Literature Helps Worlding the World – A Conversation with Bertrand Westphal

Abstract

In the following interview, Bertrand Westphal, professor of comparative literature at the University of Limoges, discusses some of the prevailing issues surrounding contemporary forays into spatial studies and the function of the humanities in current academia. The dialogue also touches on subjects pertaining to World Literature studies, such as Immanuel Wallerstein’s “world systems analysis” or Franco Moretti’s “distant reading” method, in an attempt to propose an applied and pragmatic approach through which geocriticism can become essential to the study of literature. Furthermore, Westphal engages in a highly stimulating examination of common spatial and cultural stereotypes such as Central and Eastern Europe, while also commenting on subjects like the interdependence of time and space in our understanding of cultural phenomena or geocriticism’s applicability to both mimetic and abstract spaces.

Keywords

• geocriticism
• spatial turn
• worlding
• world systems analysis
• distant reading