Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters

This book is a radical reimagination of the idea of the literary through colonial histories and world literature.

Baidik Bhattacharya (Author)

9781009422642, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 February 2024

302 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.56 kg

'Recommended.' L. A. Brewer, CHOICE

In a radical and ambitious reconceptualization of the field, this book argues that global literary culture since the eighteenth century was fundamentally shaped by colonial histories. It offers a comprehensive account of the colonial inception of the literary sovereign – how the realm of literature was thought to be separate from history and politics – and then follows that narrative through a wide array of different cultures, multilingual archives, and geographical locations. Providing close studies of colonial archives, German philosophy of aesthetics, French realist novels, and English literary history, this book shows how colonialism shaped and reshaped modern literary cultures in decisive ways. It breaks fresh ground across disciplines such as literary studies, anthropology, history, and philosophy, and invites one to rethink the history of literature in a new light.

Preface and acknowledgement
Introduction: formations of the literary sovereign
Part I. Epistemic Habits: 1. Ethnographic recension
2. Colonial untranslatables
3. Comparatism in the colony
Part II. Aesthetic Conventions: 4. Impure aesthetics
5. Sanskrit on shagreen
6. National enframing
Coda: Decolonization after world literature
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]