Death of a Discipline

Bathed in the vibrant hues of multiculturalism, "world literature" explodes beyond its Eurocentric past. Comparative literature,
once a quest for universality, now stumbles at the crossroads. Aristotle's mimesis, a grand mirror reflecting Western echoes, still
whispers, yet a kaleidoscope of diverse voices clamor for attention. Can comparative literature fashion a lens that captures not just
familiar notes but the symphony of every tongue? This essay wrestles with this dissonance, seeking a harmony where each cultural
narrative finds its rightful place. It delves into the challenges of embracing difference, daring to imagine a chorus where every voice
sings not in unison, but in vibrant counterpoint, composing a richer, truer melody of human experience.

This article explores Spivak’s long-standing engagement with anthro
pology, and reads Death of a Discipline as the third volume of a trilogy encompassing A Critique of Postcolonial Reason and Imperatives to Reimagine the Planet. In treating DoD as the third and “pragmatic” supplement to the first two texts, it explores the ways in which Spivak’s thought engages the problems bequeathed by Immanuel Kant’s own critical trilogy: the native informant, the regulatory ideal and cosmopolitical ethics, and the need to supplement the concept of “world” (or “globality”) with a non-substantive intuition of the transcendental in the form of the earth and/or the planetary.

Comparative Literature has been in the verge of crisis for the last few decades; some seminal questions have been posed against it pertaining its subject matter and executed methodology. The emergence of Area Studies, Postcolonial studies has raised objection against the epistemological hegemony inherent in its entity. In the backdrop of such objections the present paper would try to analyze the issues critically with a historical and futuristic approach. The investigation of the posed crisis against Comparative Literature would chiefly be internalized from the perspective of the Western hegemony and the ideologically nurtured binary of Western Literature and Non-western Literature.

With the beginning of the new millennium a new era began for the discipline. Comparative literature realized the necessity of the globalization, hence the discipline moved toward world literature, or one may argue that it returned to its original idea. Today comparative literature has forgotten its old West-centrism and is moving toward a global view to include non-Western cultures. The bell has tolled for the West-centric discipline as Spivak announced in her Death of a Discipline (2003). Nationalism and cultural superiority of the French school is replaced with multiculturalism and cultural relativism. World literature is the new comparative literature. While literature and literary studies are losing attraction in contrast to the various forms of popular culture and consumer culture, world literature is increasingly flourishing. Comparative literature in its origin provided scholars with a global view of literature. The French school led it into nationalistic and Eurocentric paths. In the twenty-first century the discipline has returned to its original democratic path. Goethe's Weltliteratur, affected by the French school, turned into a narrow-minded comparative literature. Now, aided by post-colonial thought, multiculturalism and globalization, it is the global, democratic and plurivocal world literature that sacrifices no culture for the sake of the others.

I am going to present " World Literature: Global, Democratic and Plurivocal" at 21st World congress of the International Comparative Literature Association (July 21st – 27th 2016. University of Vienna) as a contribution to the panel no. 17285, “Towards a New World Literature”.
Date: Saturday, July 23rd
Time: 2:30 p.m.
Place: University of Vienna, Room Hs 48
Chair: Gisela Brinker-Gabler; Barbara Agnese

In the previous paper, I pointed that Clements's attempt to trace the genealogy of comparative literature lacks explication on the very purpose of comparing national literatures worldwide. Why, I asked, is there a need juxtapose bodies of literature when it merely echoes the dominance and hegemonic influence of the West? Interestingly, Spivak's Death of a Discipline provides possibility to free ourselves from that question.

The Import of the Comparative in Comparative Literature 'It seems to me that the "comparative" in comparative literature is equally, if not more, crucial a factor in considering the future of comparative literature: exactly what constitutes "comparison"what kinds of relations, critical formations, analytical perspectives are relevant?' (Chow, "In the Name of Comparative Literature" 107) Rey Chow, in this statement, highlights the very concern of most Comparative theorists with regard to the comparative in comparative literature. This essay, too, will reflect on and engage with the comparative and its various implications, locate the same within the selected works of Susan Bassnett and The Bernheimer Report, as well as Mary Louise Pratt's response to the Report, and attempt to contextualise it within the area of comparative literature. A final, concluding commentary will also be made on what can be said about the relevance and future of comparative literature.

In the long-standing and divisive debate on Comparative Literature, comparatist scholars from both  the Great European Tradition and  the Southern Hemisphere  agree on the importance of two elements: first , the definition of Comparative Literature  and the historical role it has with regard to the Human Sciences; secondly, the position of theory in this essentially Eurocentric discipline, and the impact that recent cross-cultural scholarship on Postcolonialism, Women Studies, Translation and Cultural Studies may have on  the project of its  re-conceptualisation. The present paper deals briefly with the first element, providing elements of focus rather than a finished portrait; then, it takes up the significant moments of the theoretical debate in Comparative Literature between Literary Studies on the one hand and Translation & Cultural Studies on the other.  Through the comparative scholarly research extending from the 1990’s  to the first decade of the 21st century, I describe the shifts of focus in literary studies that emerged in the 1990’s, and which resulted in the creation of a more politicised Cultural Studies and new configurations of main vs. subsidiary between Comparative Literature  and the disciplines contiguous to it: Translation and Cultural Studies. With these realignments, I argue, Comparative Literature has  faced the challenge to restructure itself and its agenda. In this, I finally maintain, it gives 21st century lessons to the other Human Sciences on the commensurability of angst, survival and regeneration.