This fully updated new edition of The Routledge Companion to World Literature contains ten brand new chapters on topics such as premodern world literature, migration studies, world history, artificial intelligence, global Englishes, remediation, crime fiction, Lusophone literature, Middle Eastern literature, and oceanic studies. Separated into four key sections, the volume covers: the history of world literature through significant writers and theorists from Goethe to Said, Casanova and Moretti the disciplinary relationship of world literature to areas such as philology, translation, globalization, and diaspora studies theoretical issues in world literature, including gender, politics, and ethics; and a global perspective on the politics of world literature Comprehensive yet accessible, this book is ideal as an introduction to world literature or for those looking to extend their knowledge of this essential field.

Memos from the Besieged City argues for the institutional and cultural relevance of literary study through foundational figures, from the 1200s to today, who defied precarious circumstances to make significant contributions to literacy and civilization in the face of infelicitous human acts. Focusing on historically vital crossroads-Baghdad, Florence, Byzantium, Istanbul, Rome, Paris, New York, Mexico City, Jerusalem, Beijing, Stockholm, Warsaw-Kadir looks at how unconventional and nonconformist writings define literacy, culture, and intellectual commitment. Inspired by political refugee and literary scholar Erich Auerbach's path-breaking Mimesis, and informed by late twentieth-century ideological and methodological upheavals, the book reflects on literacy and dissidence at a moment when literary disciplines, canons, and theories are being reassessed under the pressure of globalization and transculturation. At the forefront of an ethical turn in the comparative analysis of cultures and their literary legacies, it reminds us of the best humanity can produce.

Memos from the Besieged City argues for the institutional and cultural relevance of literary study through foundational figures, from the 1200s to today, who defied precarious circumstances to make significant contributions to literacy and civilization in the face of infelicitous human acts. Focusing on historically vital crossroads-Baghdad, Florence, Byzantium, Istanbul, Rome, Paris, New York, Mexico City, Jerusalem, Beijing, Stockholm, Warsaw-Kadir looks at how unconventional and nonconformist writings define literacy, culture, and intellectual commitment. Inspired by political refugee and literary scholar Erich Auerbach's path-breaking Mimesis, and informed by late twentieth-century ideological and methodological upheavals, the book reflects on literacy and dissidence at a moment when literary disciplines, canons, and theories are being reassessed under the pressure of globalization and transculturation. At the forefront of an ethical turn in the comparative analysis of cultures and their literary legacies, it reminds us of the best humanity can produce.

"Questing Fictions "was first published in 1986. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

"Questing Fictions "analyzes twentieth-century Latin American fiction in the light of contemporary literary theory. Djelal Kadir examines key works by several writers--including Jorges Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, Lezama Lima, Alejo Carpentier, Juan Rulfo, and Carlos Fuentes--and demonstrates how these writers are obliged to invent their own reality and how their successors inevitably must continue that inventive tradition. In a larger sense, Kadir describes how works of literature originate and, in turn, generate other literary works.Aiming at the specific nature of discourse written from the perspective of non-European cultures, "Questing Fictions " identifies and focuses on the predicament of writers caught between the cultural domination of Europe and the need to strive for cultural autonomy. Kadir explains that this predicament is shared by all Latin American authors and may well characterize all recently emergent literatures. He traces the problems of continuity and rupture within the Latin American tradition and addresses, as well, deeper questions of narrative and narration. In the process, Kadir reveals the interrelatedness of the continent's principal fables and shows their relationship to the larger Western tradition. Finally, "Questing Fictions " posits that Latin American narratives cannot escape the the quest for an identity that they can never fully attain.

Columbus is the first blazing star in a constellation of explorers whose right to claim and conquer each new land mass they encountered was absolutely unquestioned by their countrymen. Columbus and the Ends of the Earth brings to life the system of religious beliefs that made the imperial taking of the New World not only possible but laudable. The language of prophecy and divine predestination fills the pronouncements of those who ventured across the Atlantic. With their conviction that they were exercising a God-given right to lands and goods held in escrow until the dawning of the Age of Discovery, Spanish, English, and other European adventurers laid claim to the land and peoples of the New World as their rightful due and manifest destiny. Djelal Kadir's argument has profound implications for current theoretical debates and reassessments of colonialism and decolonization. Has the ideology of empire disappeared, or has it merely been secularized? Kadir suggests that in this supposedly postcolonial era, richer nations and privileged multinational entities still manipulate the rhetoric of conquest to justify and serve their own worldly ends. For colonized peoples who live today at the "ends of the earth", the age of exploitation may not be essentially different from the age of exploration. Here is a timely review of the founding doctrines of empire, one that speaks less than reverentially of the brave explorers and righteous settlers of the New World.