CLCWeb: Comparative
Literature and Culture: A WWWeb Journal ISSN
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CLCWeb Contents
1.3 (September 1999)
<http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb99-3/totosy99.html> © Purdue
University Press
Steven TÖTÖSY
de ZEPETNEK
Author's profile: Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/totosycv.html>
works in comparative culture and media studies. His published work includes arcticles
and books in the areas of literary and culture theory, modern and contemporary
European and North American fiction, ethnic monority writing, audience studies
and readership, film and literature, etc. His most recent book is Comparative
Literature: Theory, Method, Application (1998). Among other projects, he is
now working on an intellectual and institutional history of the discipline of
comparative literature, a theoretical framework and methodology for comparative
cultural studies as well as the framework's application to various areas of literature
and culture. The paper below is forthcoming in the Purdue University Press monograph
series volume Comparative Literature and Comparative Cultural Studies
(Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek), see at <http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/series/compstudies.asp
>. E-mail: <clcweb@purdue.edu>.
From Comparative Literature Today toward Comparative Cultural Studies
1. Historically, the comparative perspective and method has proven itself indispensable
in many disciplines and established itself accordingly intellectually as well
as institutionally. For example, in a review of the recent volume, The Comparative
Imagination: On the History of Racism, Nationalism, and Social Movements by
George M. Fredrickson (1997), it is argued that the comparative perspective "give[s]
us a good opportunity for assessing how comparative history can contribute to
modern knowledge ... in The Comparative Imagination, Fredrickson welcomes
the increasing tendency of historians of the United States to write from a "comparative
perspective ... by using foreign examples to explain what is distinctive about
American society" (Thompson 48; incidently, Fredrickson explains that before his
turn to history, he pursued the study of comparative literature [Fredrickson 8]).
In the humanities, it has been established sufficiently and often enough that
the discipline of comparative literature has intrinsically a content and form
which facilitate the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary study of literature
and culture. As well, it is generally accepted in scholarship that the discipline
has a history that substantiated its intrinsic aims and objectives in content
and in practice. Predicated on the borrowing of methods from other disciplines
and on the application of the appropriated method to areas of study single-language
literary study more often than not tends to neglect, the discipline is difficult
to define however, because it is fragmented and pluralistic, non-self-referential
and inclusive.
2. As a comparatist, I find it irritating that approaches and subject areas in
cultural studies purport to be innovative when in fact the same areas have been
studied under similar terms in comparative literature (for the argument that comparative
literature historically included many aspects of current cultural studies, see,
for example, Daniel and Peck 16-17; Straw 89; Tötösy 1994). And I consider
this practice a misleading and misdirected act in scholarship. With regard to
the current situation of cultural studies, it is also known among comparatists
and among a critical mass of scholars working in the humanities -- although rarely
acknowledged publicly -- that the discipline of comparative literature is rich
in its history with regard to both theory and practice of much of what cultural
studies is about today. Areas of study such as popular culture or film and literature
have a long history of incisive work in comparative literature, for example. It
is true, however, that cultural studies often presents new theoretical approaches
(more often than not borrowed similarly to comparative literature), methods, terminologies,
and rhetorical content which when applied result in innovative work in the study
of culture. In consequence, I accept the currency of cultural studies and I am
aware of the intellectual and institutional difficulties comparative literature,
in contrast, is experiencing globally while cultural studies has acquired both
intellectual and institutional standing. Thus, for political reasons but which
are at the same time parallel to intellectual bases and considerations, I intend
to explore the viability of enriching and developing both fields of study, that
of comparative literature and that of cultural studies. This theory construction
involves the merger of aspects of comparative literature and cultural studies
into a new approach I designate as "comparative cultural studies." In this article,
for reasons implicit in my statement above, namely that comparative literature
has had contributed significantly to literary studies, I argue that it also has
much to offer to cultural studies. In my discussion, I begin with a description
of some aspects of the current situation of comparative literature from which
I will then proceed to a draft proposal of a framework for "comparative cultural
studies." In principle, comparative cultural studies is conceived as an approach
-- to be developed eventually to a full-fledged framework -- containing (for now)
three areas of theoretical content: 1) To study literature (text and/or literary
system) with and in the context of culture and the discipline of cultural studies;
2) In cultural studies itself to study literature with borrowed elements (theories
and methods) from comparative literature; and 3) To study culture and its composite
parts and aspects in the mode of the proposed "comparative cultural studies" approach
instead of the currently reigning single-language approach dealing with a topic
with regard to its nature and problematics in one culture only. In this schema
of theoretical components the study of literature is not privileged although for
now because of my own interests I confer focus on literature. In other words,
the discipline of comparative cultural studies would implicitly and explicitly
disrupt the established hierarchy of cultural products and production similarly
to the disruption cultural studies itself has performed. Among others, the suggestion
is to pluralize and parallelize the study of culture without hierarchization.
An International History of the Discipline of Comparative Literature
3. With regard to the history of the discipline of comparative literature, it
is surprising that a truly international and synthetic history of the discipline
-- a description of its history within the larger field of literary studies as
well as the history of theories and methodologies within comparative literature
and with a description of the discipline's institutional history and making --
is yet to be written. Curiously, apart from usually short descriptive studies
such as chapter two in the early volume by Ulrich Weisstein, Einführung
in die Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft (1968) or chapter one in Claudio
Guillén's The Challenge of Comparative Literature (1993), or, in
German, the chapter "Zu Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Komparatistik," in Peter V.
Zima and Johann Strutz's Komparatistik: Einführung in die Vergleichende
Literaturwissenschaft (1992) or brief descriptions of comparative literature
within national borders such as those in the recent collected volume of Tania
Franco Carvalhal, ed., Comparative Literature World Wide: Issues and Methods
(1997) or as in the Italian volume by Armando Gnisci and Francesca Sinopoli, eds.,
Comparare i comparatismi. La comparatistica letteraria oggo in Europa e nel
mondo (1995), the history of the discipline is available only in this fragmented
form. There are also some volumes such as Arno Kappler's Der literarische Vergleich.
Beiträge zu einer Vorgeschichte der Komparatistik (1976) or specific
histories such as Peter Theodor Leithmann's Moriz Carriere and the Development
of Comparative Literature (1977). However, these studies, similar to the article-length
type I mentioned above, offer a partial and limited view of the history of the
discipline at best (for a selected international bibliography of histories and
theories of comparative literature, see Tötösy 1999 <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library/clitbib1-99.html>;
for a shortlist of recently published volumes in comparative literature, see Tötösy
1999 <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library/booklist.html>;
for a long list of works in comparative literature, see Tötösy 1999
<http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library/clitbib2-99.html>).
4. There are "supplementary" types of material which would also be important for
a synthetic international history of comparative literature. For example, personal
histories such as Lionel Gossmann and Mihail I. Spariosu, eds., Building a
Profession: Autobiographical Perspectives on the Beginnings of Comparative Literature
in the United States (1994; with articles by Wellek, Levin, Lange, Greene,
Rosenmeyer, Holdheim, Balakian, Guerard, Hart, Furst, Perloff, Lindenberger, Gillespie,
Corngold, Gossmann, Spariosu) or descriptions of various conferences in comparative
literature such as Marko Juvan's "Thematics and Intellectual Content: The XVth
Triennial Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association in
Leiden" (see Juvan at <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb99-1/juvan99.html>)
or my own "Comparative Literature and Applied Cultural Studies, Or, a Report
About the XIVth Triennial Congress of the ICLA/AILC (University of Alberta, August
1994)" (Tötösy 1994). As well, there is a marked need of institutional
histories of comparative literature in both national and international contexts
(for a selection of sources, see Kirby 197-203).
5. The usual process of presenting histories of comparative literature in all
of the above mentioned volumes and in all others is in the context of and limited
to national borders, that is, comparative literature in Germany, in France, in
the United States, in China, etc. While this is the approach I would like to circumvent
in an international history of comparative literature I am working on now, I realize
that it is indeed easier to proceed in the national model. And when I myself,
in this article, present examples of a renaissance of comparative literature in
various "peripheral" countries (see below), I present these examples by listing
countries (because it is easier to do so). However, I would like to point out
with utmost conviction that this is not the best approach. A more "comparatist"
model would be to discuss the histories of comparative literature with regard
to their cultural and regional settings, their sources of theory and method, and
so on. One useful approach would be, I propose, to present a description of the
history of the discipline based on a regional approach where "region" is understood
as a specific cultural environment, a system of communication incl. a specific
environment of scholarship historically and linguistically determined (and I hope
to be able to present such an international and synthetic history of the discipline
in my forthcoming work).
