Global Matters

Paul Jay

Description

As the pace of cultural globalization accelerates, the discipline of literary studies is undergoing dramatic transformation. Scholars and critics focus increasingly on theorizing difference and complicating the geographical framework defining their approaches. At the same time, Anglophone literature is being created by a remarkably transnational, multicultural group of writers exploring many of the same concerns, including the intersecting effects of colonialism, decolonization, migration, and globalization. Paul Jay surveys these developments, highlighting key debates within literary and cultural studies about the impact of globalization over the past two decades. Global Matters provides a concise, informative overview of theoretical, critical, and curricular issues driving the transnational turn in literary studies and how these issues have come to dominate contemporary global fiction as well. Through close, imaginative readings Jay analyzes the intersecting histories of colonialism, decolonization, and globalization engaged by an array of texts from Africa, Europe, South Asia, and the Americas, including Zadie Smith's White Teeth, Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, Vikram Chandra's Red Earth and Pouring Rain, Mohsin Hamid's Moth Smoke, and Zakes Mda's The Heart of Redness. A timely intervention in the most exciting debates within literary studies, Global Matters is a comprehensive guide to the transnational nature of Anglophone literature today and its relationship to the globalization of Western culture.

Sujets

• África
• Cultural studies
• Literary theory
• Globalization
• Africa
• India

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801460357
• Langue: English

Extrait

Global Matters

Global Matters

The Transnational Turn in Literary Studies

Paul Jay

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2010 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2010 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2010

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Jay, Paul, 1946–  Global matters : the transnational turn in literary studies / Paul Jay.  p. cm.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801449000 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 9780801476075 (pbk. : alk. paper)  1.Commonwealth fiction (English)—History and criticism.2.Literature, Comparative—Commonwealth (English) and English.3.Literature, Comparative—English and Commonwealth (English).4.Literature, Comparative—Commonwealth (English) and American.5.Literature, Comparative—American and Commonwealth (English).6.Transnationalism in literature.7.Globalization in literature.8.Multi culturalism in literature.9.Literature and globalization.I.Title.  PR9084J39 2010  809—dc222010005687

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing Paperback printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my parents, Lester and Midge Jay

Acknowledgments

Contents

Introduction: The Transnational Turn in Literary Studies

Part One: Globalization and the Study of Literature

1. Difference, Multiculturalism, and the Globalizing of Literary Studies

2. What Is Globalization?

3. Economies, Cultures, and the Politics of Globalization

4. Border Studies: Remapping the Locations of Literary Study

Part Two: Globalization in Contemporary Literature

5. Post–Postcolonial Writing in the Age of Globalization: The God of Small Things, Red Earth and Pouring Rain, Moth Smoke

ix

1

15 33 53 73

95

v i i i C o n t e n t s

6. Globalization and Nationalism in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss

7. The Cultural Politics of Development in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness

8. Multiculturalism and Identity in Zadie Smith’sWhite Teeth

9. Transnational Masculinities in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Conclusion Notes

Works Cited Index

118

137 154

176

195 201 215 225

Acknowledgments

Global Matters: The Transnational Turn in Literary Studieshad its genesis in a paper on border studies and globalization I gave at the Modern Language As sociation convention in San Francisco in 1998 that crystallized in an essay on globalization and the future of literary studies that appeared inPMLAin 2001 and then evolved during the next few years in lectures at Pennsylvania State University, Lewis University, Texas Tech University, and in conference papers delivered in Rome, Honolulu, Washington DC, New Orleans, Milwaukee, and elsewhere. I want to thank the many people who attended those lectures for their keen attention, probing questions, and constructive feedback. My book would not have taken intelligent shape without those lively discussions. Of course books like this are not just the product of solitary research and writ ing. More often than not, they evolve in the classroom, out of the giveandtake we have with our students. I have been blessed to teach at an institution, Loyola University Chicago, that not only values scholarship but understands and fa cilitates the crucial link between original research and successful undergraduate and graduate teaching. The material in this book has grown out of freewheeling discussions I have had with my students in courses about the impact of globaliza tion on literature and its study at a variety of levels. I owe a debt of gratitude to