Comparative Literature and World Literature: A Disciplinary Framework

Abstract

Despite the recent creation of specialized scientific journals in the field (such as the Journal of World Literature), the occurrence of congresses and cultural events dedicated to it (such as the Festival de Literatura-Mundo do Sal), the creation of institutions that bring together and represent its practitioners (such as the Institute for World Literature, at the University of Harvard) and even its insertion in the scope of university curricula (especially in the US, where they nevertheless tend to assume the configuration of survey courses mostly dedicated to the listing and brief presentation of literary texts «of the world»), I believe it is within the framework of Comparative Literature that world literature finds the disciplinary (and therefore theoretical, epistemological and methodological) support best suited to its development as a significant field of inquiry in the scope of literary studies.

Keywords

• literatura comparada
• literatura-mundo
• enquadramento disciplinar
• cosmopolitismo