Comparative Literature Today
6. In my observation, compressed here in a brief overview, the following
developments can be observed in comparative literature from a global perspective
of the last ten to fifteen years: 1) The appropriation of theory by cultural studies
and English and the consequent reduction of the area of activity by comparative
literature, tied to the diminishing institutional stability of the discipline
of comparative literature in the traditional centres of the discipline (USA and
Europe); 2) The development of a comparative European literature; 3) The emerging
of comparative literature in "peripheral" geo-cultural spaces of scholarship;
4) The "Americanization" of comparative literature; and 5) The potential development
of comparative literature with/within new media. In the following, I will proceed
in my discussion with a focus on selected points from the above five points, with
the plan to eventually develop my discussion and proposals in forthcoming publications.
With regard to my second observation, namely the development of a comparative
European literature, I take my point of departure with George Steiner. When Steiner
gave his inaugural lecture as Lord Widenfeld Professor of European Comparative
Literature at Oxford University in 1994, he presented a paper entitled "What is
Comparative Literature?" First, Steiner described how "every act of reception
of significant form, in language, in art, in music, is comparative" (1) and he
argued that "from their inception, literary studies and the arts of interpretation
have been comparative" (3). True, especially today, after literary theory has
become mainstream and in the era of cultural studies, this position is hard to
refute. Steiner proceeds to say that "I take comparative literature to be, at
best, an exact and exacting art of reading, a style of listening to oral and written
acts of language which privileges certain components in these acts. Such components
are not neglected in any mode of literary study, but they are, in comparative
literature, privileged" (9). If I understand Steiner correctly, he is referring
here to that traditional form of comparative literature where the knowledge of
foreign languages for the scholar of comparative literature is an essential factor.
Fair enough and I agree with him. He then outlines three specific areas which
are essential features of the discipline in his opinion: 1) "It aims to elucidate
the quiddity, the autonomous core of historical and present 'sense of the world'
(Husserl's Weltsinn) in the language and to clarify, so far as is possible,
the conditions, the strategies, the limits of reciprocal understanding and misunderstanding
as between languages. In brief, comparative literature is an art of understanding
centred in the eventuality and defeats of translation" (10), 2) the "primacy of
the matter of translation in comparative literature relates directly to what I
take to be the second focus" (11), and 3) "Thematic studies form a third `centre
of gravity' in comparative literature" (13). Steiner's argument, clearly, hinges
on the knowledge of foreign languages and on the matter of subject matter, that
is, themes, which are universal, at least in principle. While I agree with Steiner
that this knowledge is an essential and basic aspect of the discipline, I find
his argument seriously lacking. For, as we know, the knowledge of foreign languages
is not necessarily a privilege of comparatists, i.e., there are many scholars
in literary studies in English departments or in other national language departments
who do speak and work with other languages. In my opinion, the distinctive feature
of comparative literature is cumulative, that is, including interlinked
factors such as the knowledge of foreign languages with an inclusionary ideology
(the attention to alterité) tied to precise methodology (for an
elaboration, see Tötösy, Comparative Literature 13-23). Curiously,
Steiner does not mention methodology either explicitly or implicitly in his argumentation
and thus this part of his position is hardly defendable in the present situation
of the discipline.
7. In the USA, the much discussed Charles Bernheimer volume of collected
articles, Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism (1995;
with articles by Appiah, Pratt, Riffaterre, Apter, Bernheimer, Brooks, Chow, Culler,
Damrosch, Fox-Genovese, Greene, Higonnet, Lionnet, Perloff, Russo, Siebers, Weinstein),
is in several ways similar to Steiner's arguments. With particular attention to
what I find of importance, namely theory and methodology, the vast majority of
contributors to the volume do not mention methodology either implicitly or explicitly.
Of course, the main and most important feature of the volume is its aspects of
and call for politically based ideology of inclusion. And the question of methodology
does not appear in most comparative literature textbooks or works of today either.
Perhaps this is for the reason that comparative literature, either as the translation
of literatures and cultures (as in a conceptual and ideological translation and/or
as as actual translation) or as a cross-cultural inclusionary ideology and practice
is assumed to be a methodology per se. While I accept this as a historical argument
and as an essential characteristic in the same historical context, I propose that
this is not enough to justify the discipline today. And the fact that the comparative
approach without explicit methodology is not enough to convince scholars today
is evident, for instance, in an article entitled "Why Comparisons Are Odious"
by the editor of Critical Inquiry, W.J.T. Mitchell, in 1996, in his response
to the 1995 topical issue of World Literature Today, Comparative Literature:
States of the Art. I would even argue that Steiner's proposal of a comparative
European literature -- as coming from an internationally reputed scholar whose
work otherwise without doubt has been influential -- manifests in some ways a
certain regression. In contrast, Hugo Dyserinck situated comparative literature
a decade earlier, in 1985, in two major areas, "1) A comparative history of literature,
involving the mutual relations, as well as the similarities and differences, between
individual literatures" and "2) A comparative theory and methodology of literature,
dealing with literary theories developed in individual countries (or linguistic
areas) and with corresponding methods of literary criticism" (xvii). In principle,
the second point is closer to my own contention that in comparative literature
one ought to state at all times a clearly and precisely described method which
then is applied. And there are of course some good examples of such as in Dyserinck's
theoretical and applied work, imagology, which has evolved since its early days
in the 1960s and 1970s into a full-blown field of imagology with many studies
where the framework has been applied successfully (see Joep Leersen's imagology
material and bibliography at <http://www.hum.uva.nl/images>).
There are some areas, however, where Steiner's argumentation corresponds to both
Dyserinck's first area of comparative literature (literary history) and to Susan
Bassnett's or André Lefevere's proposal that the discipline may be saved
by such areas of study, among others, as the study of translation: see Bassnett's
Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction (1993) and Lefevere's Translating
Literature: Practice and Theory in a Comparative Literature Context (1992).
In Steiner's proposal this is located in the "dissemination and reception of literary
works across time and place" (11), further specified in the study of "who reads,
who could read what and when? (12). This area of scholarship, indeed, I find promising,
especially when defined as the area of "sociology and history of reading and readership"
I propose in my own work (see, for example, Tötösy, Comparative Literature
43-78).
8. The notion of a comparative European literature is also prominent in French
comparative literature. Among the publications of recent years, in particular
the collected volume of Béatrice Didier, ed., Précis de Littérature
Européenne (1998) and Didier Souiller and Wladimir Troubetzkoy, eds.,
Littérature comparée (1997) propagate the said notion championed
by Steiner. The Précis de Littérature Européenne is
divided into sections of methods, space, periods, and genres. In the first section,
methods, the volume contains several articles discussing in various ways and from
several points of view the notion of a the theory of comparative European literature
and the topics range from the problematics of the study of European literature,
the history of a European literature, the comparative history of myth in European
literature, the question of European literature and social classes, European cultures
and interdisciplinarity, the publishing history, libraries, and the reading of
literature in Europe, and the history of the teaching of literatures in Europe.
As the editor of the volume, Didier, announces and argues for, the volume is about
comparative European literature. However, the definition of a European literature
encompasses mainstream literatures and cultures (which I would call canonization
one) and within the mainstream canonized texts and authors (which I would call
canonization two). There are a few articles which deal with marginal, minor, or
peripheral literatures and cultures in Europe, such as Jiddish and Arabic and
there are two articles which argue "pour une littérature qui ne se limite
pas à celle des 'langues courantes'" (185-89) and for the "place des littératures
régionales en Europe" (191-98). Overall however, the general tone of the
articles emanates from a national approach to literatures and cultures and the
notion that in a unified Europe each literature and culture becomes "regional"
is untouched and implicitly rejected. The approach and tone in the Souiller and
Troubetzkoy volume is similar. In other words, there is an implicit and at times
explicit hierarchy in the approach, which then stretches also to the methodologies
discussed and presented. Here, comparative literature is based on the premise
of national literatures which then can be and should be compared to each other
and that the comparisons rest on the canon of mainstream literatures and cultures
as well as on the canon of specific authors writing in the mainstream languages
and cultures. Granted, it is difficult to argue for a divorce of literature from
national bases and it takes some work to do this: Souiller and Troubetzkoy and
the contributors to the Didier volume offer studies where the focus on national
literatures -- compared or not -- is mediated by attention to genres or themes,
for instance. However, overall both volumes are in a traditional mode of literary
study and they do not take into account the newer developments of cultural studies,
feminism, multiculturalism, or any such. There are also a number of programs in
comparative literature where the notion of comparative European literature is
established.
