Pub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1163/24056480-20210007
Adnan Mahmutović
Following Eric Hayot’s argument that modernity is a theory of the world as the “universal,” this paper traces the “world concept” in Marvel Comics industry (MC) and its synergy with the film industry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Speaking from the field of World Literature Studies, I show how superhero comics activate the “world concept” through the global dissemination of the infinitely stretchable Marvel Universe. My argument is that by operating in terms of a universe with moldable diegetic rules, the popular culture of MC and MCU does not merely reflect the current state of the world concept, but also affects its evolution and its spread. The universality of the modern worldview has come to be less concerned with the realist effect and more with increasing all-inclusiveness and infinite stretchability. The increased plasticity of the world concept puts a great pressure on world literary ecologies and increasingly expands and shapes what Beecroft called global literary ecology. What Marvel Comics has done in recent decades, especially through the interplay with the film industry, is to show how the expansion of the world concept entails that however large we imagine the world to be, it is always already too small.
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Pub Date : 2021-07-14DOI: 10.1163/24056480-20210005
Thomas Emmrich
This essay looks at the relationship between the human and the animal with a particular focus on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. At the centre of the analysis is Ovid’s basic understanding of anthrozoology and his narrative about Lycaon. With continuous reference to the translations into English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish, this interpretation is concerned with the subtle linguistic phenomena that can only be derived from the Latin original text; and which, regardless of the obvious content of the metamorphosis, subvert the traditional distinction between human and animal. The anthropological difference is closely connected to the order of language, which has been considered a defining characteristic of the human being. It is therefore all the more remarkable that the plurality and convertibility of languages can be addressed in the light of Ovid’s anthrozoology. With this in mind, the essay concludes by discussing the concept of World Literature.
{"title":"Anthrozoology, or","authors":"Thomas Emmrich","doi":"10.1163/24056480-20210005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-20210005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This essay looks at the relationship between the human and the animal with a particular focus on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. At the centre of the analysis is Ovid’s basic understanding of anthrozoology and his narrative about Lycaon. With continuous reference to the translations into English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish, this interpretation is concerned with the subtle linguistic phenomena that can only be derived from the Latin original text; and which, regardless of the obvious content of the metamorphosis, subvert the traditional distinction between human and animal. The anthropological difference is closely connected to the order of language, which has been considered a defining characteristic of the human being. It is therefore all the more remarkable that the plurality and convertibility of languages can be addressed in the light of Ovid’s anthrozoology. With this in mind, the essay concludes by discussing the concept of World Literature.","PeriodicalId":36587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Literature","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49013074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-14DOI: 10.1163/24056480-20210006
Carlos Diego Arenas Pacheco
Although postcolonial approaches in world literature and translation studies have produced much necessary scholarship, they have in general disregarded the historical ‘native’ author and translator working in colonial or semicolonial settings. Studies on Urdu literature in the 19th century, for instance, focus mostly on the role of British Orientalists. Drawing upon Allen’s trans-indigenous project, I propose to read the historical ‘native’ text approaching it with a concept drawn from Amerindian ethnohistory: ‘double mistaken identity’ (DMI). While ‘native’ intellectuals might have unwittingly contributed to furthering the cause of Western colonialists, DMI allows for two perspectives to coexist in the ‘native’ text, one of which is a ‘native’, non-hybrid perspective. I take the failed colonial project in 16th-century Japan as a model, focusing on a translation that both Urdu and Japanese intellectuals undertook: that of Aesop’s Fables. There is a case for considering ‘native’ literature fully colonial, fully ‘native’, and fully global.
