginary for the more-than-human Anthropocene. Anthropocene Caribbean environmental art Derek Walcott Jason deCaires Taylor

Price, Rachel;

2017 Comparative Literature

doi: 10.1215/00104124-3794599

This response highlights several important currents in Oceanic Studies raised in the essays included in this special forum on the topic. It signals the importance of such work in an era in which the sea's status as a global commons is both freshly vital and imperiled. It then comments on work that historicizes both the formation and use of different oceans; that underscores the differences between Oceanic Studies and histories of globalization; and that interrogates the role for literature, art, and aesthetic theory more generally in engaging with research into the oceans. Along the way, the afterword identifies important recent work in history, literary studies, art, and histories of science that indicates promising avenues in Oceanic Studies. Oceanic Studies commons environmental art political ecology

Shankar, S.;

2017 Comparative Literature

doi: 10.1215/00104124-3794609

This essay harnesses the use of translation as a critical method to explore affect in a comparative mode. By way of readings of ethnography (Margaret Trawick's Notes on Love in a Tamil Family ), film (the Hindi-language masala film Guide ), and fiction (Chinua Achebe's Nigerian novel A Man of the People ), the essay illustrates the different ways different cultures understand and express an affect such as “love.” The recent surge of critical interest in affect has not properly engaged the challenge of this kind of cross-cultural work, which is implicated not just in linguistic differences but also in differences of culture, genre, and disciplines of study. Instead, Affect Studies has often spoken (implicitly or otherwise) of affect in a universalist vein. While acknowledging the limits of translation, the essay concludes that a considered approach to translation as method would prove enabling for a Comparative Affect Studies. Achebe Comparative Affect Studies song-dance sequences translation as method postcolonial philology

Rikhardsdottir, Sif;

2017 Comparative Literature

doi: 10.1215/00104124-3794619

This article considers how we can discuss emotions (a human phenomenon) within literature (a discursive construction). The article poses the question of where we can locate this perceived literary emotionality in medieval works and considers the role of the reader in constructing the emotive interiority of the feeling subject in medieval literature. The focus of the essay is thus on the modern reader's engagement with the medieval textual object d'art and the unique representation of medieval literary creativity as both a physical artefact (the manuscript) and an act of vocal performance in the past. It therefore addresses material textuality as well as the implications of aural performativity for generating and sustaining empathetic connection between text and reader, or between the text and an audience of listeners. emotion voice performativity medieval literature Chanson de Roland

Caselli, Daniela;

2017 Comparative Literature

doi: 10.1215/00104124-3794631

This article analyzes Dante's presence in Dorothy Richardson's novel series Pilgrimage , focusing on Interim and making references to Deadlock and Revolving Lights. It argues that, although his words are never quoted directly, Dante is a strong presence in the novel and a revealing case study for understanding the complex theories of intertextuality at work in Pilgrimage . Dante is never an authoritative source to be used “as a code or a weapon … to crush someone,” but contributes instead to shaping the novel's reluctance to transform literary precedents in measurable cultural value. The article explores the significance of the “Dante lecture”; looks at how Pilgrimage throws a bridge across modernist experimentalism and the nineteenth century by engaging in a complex dialogue with Philip Wicksteed's theories of political economy; and focuses on the ironic ways in which Interim links Dante to gender via the figure of an almost invisible female translator, Wilhelmina Kuenen. Dorothy Richardson Dante theories of intertextuality history of political economy gender and feminism

Besser, Stephan;van Dijk, Yra;

2017 Comparative Literature

doi: 10.1215/00104124-3794641

In 2012, two curiously similar novels appeared in the Netherlands and the United States: Dave Eggers's A Hologram for the King and Arnon Grunberg's The Man without Illness . Both feature Western male protagonists who travel to the Gulf region for business purposes and utterly fail. This article explores these narratives as “fictions of globalization” (James Annesley) that use spatial tropes and imaginaries as well as multiple references to the work of Franz Kafka to tell stories of alienation and Western masculine failure in the global capitalist economy. In both novels an alternative is imagined as possible only from a marginal position outside the discourses and spaces of globalization: in intimacy, personal encounters, and gestures of care. globalization masculinity space/spatiality Kafka ethics