9. With regard to my observation that comparative European literature is,
in principle, based on the premise of national literatures and that this represents
anew an entrapment in the national paradigm, there is a further aspect I would
like to mention briefly. This is the problem of national self-referentiality within
the scholarship of comparative European literature. For example, in the above
mentioned volumes of Souiller and Troubetzkoy and Didier, such volumes as Margaret
R. Higonnet's collected volume Borderwork: Feminist Engagements with Comparative
Literature (1994; with articles by Lionnet, Brodzki, Rajan, Metzger, Cullens,
Vlasopolos, Higonnet, Hirsch, Miller, Gölz, Malti-Douglas, Gaard, Goodwin,
Clark, Snaider Lanser, and Nnaemeka) are not cited and referred to. Obviously,
I am not criticising the fact that a particular text was not cited. Rather, my
observation brings me to the following additional factor with regard to national
self-referentiality in scholarship, comparative European or other. Whether it
is German or French oriented comparative literature, most work concentrates on
"home-grown" sources, that is, in the case of French works on French sources and
in the case of German works on German sources while North American works pay attention
to at least mainstream French and German sources (although rarely to any other).
I think it is precisely in comparative literature where the notion of "theory
approximation" should be a standard: when a theoretical framework, method, or
theme is discussed, attention must be paid to similar and/or analogous frameworks
in a range of languages and cultures (see Tötösy, Comparative Literature
215-20).
10. In principle, I do not object to a comparative European literature if it constitutes
method but I do object to it if it is implicitly or explicitly ideological and
based on perceived or real hierarchies and curiously by keeping to the "national"
agenda. In an odd twist, there is further potential in comparative European literature
and that is to counteract the often criticized Eurocentrism of comparative literature
itself. Although I did not find any reference to this most obvious aspect of a
comparative European literature, I assume that the focus on a truly inclusive
study of all European literatures would make the criticism of Eurocentrism in
this specific new designation redundant and paradoxical. At the same time -- as
with reference to what I said above about national self-referentiality in scholarship
and the national basis of a comparative European literature -- a new geo-political
focus no matter how much on the surface aesthetically oriented would also include
somewhat of a logical lapsus with regard to the established parameters of comparative
literature; regardless of the truth of the criticism that the discipline -- or
rather some of its practitioners -- have indeed often been and are Eurocentric.
11. Next, I would like to briefly elaborate on my third observation of
comparative literature today, namely that there is an emerging of comparative
literature in some corners of the globe, geo-cultural spaces which in the politics
of education and scholarship one would understand as "peripheral" areas. I would
like to note that in some but not all cases this "peripheral" situation of education
and scholarship overlaps with economics and technology while in some it does not.
The said emerging of comparative literature is of some interest from several points
of view, such as the sociology of knowledge, the current situation and history
of literary studies, and the general status and situation of the humanities, etc.,
and including for and in the history of the discipline itself. This emerging appears
to take place despite Bassnett's statement in her Comparative Literature: A
Critical Introduction that "today, comparative literature in one sense is
dead" (47). This development -- perhaps as a quasi implicit structural response
to the Anglo-American situation as perceived by Bassnett -- is not occurring in
the traditional geographical and cultural loci and mainstream of the discipline
such as the United States, France, or Germany (although, I should add in a context
of differentiation and with an eye on the particular that disrupts generalizations,
some universities in states of the former East Germany such as Halle-Wittenberg,
Franfurt/Oder, Frankfurt/Main, and Erfurt appear to be interested in establishing
new chairs of comparative literature). While Bassnett may be right that comparative
literature in the traditional centres -- France, Germany, the United States --
is undergoing both intellectual and institutional changes and a certain loss of
intellectual as well as institutional position owing to factors such as the takeover
of theory by English, the impact of cultural studies, the diminishing number of
comparative literature professorships, etc., this loss of presence is occurring
in the centres of the discipline and with regard to its own natural context
of Eurocentrism and Euro-American centre. Clearly, Bassnett's pronouncement of
the death of comparative literature is exactly from that Eurocentrism she otherwise
attempts to subvert and to oppose in her work. And thus, curiously, Bassnett pays
no attention to the strong development of the discipline and the promise its holds
outside of the discipline's traditional centres: in the last two decades comparative
literature has shown much promise in some countries and cultures where the discipline
has not been very strong or, in some cases, in existence at all before. As I mentioned
earlier, interestingly, while the traditional centres of the discipline -- the
ménage-à-trois of France, Germany, and the United States
-- are at best able to maintain a status quo of the discipline, in Mainland China,
Taiwan, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, universities
in the states of the former East Germany, etc., the discipline is emerging and
developing strongly and this can be gauged by the emergence of new comparative
literature journals, new chairs in comparative literature, a marked increase in
publications, etc. And it is not without reason and in my view well based and
logical reasons that colleagues from Spain and Italy, for example, write to me
that in their view the insistence of the International Comparative Literature
Association to maintain English and French as the official languages of the association
is wrong, colonial, outdated, etc., because if French than why not Spanish, German,
Chinese, and ALL the other languages. Consequently, they argue, only English should
be the official language -- as our present lingua franca -- with many other languages
allowed for presentation if there is an audience and interest.
12. Following my argument -- in relation to my above third observation of the
current situation of comparative literature -- namely that we must pay attention
to the situation of the discipline of comparative literature not only in the centres
but also (or perhaps mainly) in the "peripheries," here are a few examples of
recent work published in comparative literature in the "peripheries":
13. In Portugal, the Portuguese Comparative Literature Association brought out
its second series of publications emanating from the recently founded annual comparative
literature conferences, Margarida L. Losa, Isménia de Sousa, and Gonçalo
Vilas-Boas, eds., Literatura Comparada: Os Novos Paradigmas (1996; with
articles by Lopes, Carlos, Clüver, Segers, Ramalhete, Opitz, Cadete, Martins,
Delgado Mingochio, Braga Neves, Sousa, Capinha, Coutinho, Silva, Pires, Ferreira
Duarte, Lam, Carvalho Homem, Barrento, Almeida Flor, Bastos, Teixeira Anacleto,
Sequeira, Ferreira Hörster, Carvalho, Hüsgen, Fátima Gil, Keating,
Schmidt, Rusch, Viehoff, Zurbach, Schreier, Halász, Esteves, Leal, Ribeiro,
Ibsch, Tötösy, Seixo, Paiva Monteiro, Kushner, Moser, Fokkema, Bulger,
Silva, Grossegesse, Reis, Carvalhal, Esperança Pina, Laranjinha, Barros
Dias, Moreira, Guincho, Lago, Alves, Carneiro, Simöes, Jorge, Sarmento, Alves,
Coelho, Novakovi, Azevedo, Cordeiro, Silva, Matos Frias, Gil, Conrado, Pina, Lemos,
Medeiros, Cunha-Pereira).
14. In Brazil, we have the collected volume of Tania Franco Carvalhal, ed., Comparative
Literature World Wide: Issues and Methods (1997) with articles on comparative
literature in the USA by Gillespie, in Brazil by Souza and Miranda, in France
by Chevrel, in Canada by Kushner, in Romania by Cornea, in Portugal by Buescu,
in Uruguay by Behar, in Hungary by Szegedy-Maszák, in Korea by Hyun, in
Argentina by Palermo, in the Low countries by Van Gorp and Neubauer, in Greece
by Siaflekis, in China by Yue, and in Spain by Gual. It appears that comparatists
in Brazil are also very active with annual conferences for the discipline. As
well, Brazilian comparatists take an active role within the executive of the International
Comparative Literature Association.