{"title":"The Double Mistaken Identity of Colonial Literature","authors":"Carlos Diego Arenas Pacheco","doi":"10.1163/24056480-20210006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-20210006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Although postcolonial approaches in world literature and translation studies have produced much necessary scholarship, they have in general disregarded the historical ‘native’ author and translator working in colonial or semicolonial settings. Studies on Urdu literature in the 19th century, for instance, focus mostly on the role of British Orientalists. Drawing upon Allen’s trans-indigenous project, I propose to read the historical ‘native’ text approaching it with a concept drawn from Amerindian ethnohistory: ‘double mistaken identity’ (DMI). While ‘native’ intellectuals might have unwittingly contributed to furthering the cause of Western colonialists, DMI allows for two perspectives to coexist in the ‘native’ text, one of which is a ‘native’, non-hybrid perspective. I take the failed colonial project in 16th-century Japan as a model, focusing on a translation that both Urdu and Japanese intellectuals undertook: that of Aesop’s Fables. There is a case for considering ‘native’ literature fully colonial, fully ‘native’, and fully global.","PeriodicalId":36587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Literature","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44966982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-22DOI: 10.1163/24056480-00602005
Françoise Naudillon, M. Reeck
Popular literary forms have experienced a remarkable vitality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While it is difficult to define popular literature, it is necessary to recognize within Francophone literature the existence of types of texts that escape the attention of both discursive and institutional practices of legitimization, texts that are consigned to the margins of the dominant literary canon. In fact, these texts transgress the conventions of these literary “sub-genres,” such as detective novels, dime novels, exoticist novels, novels of manners, as well as graphic novels or comics. The success of Zamenga Batukezanga (1933–2000), still the most widely read and recognized writer in the DRC, as well as the recent rise of comic book writer Jérémie Nsingi, the author of many fanzines and small-run comic strips, reflect how these genres reconstruct canons and illustrate the emergence of a popular social imaginary.
{"title":"Popular Art Forms in the DRC","authors":"Françoise Naudillon, M. Reeck","doi":"10.1163/24056480-00602005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00602005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Popular literary forms have experienced a remarkable vitality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While it is difficult to define popular literature, it is necessary to recognize within Francophone literature the existence of types of texts that escape the attention of both discursive and institutional practices of legitimization, texts that are consigned to the margins of the dominant literary canon. In fact, these texts transgress the conventions of these literary “sub-genres,” such as detective novels, dime novels, exoticist novels, novels of manners, as well as graphic novels or comics. The success of Zamenga Batukezanga (1933–2000), still the most widely read and recognized writer in the DRC, as well as the recent rise of comic book writer Jérémie Nsingi, the author of many fanzines and small-run comic strips, reflect how these genres reconstruct canons and illustrate the emergence of a popular social imaginary.","PeriodicalId":36587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Literature","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44848906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-22DOI: 10.1163/24056480-00602003
Susanne Gehrmann
The article examines narratives by and about former child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a hitherto neglected corpus despite the topicality of child soldiering in African literatures after 2000. Critical readings of three testimonial texts that have been published in France are juxtaposed with the analysis of one testimonial narrative and one youth novel that have been published in Kinshasa. The editorial framing and narrative strategies that speak to different audiences located in different literary fields are identified. The popularity of testimonial narratives in the West relies on the depiction of violence and the iconic function of the child soldier in medial and human rights discourses. By contrast, narratives about the reconciliation and the reintegration of child soldiers prevail in the DRC. Thus, the different functions of global and local narratives on the sensitive issue of children at war are exposed.
{"title":"Congolese Child Soldier Narratives for Global and Local Audiences","authors":"Susanne Gehrmann","doi":"10.1163/24056480-00602003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00602003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The article examines narratives by and about former child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a hitherto neglected corpus despite the topicality of child soldiering in African literatures after 2000. Critical readings of three testimonial texts that have been published in France are juxtaposed with the analysis of one testimonial narrative and one youth novel that have been published in Kinshasa. The editorial framing and narrative strategies that speak to different audiences located in different literary fields are identified. The popularity of testimonial narratives in the West relies on the depiction of violence and the iconic function of the child soldier in medial and human rights discourses. By contrast, narratives about the reconciliation and the reintegration of child soldiers prevail in the DRC. Thus, the different functions of global and local narratives on the sensitive issue of children at war are exposed.","PeriodicalId":36587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Literature","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43079130","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-22DOI: 10.1163/24056480-00602006
S. Riva
Historically and economically, the Congo has been considered one of the most internationalized states of Africa. The idea that African cultural plurality was minimized during the colonial era has to be reconsidered because textual negotiations and exchanges (cosmopolitan and vernacular, written and oral) have been frequent during and after colonization, mostly in urban areas. Through multilingual examples, this paper aims to question the co-construction of linguistic and literary pluralism in Congo and to advocate for the necessity of a transdisciplinary and collaborative approach, to understand the common life of African vernacular and cosmopolitan languages. I show that world literature models based on Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of negotiation between center and periphery thus have to be replaced by a concept of multilingual global history. Finally, I propose the notion of “planetary literature” as a new way of understanding the interconnection between literatures taking care of the world.
