Scales of Comparison: The Paths of Comparative Literature And the Return of ‘World Literature’ (Galin Tihanov, Queen Mary University of London)

In this talk Professor Tihanov traces the early flourishing, subsequent languishing, and, eventually, rapid rehabilitation of "world literature" as a particular discourse on literature. The continuous history of "world literature" as a discourse is interrupted by the long domination of "comparative literature" which operates a different scale of comparison. To understand why "world literature" fails to gain prominence until the early 21st century, despite its early visibility from the 1770s to the mid-nineteenth century, we need to explain the factors that facilitate the rise of "comparative literature" as a competing prism. It is in this context that Professor Tihanov briefly addresses, at the end of this talk, the return of "world literature" as a discourse responding more adequately (though far from unproblematically) to a transnationally organised world.

https://spb.hse.ru/humart/complit/announcements/444214304.html