The Routledge Companion to Global Comparative Literature by Zhang Longxi

The Routledge Companion to Global Comparative Literature is a collection of papers by influential scholars who are engaged in comparative literary studies and addresses a central and highly important question about the discipline: if Eurocentrism has been integral to comparative literature, and if the world we live in is undergoing radical changes, then how can, or should, the discipline change to overcome this problem, of the discipline as well as of literary history, to accommodate non-Western traditions? Addressing this significant matter and taking different approaches in response to the state of the discipline, the papers in this volume offer diverse ways of overcoming Eurocentrism: the role of institutions and the changes they need to undergo; possible ways of practicing a truly global comparative literature; the history of the discipline outside Europe; premodern histories of ideas and the non-European origins of modernity; translation, orientalism and area studies; publishing and literary circulation; and modern technologies and their impact on literary dissemination and the discipline. This collection assesses comparative literature at a timely historical moment and will broaden the field by addressing the students and scholars of comparative literary studies all over the world with significant hints for more inclusive histories of world literature.