{"title":"Congolese Literature as Part of Planetary Literature","authors":"S. Riva","doi":"10.1163/24056480-00602006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00602006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Historically and economically, the Congo has been considered one of the most internationalized states of Africa. The idea that African cultural plurality was minimized during the colonial era has to be reconsidered because textual negotiations and exchanges (cosmopolitan and vernacular, written and oral) have been frequent during and after colonization, mostly in urban areas. Through multilingual examples, this paper aims to question the co-construction of linguistic and literary pluralism in Congo and to advocate for the necessity of a transdisciplinary and collaborative approach, to understand the common life of African vernacular and cosmopolitan languages. I show that world literature models based on Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of negotiation between center and periphery thus have to be replaced by a concept of multilingual global history. Finally, I propose the notion of “planetary literature” as a new way of understanding the interconnection between literatures taking care of the world.","PeriodicalId":36587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Literature","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47231104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-22DOI: 10.1163/24056480-00602002
Xavier Garnier
The expression “geological scandal,” used at the end of the nineteenth century by the Belgian geologist Jules Cornet to describe the mineral wealth of the eastern Congo, has become even more relevant today if we think of the misfortunes that affect the region. Global predation in this part of central Africa is naturally at the heart of the literary preoccupations of many Congolese writers, who invent narrative forms that are able to account for what is being played out beneath the earth’s surface, in the bowels of the earth. In this paper, I wish to highlight the literature of the mine that begins in the colonial era of the Congolese novel and develops considerably in contemporary times. Through the reading of a few major Congolese novels, this article analyzes how the Congo’s subsoil is the vector of globalization.
{"title":"Writings of the Subsoil in the Contemporary Congolese Novel","authors":"Xavier Garnier","doi":"10.1163/24056480-00602002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00602002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The expression “geological scandal,” used at the end of the nineteenth century by the Belgian geologist Jules Cornet to describe the mineral wealth of the eastern Congo, has become even more relevant today if we think of the misfortunes that affect the region. Global predation in this part of central Africa is naturally at the heart of the literary preoccupations of many Congolese writers, who invent narrative forms that are able to account for what is being played out beneath the earth’s surface, in the bowels of the earth. In this paper, I wish to highlight the literature of the mine that begins in the colonial era of the Congolese novel and develops considerably in contemporary times. Through the reading of a few major Congolese novels, this article analyzes how the Congo’s subsoil is the vector of globalization.","PeriodicalId":36587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Literature","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45887986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-22DOI: 10.1163/24056480-00602001
Julien Jeusette, S. Riva
“Penser le monde à partir de l’Afrique” (Mbembe and Sarr 379) – to think the world from the perspective of Africa.1 Achille Mbembe’s article, which concludes the volume Écrire l’Afrique-Monde, advocates for a shift: not only to stop viewing Africa as a peripheral andmarginalized continent but also to imagine, create, and reflect the world from an African point of view. Mbembe goes further and considers, more boldly, that “there is not a part of the world whose history does not contain somewhere an African dimension”2 (385). Moreover, as he declares with Felwine Sarr in the introduction of the book, “there is no longer any African or diasporic question that does not at the same time refer to a planetary question” (12). The world is intertwined, and Africa is one of its moving centers. In this regard, the Congo drc, formerly the Belgian Congo, with its abundance of natural resources, is often viewed as one of the primary hubs enabling theworldmarkets to function. “The Congo is at the center of the world since 1884 [the date of the Berlin Conference],” declares the writer Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Maveau). This special issue endorses this perspective but departs fromboth an economic focus and the vision of Congo as a “failed State” (Nay 326) to consider Congolese literary production at the crossing of worlds and languages, mainly contemporary literature published after 2000. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, there has been an “explosion of the editorial demand inAfrican literature” (Ducas 207), anddrcwriters