15. In Spain -- a particularly active area of comparative literature today
-- several books and manuals of comparative literature are of note. There are,
for example, Dolores Romero López, ed., Orientaciones em literatura
comparada (1997; with articles by Bassnett, Chevrel, Culler, Fokkema, Gillespie,
Kushner, Marino, Prawer, Remak, Swiggers, Tötösy), Maria José
Vega and Neus Carbonell, eds. Literatura comparada. Principios y métodos
(1998; with articles by Texte, Croce, Gayley, Baldensperger, Van Tieghem, Wellek,
Remak, Fokkema, Ruprecht, Laurette, Chaitin, Chevrier, Ashcroft-Gareth-Tiffin,
Gnisci, Sniader Lanser, Lefevere, Tötösy), Dolores Romero López's
Una relectura del "fin de siglo" en el marco de la litteratura comparade" teoría
y praxis (1998), and Claudio Guillén's Múltiples moradas.
Ensayo de literatura comparada (1998) (for a review of these volumes,
see Zambrano at <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb99-2/books99-2.html>),
Darío Villanueva's collected volume, Avances en... teoría de
la literature (1994; with articles by Villanueva, Iglesias Santos, Jauss,
Manteiga Pouse, Cabo Aseguinolaza, Casas, Even-Zohar). Although not specifically
comparative literature, most material in Montserrat Iglesias Santos's Teoría
de los Polisistemas (1999; with articles by Dimic, Even-Zohar, Lambert, Robyns,
Shavit, Sheffy, Toury, Yahalom). As well, the University of Huelva publishes a
new comparative literature journal since 1997, Exemplaria: Revista Internacional
de Literatura Comparada.
16. In Argentina, we have the special issue of Filología 30.2 (1997),
Literaturas comparadas, with translated articles by Antelo, Bernheimer,
Gilman, Rodríguez Pérsico, Tötösy, Mignolo, Aguilar, Campos,
Rabaté, Merkel, Spiller, Matamoro, Gárate, Chicote, Guido, Iribarren,
Gamerro, and Muschietti. The latter volume is interesting because it contains
a mixture of foreign and domestic authors while most other such volumes I cited
above contain translated work. Further, there are the volumes with selected papers
from the second and third conferences of the AALC: Asociacion Argentina de Literature
Comparada of 1997 and 1998.
17. In Australia there is the new University of Sydney World Literature Series
with volume one by Mabel Lee and Meng Hua, eds., Cultural Dialogue and Misreading
(1997; with articles by Gillespie, Cornea, Dev, Valdés, Fokkema, Ersu,
Yue, Gu, Qian, Siaflekis, Findeisen, Lee, Qin, Didier, Wang, Szegedy-Maszák,
Coutinho, Blodgett, Boening, Veit, Van Gorp, Shen, Zhang, Detrie, Moura, Neubauer,
Wang, Tanaka, Schmeling, Seixo, Bessière, Losa, Tao, Kaes, Larsen, Segers,
D'Haen, Meng, Klein, André, Tötösy, Hyun, Valdés, Carvalhal,
Kelson, Sondrup, Song, Guo, Cao) and volume two by Mabel Lee and A.D. Syrokomla-Stefanowska,
eds., Literary Intercrossings: East Asia and the West (1998; with articles
by Gibbins, Hasegawa, Yihuang, Leal, Lee, Lee, Lee, Quinzhang, Matsui, Nakayama,
Odagiri, Ota, Qian, Sugawara, Takachi, Walker, Wang, Wang, Wong, Yip, Yoon). Further
volumes in the series are planned.
18. In Holland -- a traditionally strong area of comparative literature -- we
have the Festschrift in honour of comparatist Douwe Fokkema by Harald Hendrix,
Joost Kloek, Sophie Levie, and Will van Peer, eds. The Search for a New Alphabet:
Literary Studies in a Changing World (1996; with articles by Andringa, Bertens,
Bessière, Behar, Boeft, Bons, Brandsma, Bronzwaer, Carvalhal, Chang, Chevrel,
Coetze, Dev, Dijkstra, Doleel, Enkvist, Gillespie, Glas, Goedegebuure, Gorp, Gräbe,
Ibsch, Janaszek-Ivaniková, Kushner, Lambert, Lange, Lernhout, Livingston,
Miner, Moerbeek, Mooij, Musarra-Schroeder, Neubauer, Ben-Porat, Rigney, Ruiter,
Runte, Schmidt, Segers, Seixo, Shen, Steinmetz, Stralen, Strydom, Suleiman, Szegedy-Maszák,
Thüsen, Tötösy, Turk, Valdés, Coller, Vervliet, Viehoff,
Vlasselaers, Wang, Weisgerber, Wesseling, Wiersma, Yuan, Yue, Zwaan).
19. In Mainland China and Hong Kong -- among publications in Western languages
-- we have Yue Daiyun and Alain Le Pichon, eds. La Licorne et le dragon. Les
Malentendus dans la recherche de l'universel (1995; with articles by Yue,
Eco, Le Goff, Rey, Danchin, Pichon, Hua, Peng, Shen, Tang, Wang, Sun, Chen, Zhou,
Sun, Wang, Teng, Tang, Zhou, Qian, Chun) and the volume New Perspectives: A
Comparative Literature Yearbook (1995; with articles by Liu, Yue, Lee, Mi,
Jun, Lee, Ding, Tatlow; for a recent description of the situation of comparative
literature in Taiwan and the Mainland today, see also Tötösy 1997).
20. In Italy we have the collected volumes of Armando Gnisci and Franca
Sinopoli, Comparare i comparatismi. La comparatistica letteraria oggi in Europa
e nel mondo (1995) and Manuale storico di letteratura comparata (1997).
The 1995 Italian volume is also of some interest for the following reason. It
is common knowledge that in Italy the mastery or even interest in foreign languages
is limited (perhaps even more than in the United States) and thus the publication
of anthologies of comparatist texts serves at least two purposes: it supports
the suggestion that the interest in comparativism as an international discipline
in the age of globalization makes sense and it suggests -- via the presentation
of the texts in Italian -- that the local aspect of scholarship, that is, the
study of the international via the local is also with purpose and of intellectual
and pragmatic content and potential results. The 1995 volume contains articles
on comparative literature in Latin America by Carvalhal, in Japan by Kutsukake,
in China by Xie, in Latin America again by Badin, in Italy by Sinopoli, and with
thematic articles on imagology by Dyserinck, on the interliterary process by Durisin,
on postcolonialism by Neri, and on the International Comparative Literature Association
and its literary history volumes by Pál. As to the pragmatically important
genre of manuals for the teaching of comparative literature, Gnisci and Sinopoli's
other collected volume, Manuale storico di letteratura comparata (1997)
is of note. The editors provide their Italian readership with a historical perspective
of comparative literature from the earliest times (Texte, Croce, Van Tieghem)
through the discipline's golden age (Wellek, Etiemble, Remak), through its present
tense (Miner, Bernheimer, Yue, Gnisci). The volume contains also a list of comparative
literature handbooks and incisive articles since 1931 to the present, a list of
the proceedings of International Comparative Literature Association congresses,
a list of published volumes of the International Comparative Literature's A
Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages, a list of major
comparative literature learned journals, and a list of bibliographies of comparative
literature. Similarly to Iglesias Santos volume in Spanish, Teoría de
los Polisistemas, cited above, Aldo Nemesio's collected volume, L'esperienza
del testo (1990; with articles by Nemesio, Tötösy, Schmidt, Larsen
and Seilman, Hayward, Whitten and Graesser, Roberts and Kreuz, Miall and Kuiken,
Dixon and Bortolussi, Goetz and Sadoski, Halász, Andringa, László),
too, contains much comparative literature material.
21. In Hungary we have the special issue of neohelicon: acta comparationis
litterarum unversarum, a journal that over the last two decades issued several
state-of-the-art volumes about the discipline of comparative literature. Its latest
such issue is 24.2 (1997) which contains articles by the usual line-up of established
comparatists (Balakian, Gnisci, Runte, Strelka, Szili, Valdés, Weissstein,
Zima) but a few newer names found themselves also into the volume (Friggieri,
Sexl, Tötösy).
