Literary transnationalism: A Europeanist’s perspective

Abstract

Literary transnationalism is a relatively new term critically mediating the relationships between national literatures and the wider forces of globalizing culture. ‘Literary’ or ‘critical’ ‘transnationalism’ describes aspects of literary circulation and movement that defy reduction to the level of the nation-state. The term originated in American Studies as a means of bringing American literary discourse into a new relationship with the world that it inhabits. Can the concept of ‘transnationalism’ help in broader discussions of world literature and literary globalization? Literary transnationalism in this sense would identify that point at which two or more geo-cultural imaginaries intersect, connect, engage with, disrupt or conflict with each other in literary form. In this article I discuss transnationalism in terms of its origins and intellectual history in order to suggest ways in which transnational theory might be developed as an analytical tool of both global breadth and historical depth with particular reference to European literature.

Mobility and Memory: Maritime Crossings of the Storyteller in Marie-Célie Agnant’sLe livre d’EmmaGabriella Ghermandi’sRegina di fiori e di perle

“…80 In recent years, the growth of literary transnationalism beyond American studies where it originated has often been discussed in conjunction with globalization. 81 To consider these novels at the intersection of transnationalism is equally productive, and this comparative study invites a maritime practice of reading that redefines what constitutes a real border. In contrast to the arbitrary delineation of geographical space and "projection of a series of sociopolitical dimensions" on that space that is characteristic of, for example, the colonial encounter, 82 a terrestrial framework might argue that it is the earth's topography that determines the real border between spaces.…”