Journal Article

Westphal's Lecture: Geocriticism and Worldwide World Literature

Westphal, Bertrand

2020

Overview

World Literature has received much attention in the context of globalization in our days. However, due to the relatively dominant position of certain regions, the World Literature currently discussed is strongly influenced by a few cultures and languages, therefore cannot truly cover a worldwide scale. Letting literature have its voice from all over the world without falling into ethnocentrism requires a more macroscopic cultural vision towards Others. Such point of view leads to decentering, which is one of the keys-ideas of geocriticism. The latter encourages a spatial transgressi vity who dissolves barriers between cultural spaces. One shall keep a reasonable distance from his own identity to have a decentered vision towards the whole world, and that is where visual arts such as artistic maps come to help. Interdisciplinary studies among literature, geography and cartography could bring some new inspirations into World Literature.

• Publisher: Fudan Daxue
• Subject: Cartography / Cultural factors / Culture / Ethnocentrism / Geography / Globalization / Interdisciplinary aspects / Languages / Self concept / Traditions / World literature