22. In Austria -- a country where in recent years substantial efforts have been
made in educational policy, university restructuring, funding, etc., to internationalize
its scholarship -- a recent volume of interest is the collected volume of Norbert
Bachleitner, Alfred Noe, and Hans-Gert Roloff, eds., Beträge zu Komparatistik
und Sozialgeschichte der Literatur (1997). The volume is a Festschrift
in honour of the Austrian-Italian comparatist Alberto Martino. It is divided into
sections of history of reception (with articles by Gemert, Heydemann, Dilk, Bachleitner,
Belski), translation (with articles by Knape, Noe, Kanduth, Meloni, Ley, Pfister,
Kolb), traditional comparisons of texts (with articles by Pol, Michele, Costazza,
Hahl, Sagarra), papers on the social history of literature (with articles by Heger,
Hinterndorfer, Mannack, Wittmann, Vignazia, Martens, Fischer, Gugler, Jezek, Göpfert,
Girardi, Raponi, Battafarano), and a section on literary theory and comparative
literature (with articles by McCarthy, Bertozzi, Rossel, Gillespie, Konstantinovic,
Roloff). We also have Peter V. Zima and Johann Strutz's volume Komparatistik:
Einführung in die Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft (1992). It is somewhat
difficult to classify Zima and Strutz's volume as "Austrian" (and thus peripheral)
as the volume was published in Germany for a German readership predicated on the
fact that it is in Germany where there are a number of comparative literature
programs while in Austria only in Vienna and Innsbruck (in Klagenfurt there is
no degree offered in the discipline); however, since both scholars work at the
University of Klagenfurt, it should be made known that we are dealing with a different
cultural source than that of Germany. The volume is divided into chapters introduction,
the history of comaparative literature (with focus on American, British, French,
German, Marxist approaches), comparative literature as a theory dialogism, the
typological approach, the genetic approach, reception theories, translation studies,
periods and genres, and an example of regional comparative literature. Strutz
and Zima published a collected volume previously, Komparatistik als Dialog
(1991; with articles by Haderlap, Kofler, Zima, Reininger, Kucher, Slibar, Giacomini,
Guagnini, Kosuta, Sequi, Gsteiger, Grüning, Strutz.), a precursor of their
1992 volume (above) in that the volume deals with questions relating to the triangle
of the cultures of Southern Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Italy.
23. At the same time, the traditional centres of comparative literature
have also produced some new works in the discipline and, at least intellectually,
this scholarship suggests that all is not as desperate as we may assume. For example,
the Bernheimer volume I referred to above has made a major impact across the globe
which, in turn, suggests the impact American comparative literature is able to
claim. But to deduce optimism from the production of influential work in the USA,
Canada, France, or Germany would perhaps be pushing one's luck, at least in my
opinion. To use anecdotal evidence, here is what I recently read in Winter 1998
in QPB: The Quality Paperback Book Review: "While earning her M.A. in comparative
literature, Louise Rafkin never imagined that she'd end up cleaning houses for
a living" (11). In other words, comparative literature, even a graduate degree,
does not rate very high in North American society....
24. In addition to some of the volumes published in the traditional centres of
the discipline I already referred to above, I should mention Yves Chevrel's L'Etudiant
chercheur en littérature (1992), a good manual because despite its
general title, the volume is clearly comparatist. Chevrel's translated volume
-- by Farida Elizabeth Dahab -- Comparative Literature Today: Methods and Perspectives
(1994) should also be noted as it can serve as a good text book for North American
students of comparative literature. As to manuals in the context of useful pedagogical
tools for comparative literature, the single North American volume of recent years
of such, we have John T. Kirby's The Comparative Reader: A Handlist of Basic
Reading in Comparative Literature (1998; with contributions by Allert, Anderson,
Benhamou, Broden, Bullock, Clowes, Dixon, Dubois, Elia, Freeman, Györgyey,
Hart, Hsieh, Hughes, Johnson, Kirby, Lamb, Lawton, Leitch, Mancing, Merrell, Mvuyekure,
Peterson, Poster, Sagar, Schiappa, Schrag, Scott, Sekine, Shallcross, Sharpley-Whiting,
Stephenson, Tamburri, Thompson, White, Zhang). The volume is divided into selected
bibliographies of national literatures (further divided into periods), literary
and critical theory, various methodologies such as psychological, semiotic, etc.,
approaches, media and literature incl. film, postcolonial literatures, and an
interesting chapter on the professional and institutional aspects of the discipline
of comparative literature. In addition to volumes I already mentioned above, in
the USA we also have the 1995 special issue on comparative literature of the journal
World Literature Today (1995; with articles by Kadir, Perloff, Loriggio,
Balakian, Vuller, Brodsky Lacour, Melas, Isstaif, Komar, Greene, Hutcheon, Hassan,
Zhao).
25. In Canada -- a cultural space that may be considered peripheral or as a centre,
depending -- we have the special issue of the Canadian Review of Comparative
Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée (1996;
with articles by Tötösy, Dimic, Brooks, Cavell, Hutcheon, Moser, Fokkema,
Gnisci, Nitrini, Wang, Gálik, Teleky) and my own volume, Comparative
Literature: Theory, Method, Application (1998, although published in Holland).
And there is also the large collected volume of Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek,
Milan V. Dimic, and Irene Sywenky, eds., Comparative Literature Now: Theories
and Practice / La Littérature comparée à l'heure actuelle.
Théories et réalisations (see its table of contents <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library/champion.html>,
1999; chapter one "Comparative Literature and Literary Theory" with articles by
Bessière, Birus, Brady, Chevrel, Dev, Dugast, Fokkema, Gálik, Gu,
Kao, Kushner, Losada Goya, Margolin, Mourão, Ribeiro, Saramago, Schmeling,
Skulj, Tatlow, Van Peer, Wägenbaur, Yue; chapter two "Literary History and
Histories of Literature" with articles by Beeler, Berg, Brix, Camps, Cornea, Dahab,
Dubost, Esterhammer, Foste, Friedman, Hart, Leersen, Lobo, Martin, Rao and Rao,
Veit, Wang; chapter three "Genres and Textual Properties" with articles by Duarte,
Engel, Fachin, Kolesch, Leung, Moser, Palleiro, Tanteri; chapter four "The Novel
and Other Prose" with articles by André, Chen, Larsen, Moyal, Oliveira,
Stovel, Van Gorp, Walker, Wallace, Wolf; chapter five "Drama and Literature and
the Other Arts" with articles by Aaltonen, Ádám, Barban, Caprioli,
Grammatas, Kürtösi, Polit, Schwarz, Solomon; chapter six "Literature
and Film" with articles by Avrutin, Barrett, Danan, Oliveira, Kline, Thornton;
chapter seven "Literature and Technology" with articles by Baker, Beeler, Campe,
Schmitz-Emans, Zhang; and chapter eight "A Bibliography of Theories, Methods,
and Histories of Comparative Literature" by Tötösy (for the online version
of the bibliography, see Tötösy [1999] <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library/clitbib1-99.html>;
for a first review of the volume since its publication, see Grabovszki at <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb99-3/books99-3.html>;
see also Tötösy [1999] <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library/sysbib97.html>).
26. In Germany, there is the interesting volume of Reinhold Görling, Heterotopia:
Lektüren einer interkulturellen Literaturwissenschaft (1997). The volume
is interesting because while the author refrains from naming comparative literature
-- there are brief references to the discipline on pages 27, 34, 53, and 65 --
the general concept of the book as well as the applications to primary texts of
the proposed approach are comparativist. Perhaps the reason for the author's understated
references to comparative literature is a result of his acute observation of the
discipline's often preoccupation of doing comparative literature by default only.
That is, the situation when the framework and its applications are based on and
in the bases on national literatures, one would have better success in the academe.
And there are the two recent volumes by Carsten Zelle, Kurze Bücherkunde
für Literaturwissenschaftler (1998) and Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft
(1999). The former contains a good section on comparative literature as well
as it contains material about new media and the study of literature; the latter
is a collection of selected articles about the history and contemporary situation
of the specifically German Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft (general literature)
including specific examples of the subject matter taught at the universities of
Essen and Siegen but also extending to the brief example of Vanderbilt University
(with articles by Link-Heer, Brodsky Lacour, Zelle, Link-Heer, Zima, Schmidt,
Roloff, Gendolla, Pfeiffer, Glaser, Riha, Franke and McCarthy). Interestingly,
at least one author (Gendolla) discusses the question of the study of general
literature in the context of new media and technology in more detail.
27. Last, I elaborate briefly on my fifth observation of the current situation
of comparative literature, namely the potential of new media, that is, specifically
the internet and the world wide web and their impact on scholarship (for a recent
article on the topic, see Grabovszki at <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb99-3/grabovszki99.html>).
