Description: "What does it mean for theory to be considered as a species of not just "literature" but "world" literature? These essays offer accounts of how the "worlding" of literature both problematizes the national categorizing of theory (e.g., French theory) and brings new meanings and challenges to the coming together of theory and literature. In sum, they offer Theory as World Literature as a viable alternative to more commonplace approaches to theory. By approaching theory from a perspective more attuned toward the complexity and precarity of the world, this volume acknowledges that theory is more worldly now than ever"--
Brief description: Thomas O. Beebee is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and German, Penn State University, USA. He is the author of Millennial Literatures of the Americas, 1492-2002 (2008), Epistolary Fiction in Europe (1999), The Ideology of Genre: A Comparative Study of Generic Instability (1994) and Clarissa on the Continent: Translation and Seduction (1990).
Review Quotes:
"This book is a brilliant tribute to an underacknowledged feature of theory, the fact that in the very awkwardness of its abstractions, it has served as an international vocabulary, empowering critics around the world to challenge the unconscious cognitive authority of the native speaker. Ambitious and never dutiful, this volume also makes a contribution in its own right to elucidating the mysteries of a worldliness, actual as well potential, beyond global capitalism." --Bruce Robbins, Old Dominion Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University, USA, and author of Atrocity: A Literary History (2025)
"Taking its cue from Goethe's urge towards a Weltliterature and Derrida's subsequent deconstructive account of worldliness, Theory as World Literature offers an insightful reflection of what both literature and theory, as well as theory as literature and literature as theory, become in the contemporary context of 'worlding' our literary and scholarly practices. Through a wide array of critical essays ranging from post-colonial studies to psychoanalytical readings, from realism to phenomenology, Jeffrey R. Di Leo's edited volume is a thought-provoking collection that will no doubt open new windows on and cut fresh pathways through theory and literature in an increasingly global and increasingly fragile environment." --Stéphane Vanderhaeghe, Associate Professor, University Paris 8-Vincennes-Saint-Denis, France "Theory as World Literature provides a comprehensive (though not exhaustive) account of 'world' and 'wordliness' as approached from a plethora of theoretical fields, each with its own unique understanding of a process of 'worlding' literature." --Studia UBB Philologia