“Penser le monde partir de l 'Afrique”(Mbembe and Sarr 379) -从非洲的角度思考世界。1 Achille Mbembe的文章,在Écrire l 'Afrique - monde卷的结尾处,提倡一种转变:不仅要停止将非洲视为边缘和边缘化的大陆,还要从非洲的角度来想象,创造和反映世界。Mbembe更进一步,更大胆地认为,“世界上没有一个地方的历史不包含非洲的部分”(385页)。此外,正如他在书的前言中与费尔温·萨尔(Felwine Sarr)所宣称的那样,“不再有任何非洲或流散的问题不同时涉及到一个全球性问题”(12)。世界是相互交织的,非洲是其中一个移动的中心。在这方面,刚果民主共和国(前身为比属刚果)拥有丰富的自然资源,通常被视为世界市场运作的主要中心之一。“自1884年(柏林会议召开之日)以来,刚果一直是世界的中心,”作家菲斯顿·姆万扎·穆吉拉(maeau)宣称。本期特刊支持这一观点,但脱离了经济焦点和刚果作为“失败国家”的愿景(Nay 326),考虑了刚果文学作品在世界和语言的交叉,主要是2000年以后出版的当代文学。自21世纪初以来,“非洲文学的编辑需求出现了爆炸式增长”(Ducas 207),编剧也出现了爆炸式增长
{"title":"Contemporary Congolese Literature as World Literature","authors":"Julien Jeusette, S. Riva","doi":"10.1163/24056480-00602001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00602001","url":null,"abstract":"“Penser le monde à partir de l’Afrique” (Mbembe and Sarr 379) – to think the world from the perspective of Africa.1 Achille Mbembe’s article, which concludes the volume Écrire l’Afrique-Monde, advocates for a shift: not only to stop viewing Africa as a peripheral andmarginalized continent but also to imagine, create, and reflect the world from an African point of view. Mbembe goes further and considers, more boldly, that “there is not a part of the world whose history does not contain somewhere an African dimension”2 (385). Moreover, as he declares with Felwine Sarr in the introduction of the book, “there is no longer any African or diasporic question that does not at the same time refer to a planetary question” (12). The world is intertwined, and Africa is one of its moving centers. In this regard, the Congo drc, formerly the Belgian Congo, with its abundance of natural resources, is often viewed as one of the primary hubs enabling theworldmarkets to function. “The Congo is at the center of the world since 1884 [the date of the Berlin Conference],” declares the writer Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Maveau). This special issue endorses this perspective but departs fromboth an economic focus and the vision of Congo as a “failed State” (Nay 326) to consider Congolese literary production at the crossing of worlds and languages, mainly contemporary literature published after 2000. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, there has been an “explosion of the editorial demand inAfrican literature” (Ducas 207), anddrcwriters","PeriodicalId":36587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Literature","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42773208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-22DOI: 10.1163/24056480-00602004
Duncan M. Yoon
This article asks how China has figured as a trope in Congolese literature from the Cold War and to the present. To do so, I analyze three texts: V.Y. Mudimbe’s Entre les eaux (Between Tides) (1973), In Koli Jean Bofane’s Congo Inc. (2014), and Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s Tram 83 (2014). I also examine how Mobutu interpolated Maoism into his dictatorship. I argue that whereas the Cold War produces figures such as the Maoist guerrilla, the radical intellectual, and the authoritarian leader, Chinese investment in the DRC facilitates the rise of new figures such as the mondialiste and the economic tourist. As a result, Third Worldism is ironically recast through the lens of a mutual “win-win” for development. This lens masks a new era of extractivism that produces its own social dislocations, which lends Pierre Mulélé’s Maoist-inspired rebellion a paradoxical relevance to DRC-PRC relations at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
本文探讨了从冷战到现在,中国如何成为刚果文学中的一个比喻。为此,我分析了三篇文章:V.Y. Mudimbe的《潮汐之间》(1973),In Koli Jean Bofane的《刚果公司》(2014),以及Fiston Mwanza Mujila的《电车83》(2014)。我还研究了蒙博托如何将毛主义插入他的独裁统治。我认为,虽然冷战产生了毛主义游击队、激进知识分子和威权主义领导人等人物,但中国在刚果民主共和国的投资促进了诸如世俗主义者和经济游客等新人物的崛起。因此,具有讽刺意味的是,第三世界主义通过相互“双赢”发展的镜头被重新塑造。这个镜头掩盖了一个榨取主义的新时代,这个时代产生了它自己的社会混乱,这使得皮埃尔·穆尔海姆·莫尔海姆的毛主义叛乱与二十一世纪初的中非关系有着矛盾的关联。
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Pub Date : 2020-11-04DOI: 10.1163/24056480-00504001
Wiebke Sievers, P. Levitt
This special issue on scale shifting brings into sharper focus the complexity of global literary circulation, especially when viewed from the perspective of global literary peripheries. In this introduction, we present the idea of scale shifting, a concept we use to move beyond translation to include circulation in global languages, such as English and French. We build on earlier analyses that mapped previous literary worlds and shed light on the aesthetic and sociological factors that enabled outsiders to enter them by (1) focusing on how peripheralised writers scale up to gain global recognition in multiscalar literary fields and (2) analysing how, in turn, this scale shifting changes the national, regional and global levels of these fields. In addition, we provide a preview of each article included in this volume and summarise the collective takeaways gleaned from our individual case studies.
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