Here is a quote from a recent article by Robert Lepage, the internationally renown
Québéçois-Canadian playwright who recognized early the advantages
and positive meaning of a global view for his own plays as well as contemporary
Québéçois-Canadian literature as a whole. What he is saying
is relevant to my discussion by analogy: the peripheral situation of Québéçois-Canadian
literature is similar in concept to the marginalized situation of the humanities
and comparative literature in turn within the humanities today. Lepage argues
that the world wide web and "its spread is part of the reason why Quebeckers are
so abruptly questioning their identity and coming to such new conclusions. New
technology leaves no room for xenophobia. How can Quebec sell its Internet products
if it continues to have an isoationist image? And if you send me an e-mail, and
you don't have all the accents and the c and the little hat [circumflex] -- what
is so French about it? So a lot of people decided to write in English. These things
may seem trivial, but they are hints of a much bigger shift" (69). There is no
doubt in my mind that the world wide web and the internet provide possibilities
for the study of culture, including comparative literature and the proposed comparative
cultural studies and that, in my opinion, scholars in the humanities must exploit.
Unfortunately, there is much Ludditism among scholars in the humanities including
comparatists while scholars in cultural studies tend to be more interested and
competent (for an example of the discussion of this resistance in the humanities,
see Norbert Gabriel's Kulturwissenschaften und Neue Medien. Wissensvermittlung
im digitalen Zeitalter ([1997]). With regard to the world wide web and the
discipline of comparative literature, web in full-text and free-access there are
only a few such in existence: The Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature
at <http://www.brynmawr.edu/bmrcl/>
(publishes book reviews only), Surfaces: Electronic Journal / Revue électronique
<http://pum12.pum.umontreal.ca/revues/surfaces/home.html>,
and Literary Research / Recherche littéraire: An ICLA/AILC Bulletin
of Book Reviews <http://www.uwo.ca/modlang/ailc/>
(it will soon go off-line) (for a list of journals in comparative literature,
see <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library/journals.html>.
In comparative literature and culture there is one such journal in existence --
print or online -- the recently founded journal CLCWeb: Comparative Literature
and Culture.
28. Granted, there are some infrastructural problems, too, which affect the situation
of the web and the internet in general: there are two such problems of major impact:
one is the obvious problem of different technological development and availabilities
among regions of the world and the second one is the infrastructure of telephone
line providers and its economics. Technologically advanced societies of Europe
are seriously handicapped in the development of the internet in comparison with
North America for the simple reason that local calls are expensive in Europe while
they are much less to minimal in North America. Clearly, in Europe the monopoly
of the state telephone companies will have to be modified and this has started
to begin: whether it will evolve to similarly easy access to telephone lines or
other ways of web access -- such as cable TV -- remains to be seen. And there
is also the perception of scholars in the humanities of the emergence and significance
of web journals. It is true that some web journals do not have a comparable scholarly
content traditional hard-copy journals offer. But this can be changed and the
time constraints and financial constraints hard-copy journal suffer under will
make it ultimately imperative that knowledge transfer and scholarly communication
will demand the switch to ejournals and the internet. That an online journal in
the public domain has much potential is already observable in the case of CLCWeb,
now online with three issues of five articles each and several book reviews
in each issue. Of interest here is that in the first available period of statistical
analysis of the CLCWeb's access and online use, 13-30 April 1999, the journal
received 1,950 hits. This means 108 hits per day on the average and for an esoteric
subject such as comparative literature and culture this shows high-level and involved
use. The statistics also show -- among many aspects of the ways, length, precise
use of specific sections of the journal, various technical aspects of access,
etc. -- that CLCWeb has been accessed from a large number of countries,
incl. many countries outside North America and Europe. Interestingly and contrary
to my expectations, the relatively large traffic on CLCWeb has not subsided:
in June there were 118 hits per day and in July there were 126 hits per day, plus
similarly high numbers for multiple users, etc. (for ongoing statistics of web
use and traffic, go to the journal's subpage "web traffic" off the index page).
29. In closing my observations on new media and comparative literature (and on
work in the humanities by extension), I would like to briefly refer to an aspect
of institutional policies which have some impact on the situation of not only
comparative literature but on scholarship in the humanities in general. Briefly
put: how is it possible that, for example, the Social Sciences and Humanities
Council of Canada (SSHRC) to date refuses to even consider funding of an online
journal in the humanities precisely because it is in the public domain? After
several attempts of explanation, I received the final decision by an SSHRC official
that because CLCWeb does not have minimum 200 paid subscribers, it is ineligible
for funding. My explanations that the CLCWeb is in the public domain and
thus cannot logically have paid subscribers was not accepted and the large web
traffic with the ejournal -- which clearly shows that the CLCWeb is being
used by the scholarly community -- did not make an impression either. Obviously,
this particular government agency is still stuck to a traditional mindset and
its policy makers -- who include academics -- have not followed the developments
made possible by the new web culture of scholarship. In my opinion, scholarly
communication and knowledge transfer on the world wide web should be facilitated
by open and competitive funding by government agencies, just as are other types
of scholarly activities. Online journals should be able to compete for such funding
because government agencies use taxpayers' money in the first place and this way
some of that money is returned to the taxpayers, just like in other areas of scholarly
activity. Unfortunately, the present policies of the SSHRC have not followed the
emerging situation of scholarship in the humanities where online journals in the
public domain perform the said meaningful service for the scholarly community
and where they perform knowledge transfer on an international scale previously
unheard of as well as impossible to enact. The said policies are short-sighted
and counter-productive and I hope that the SSHRC will rather sooner than later
consider changing its policies of funding online ejournals in the public domain.
30. Last but not least I would like to touch briefly on a most contentious
issue, namely on the comparative study of "Other" literatures and cultures, here
with specific reference to East/West comparative literature. The still dominant
aspect of the national paradigm and its position with regard to comparative literature
and its claim of inclusion is a most important issue in the politics of comparative
literature. As I have argued in a previous paper, "A Report on Comparative Literature
in Beijing, October 1995 / Rapport sur la littérature comparée à
Beijing, Octobre 1995" (1995), for a Western comparatist the inclusion of the
Other is problematic at best. But here as always, I argue that it is the "how"
and not the "what" that determines scholarship. I quote from my paper: "I took
issue with [the] ... notion that Orientalism can be successfully studied only
by an Oriental. This notion, as often as it occurs under the generic notion of
"appropriation" in North American scholarship in particular, leads in my opinion
to the doctrinization of scholarship and counter-acts the very notion of dialogue,
scholarly or other. Cultural communication prescribes dialogue about perception
and view from whichever locus one speaks from. If the notion ... is correct then
its logical conclusion is that Orientals should not study the Occident either.
Surely, this is an untenable position of either side. Of course, if an Occidental
scholar studies Oriental works, any correction of his/her analysis by an Oriental
scholar should be welcome and seriously considered. The argument that the post-colonial
base of power disqualifies an Occidental to study the Oriental becomes a tool
of harm if implemented" (11-12). More recently, Takayuki Yokota-Murakami, in her
book Don Juan East/West: On the Problematics of Comparative Literature (1999),
argues that comparative literature and its claim of and for inclusion is a priori
marginalization and exclusion. Yokota-Murakami argues that comparative literature
is in principle and throughout its history Eurocentric and its claim of inclusion
is an unsuccessfully disguised attempt to "universalize" humanity as expressed
in literature but from the said Eurocentric point of view and power. I fully agree
with the author that Western humanities and comparative literature in particular
"included" the Other from its own Eurocentric locus. But as forceful and insightful
Yokota-Murakami's description and arguments are, she does not offer a solution
and implicitly we would end up with the untenable situation as I describe in my
quote above.
Toward Comparative Cultural Studies
31. In recent debates in comparative literature, too, and in the humanities in
general, innovation is a matter of great interest (and, of course, a real necessity).
