Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability

Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability argues for a rethinking of comparative literature focusing on the problems that emerge when large-scale paradigms of literary studies ignore the politics of the “Untranslatable” — the realm of those words that are continually retranslated, mistranslated, transferred from language to language, or especially resistant to substitution.

In the place of “World Literature” — a dominant paradigm in the humanities, one grounded in market-driven notions of readability and universal appeal — Apter proposes a plurality of “world literatures” oriented around philosophical concepts and geopolitical pressure points. The history and theory of the language that constructs World Literature is critically examined with a special focus on Weltliteratur, literary world systems, narrative ecosystems, language borders and checkpoints, theologies of translation, and planetary devolution in a book set to revolutionize the discipline of comparative literature.

• Author
• Emily Apter

• Format
• paperback

• Pages
• 368

• Publisher
• Verso

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 9781844679706

• Genres
• theory, philosophy, language, politics, literature, american, criticism, cultural

• Release date
• 2013