Taking my point of departure from the current interest and large amount of work
produced in cultural studies everywhere and applying my approach to comparative
literature from within the framework and methodology of the systemic and empirical
approach to literature and culture (for my publications in the area, see <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/totosycv(complete).html>;
for a selected bibliographies of work in the approach, see Tötösy 1999
at <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library.html>),
I first developed a set of principles for comparative literature and culture,
as presented in my book, Comparative Literature: Theory, Method, Application
(1998, 15-18). Here is a brief dictionary definition of the systemic and empirical
approach understood as a contextual approach:
32. The systemic and empirical approach is a theoretical and methodological framework
for the study of culture including several fields such as comparative cultural
studies, cultural studies, comparative literature, literature, anthropology, ethnography,
audience studies (see Tötösy "Toward a Framework of Audience Studies"
<http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library/audiencestudies.html>),
and cognitive sciences. The main question is what happens to products of culture
and how: It is produced, published, distributed, read/listened to/seen (etc.),
imitated, assessed, discussed, studied, censored, etc. The systemic and empirical
study of culture originates as a reaction to, and an attempt at, solving the problematics
of hermeneutics. The approach and methodology(ies) of the framework are built
on the theory of constructivism (radical, cognitive, etc.), in turn based on the
thesis that the subject largely construes its empirical world itself. The consequence
of this line of thought -- as seen in the work of scholars in Germany, Holland,
Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Canada, the USA and elsewhere in several fields and areas
of study -- is the replacement of (metaphorical) interpretation with the study
of culture products and the processes of the products as based on radical constructivism,
systems theories, and the empirical (observation and knowledge-based argumentation).
The system of culture and actions within are observed from the outside -- not
experienced -- and roughly characterized as depending on two conventions (hypotheses)
that are tested continually. These conventions are the aesthetic convention (as
opposed to the convention of facts in the daily language of reference) and the
polyvalence convention (as opposed to the monovalency in the daily empirical world).
Thus, the object of study of the systemic and empirical study of culture is not
only the text in itself, but roles of action and processes within the system(s)
of culture, namely, the production, distribution, reception, and the post-processing
of culture products. The methods used are primarily taken from the social sciences,
systems theories, reception theory, cognitive science, psychology, etc. In general,
the steps to be taken in systemic and empirical research are the formation of
a hypothesis, putting it into practice, testing, and evaluation.
33. Next, I propose an adjusted set of principles, for the proposed new approach
of comparative cultural studies. These principles are not new or particularly
original, especially to those who know or are in comparative literature: what
is intended is the explicit formulation of principles already known and/or established
in the discipline of comparative literature and at the same time adapted to the
new paradigm of a comparative cultural studies. I should also like to mention
that many of the principles I am suggesting here are obviously part and parcel
of various approaches, theoretical or methodological and/or national and homogeneous
literatures. My point is that it is the cumulative perspective of the approach
that may make a difference and that may be innovative. My notions toward a comparative
cultural studies is at this point is obviously not a full-fledged framework. Rather,
the principles represent an approach (incl. ideological content) which I develop
in detail in my forthcoming work. To date, curiously, the comparative aspect in
cultural studies is relatively unexplored and there are relatively few universities
where there are degree programs in a combination of comparative literature and
cultural studies or an outright program in "comparative cultural studies." Here
is a partial list of institutions where such programs exist: the graduate
program in Comparative Culture at Sophia University (Tokyo), the program of Cultural
Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, the Centre
for British and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick (<http:www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/BCCS/>),
the Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at Monash University
(<http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/cclcs/>),
the Comparative Cultural Studies program at Trinity College of Vermont, the Center
for Comparative Cultural Studies at the Palacky University (Czechia), the Comparative
Literary and Cultural Studies program at the University of Connecticut (<http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~wwwmcl/Programs/Graduate/gCO/gCO.htm>),
or the University of Virginia program in Comparative Cultural Studies (<http://www.virginia.edu/~cch-surv/>).
The situation is much more limited with regard to theoretical and methodological
frameworks for a "comparative cultural studies" on the landscape of published
studies and, perhaps, the nearest conceptualization of a theoretical framework
-- with not much methodology, however -- of comparative cultural studies is Itamar
Even-Zohar's more recent work such as "Polysystem Theory and Culture Research"
and "Culture Repertoire and the Wealth of Collective Entities" at <http://www.tau.ac.il/~itamarez/papers/>.
34. The above demonstrated ("peripheral") interest in the discipline of
comparative literature outside the established mainstream French-German-American
core may be a result of the often-occurring time-shift -- delayed reaction time
-- within knowledge transfer or it may be a result of the general globalization
here emanating from and taking place in the "peripheries." But there may be another
reason, that of a sophisticated approach to the study of culture by scholars in
many ways located outside or parallel to the French-German-American mainstream
and that, of course, dominates the study of literature world wide today, in particular
the American schools including the situation where the French Derrida or the Italian
Eco or the German Habermas are translated into English, published in the USA,
and therefrom impact on thinking in cultures where the first language is not a
mainstream European language. What I mean is this: In Anglo-American, French,
and German literary study -- general or comparative -- the aspect of theory saturation
is a well-known situation and the fact that in recent years the focus in literary
study switched from the study of literature proper to all sorts of inquiries of
culture in general brought about a preoccupation of literary scholars with other
matter than literature. For comparatists in the mainstream German-French-American
core this created serious problems because their areas of theory, interdisciplinarity,
etc., have been successfully appropriated and today everyone may be a "comparatist"
While this may be an interesting development, it appears to me that scholars working
in non-mainstream cultures and within that in comparative literature, seem to
be interested in maintaining a focus on literature while at the same time they
want to study it in an international context writing for a regional scholarly
readership. Concurrent to the interest in comparative literature as I perceive
it and discussed above, there is of course the impact of cultural studies -- mainly
although not exclusively from North America -- in the humanities everywhere, including
in the countries where comparative literature itself is experiencing a renaissance
or emerging interest. It this situation that I think we can capitalize on. What
I mean is that the interest and new work in comparative literature occurring outside
the traditional centres of the discipline can be related and connected to the
impact of cultural studies on the one hand and taking the history and intellectual
achievements of comparative literature - in particular its aspect of cross-culturality
based upon in-depth knowledge and familiarity with other languages and cultures
- toward the construction of a framework and practice of comparative cultural
studies on the other hand.
35. I would like to insert here a brief comment about the problematics of globalization
versus localization and regionalism. In my opinion, while regionalism is obviously
a viable alternative to and meaningful replacement of nationalism and aspirations
to cultural homogeneity, globalization can be understood and perceived as a positive
force that does not necessarily embody American cultural imperialism. I concur
with the view that "global culture doesn't mean just more TV sets and Nike shoes.
Linking is humanity's natural impulse, its common destiny. ... cultures don't
become more uniform; instead, both old and new tend to transform each other. The
late philosopher Isaiah Berlin believed that, rather than aspire to some utopian
ideal, a society should strive for something else: 'not that we agree with each
other ... but that we can understand each other'" (Zwingle 33; see also <http://www.nationalgeographic.com/2000/culture/global>).
Among other perspectives, comparative literature and comparative cultural studies
aspires to be scholarship precisely in this sense.
36. It appears to me that it is the North American type of cultural studies has
acquired the most incisive impact in scholarship in the humanities everywhere.
Overall, however, my observation is that similar to literary studies, work in
cultural studies has produced limited results based on an empirical, that is,
evidence- and observation-based perspective in theory and in application. In other
words, while cultural studies in North America in general, in the United Kingdom
(see Grossberg 1993), Germany (see Burns), in France (see Forbes and Kelly), in
Spain (see Graham and Labanyi), or in Italy (see Forgacs and Lumley) produce relevant
and incisive work, they more often than not lack the type of evidence-based theoretical
and methodological approach I propose for both comparative literature and comparative
cultural studies I develop from the systemic and empirical approach to literature
and culture (in turn based in radical constructivism; for an extensive web site
of material, see Riegler at <http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/>;
see also Tötösy, "Constructivism" <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library/totosy(constructivism).html>).
I am aware, however, that in sociology, ethnology, history, anthropology, ethnography,
cognitive science, etc., -- including work related to or about literature -- there
is a large corpus that is "empirical," evidence-based and argued in both theory
and application. With regard to cultural studies, while in isolated cases it is
briefly mentioned that the historical and conceptual background of cultural studies
is based, in many ways, on work (theory and application) in comparative literature,
the comparative approach in and for cultural studies is not explored apart from
a few rudimentary beginnings such as Aleida Assman's "Cultural Studies and Historical
Memories" (1999). Consequently, while there is empirical work with explicit methodology
undertaken in cultural anthropology and similar fields which have some impact
on cultural studies (see, in particular, Norman Denzin's Symbolic Interactionism
and Cultural Studies), cultural studies when in literary studies -- or the
other way around -- is almost exclusively hermeneutic, discursive in the essayistic
mode, and metaphorical, at best political. In other words, evidence-based and
argued work in cultural studies appears to be produced in fields and with approaches
from sociology, ethnology, anthropology, history, etc., while in the fields of
traditional humanities such as English-language literature, such approaches are
neglected or even rejected in favour of the said metaphorical and essayistic "scholarship"
and there are scholars few and far between who would agree with the notion that
"cultural studies has to be disciplined ... to get better and useful knowledge
takes rigorous theoretical and empirical work" (Grossberg 1999, 29; my
emphasis; for various sources in cultural studies, see <http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/library.html>).
Ten Principles toward a Framework of Comparative Cultural Studies
37.1 The first principle of comparative cultural studies
is the postulate that in and of the study, pedagogy, and research of culture --
culture is defined as all human activity resulting in artistic production -- it
is not the "what" but rather the "how" that is of importance. This principle follows
the constructivist tenet of attention to the "how" and process. To "compare" does
not -- and must not -- imply a hierarchy: in the comparative mode of investigation
and analysis a matter studied is not "better" than another. This means -- among
other things as listed below -- that it is method that is of crucial importance
in comparative cultural studies in particular and, consequently, in the study
of literature and culture as a whole.
37.2 The second principle of comparative cultural studies is
the theoretical as well as methodological postulate to move and to dialogue between
cultures, languages, literatures, and disciplines. This is a crucial aspect of
the framework, the approach as a whole, and its methodology. In other words, attention
to other cultures -- that is, the comparative perspective -- is a basic and founding
element and factor of the framework. The claim of emotional and intellectual primacy
and subsequent institutional power of national cultures is untenable in this perspective.
In turn, the built-in notions of exclusion and self-referentiality of single culture
study and their result of rigidly defined disciplinary boundaries are notions
against which comparative cultural studies offers an alternative as well as a
parallel field of study. This inclusion extends to all Other, all marginal, minority,
border, and peripheral and it encompasses both form and substance. However, attention
must be paid of the "how" of any inclusionary approach, attestation, methodology,
and ideology so as not to repeat the mistakes of Eurocentrism and "universalization"
from a "superior" Eurocentric point of view. Dialogue is the only solution.
37.3 The third principle of comparative cultural studies is
the necessity for the scholar working in this field to acquire in-depth grounding
in more than one language and culture as well as other disciplines before further
in-depth study of theory and methodology. However, this principle creates structural
and administrative problems on the institutional and pedagogical levels. For instance,
how does one allow for development -- intellectually as well as institutionally
-- from a focus on one national culture (exclusionary) towards the inclusionary
and interdisciplinary principles of comparative cultural studies? The solution
of designating comparative cultural studies as a postgraduate discipline only
is problematic and counter-productive. Instead, the solution is the allowance
for a parallelism in intellectual approach, institutional structure, and administrative
practice.
37.4 The fourth principle of comparative cultural studies is
its given focus to study culture in its parts (literature, arts, film, popular
culture, theatre, the publishing industry, the history of the book as a cultural
product, etc.) and as a whole in relation to other forms of human expression and
activity and in relation to other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences
(history, sociology, psychology, etc.). The obstacle here is that the attention
to other fields of expression and other disciplines of study results in the lack
of a clearly definable, recognizable, single-focused, and major theoretical and
methodological framework of comparative cultural studies. There is a problem of
naming and designation exactly because of the multiple approach and parallelism.
In turn, this lack of recognized and recognizable products results in the discipline’s
difficulties of marketing itself within the inter-mechanisms of intellectual recognition
and institutional power.
37.5 The fifth principle of comparative cultural studies is
its built-in special focus on English, based on its impact emanating from North
American cultural studies which is, in turn, rooted in British cultural studies
along with influences from French and German thought. This is a composite principle
of approach and methodology. The focus on English as a means of communication
and access to information should not be taken as Euro-American-centricity. In
the Western hemisphere and in Europe but also in many other cultural (hemi)spheres,
English has become the lingua franca of communication, scholarship, technology,
business, industry, etc. This new global situation prescribes and inscribes that
English gain increasing importance in scholarship and pedagogy, including the
study of literature. The composite and parallel method here is that because comparative
cultural studies is not self-referential and exclusionary; rather, the parallel
use of English is effectively converted into a tool for and of communication in
the study, pedagogy, and scholarship of literature. Thus, in comparative cultural
studies the use of English should not represent any form of colonialism -- and
if it does, one disregards it or fights it with English rather than by opposing
English -- as follows from principles one to three. And it should also be obvious
that is the English-language speaker who is, in particular, in need of other languages.
37.6 The sixth principle of comparative cultural studies is
its theoretical and methodological focus on evidence-based research and analysis.
This principle is with reference to methodological requirements in the description
of theoretical framework building and the selection of methodological approaches.
From among the several evidence-based theoretical and methodological approaches
available in the study of culture, literary and culture theory, cultural anthropology,
sociology of culture and knowledge, etc., the systemic and empirical approach
is perhaps the most advantageous and precise methodology for use in comparative
cultural studies. This does not mean that comparative cultural studies and/or
its methodology comprise a meta theory; rather, comparative cultural studies and
its methodologies are implicitly and explicitly pluralistic.
37.7 The seventh principle of comparative cultural studies is
its attention and insistence on methodology in interdisciplinary study (an umbrella
concept), with three main types of methodological precision: Intra-disciplinarity
(analysis and research within the disciplines of the humanities), multi-disciplinarity
(analysis and research by one scholar employing any other discipline), and pluri-disciplinarity
(analysis and research by team-work with participants from several disciplines).
In the latter case, an obstacle is the general reluctance of humanities scholars
to employ team-work in the study of culture including literature. It should be
noted that this principle is built-in in the framework and methodology of the
systemic and empirical approach to culture (for an outline of inter-disciplinary
work in the humanities, see Tötösy, Comparative Literature 79-82).
37.8 The eighth principle of comparative cultural studies is
its content against the contemporary paradox of globalization versus localization.
There is a paradoxical development in place with regard to both global movements
and intellectual approaches and their institutional representation. On the one
hand, the globalization of technology, industry, and communication is actively
pursued and implemented. But on the other hand the forces of exclusion as represented
by local, racial, national, gender, disciplinary, etc., interests prevail in (too)
many aspects. For a change toward comparative cultural studies as proposed here
a paradigm shift in the humanities and social sciences will be necessary. Thus,
the eighth principle represents the notion of working against the stream by promoting
comparative cultural studies as a global, inclusive, and multi-disciplinary framework
in an inter- and supra-national humanities.
37.9 The ninth principle of comparative cultural studies is
its claim on the vocational commitment of its practitioners. In other words, why
study and work in comparative cultural studies? The reasons are the intellectual
as well as pedagogical values this approach and discipline offers in order to
implement the recognition and inclusion of the Other with and by commitment to
the in-depth knowledge of several cultures (i.e., languages, literatures, etc.)
as basic parameters. In consequence, the discipline of comparative cultural studies
as proposed advances our knowledge by a multi-facetted approach based on scholarly
rigor and multi-layered knowledge with precise methodology.
37.10 The tenth principle of comparative cultural studies is
with regard to the troubled intellectual and institutional situation of the humanities
in general. That is, the tenth principle is with reference to the politics of
scholarship and the academe. We know that the humanities in general experience
serious and debilitating institutional -- and, depending on one’s stand, also
intellectual -- difficulties and because of this the humanities in the general
social and public discourse are becoming more and more marginalized (not the least
by their own doing). It is in this context that the principles of a comparative
cultural studies is proposed to at least to attempt to adjust the further marginalization
and social irrelevance of the humanities.
38. A definition of comparative cultural studies is as follows. Comparative cultural
studies is field of study where selected tenets of the discipline of comparative
literature are merged with selected tenets of the field of cultural studies meaning
that the study of culture and culture products -- including but not restricted
to literature, communication, media, art, etc. -- is performed in a contextual
and relational construction and with a plurality of methods and approaches, inter-disciplinarity,
and, if and when required, including team work. In comparative cultural studies
it is the processes of communicative action(s) in culture and the how of these
processes that constitute the main objectives of research and study. However,
comparative cultural studies does not exclude textual analysis proper or other
established fields of study. In comparative cultural studies, ideally, the framework
of and methodologies available in the systemic and empirical study of culture
are favoured.
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