Book Review: Bulgarian Literature as World Literature, edited by Mihaela P. Harper and Dimitar Kambourov (Review Essay)

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Petya Tsoneva ◽  
◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Dynamic Interaction ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Quality Literature ◽  
Recent Collection ◽  
Minor Literatures ◽  
Local Literatures ◽  
Geographical Economic

The essay reviews a recent collection of seminal critical readings of Bulgarian literature as “world literature.” Published by Bloomsbury Academic, the volume under discussion contributes to the study of the dynamic interaction of “minor” literatures with local, regional, and wider manifestations of global literary space. It is organized in four sections of thematic contributions authored by scholars from Bulgaria and beyond that discuss historical, geographical, economic, and genetic processes in the development of Bulgarian literature. The review follows the sections closely, and is attentive to specific phenomena, positions, texts, and contexts that render the concept of “minor literature” negotiable and open to reformulations. As most of the static labels are nowadays flushed into the conglomerate of “marginocentricity” and the reality of “quality literature” is no longer a criterion in the admission of local literatures to worldwide prominence, literary circulation has, to a great extent, become a function of the global market. The publication of the reviewed volume is the outcome of a vigorous effort to establish Bulgaria’s literary location within these processes and beyond them.

scholarly journals Romani Literature(s) As Minor Literature(s) in the Context of World Literature: A Survey of Romani Literatures in French and Spanish

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-57
Author(s):  
Marina Ortrud M. Hertrampf
Keyword(s):  
French Literature ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
Cultural Productions ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Minor Literatures

The article discusses the comparatively young form of written Romani literary self-expression as an example of “minor literature” in Deleuze and Guattari’s sense.[1] The focus here is on producing a classifying survey of the literary production of Romani writers in France and Spain, with the article outlining the different aesthetic fields and literary forms evident in French and Spanish Romani literature. The comparative approach reveals thatdespite regional and national differences, these minor literatures demonstrate several aesthetic similarities typical of Romani literature that could ultimately come to define the transnational, cross-border characteristics of Romani literature. Furthermore, I show that there are literary tendencies in contemporary Romani literatures that go beyond the usual forms of establishing literary self-expression in diasporic cultural productions or aesthetic appropriation of major society’s literary traditions, so that Romani literatures in French and Spanish should, I argue, also be seen as part of world literature. 1 It is important to emphasize that the potentially offending implications of the evaluative use of the term “minor” is by no means hinted at in Deleuze and Guattari: The French “literature mineure” does not indicate lower aesthetic qualities or literary inferiority to majority literature but rather describes a literature produced by writers not (exclusively) belonging to the nation-state in which they live. At the same time, it should be mentioned that the term “small literature,” in contrast to minor literatures, means literary expressions from small nations or/and in small languages like, for example, in Bulgarian, Estonian, or Luxembourgish (cf., Glesener 2012). 

Jewish American Writing and World Literature

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saul Noam Zaritt
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Jewish American ◽  
Global Circulation ◽  
Isaac Bashevis Singer ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Literature Theory

Jewish American Writing and World Literature studies Jewish American writers’ relationships with the idea of world literature—how they place themselves within its boundaries, outside its purview, or, most often, in constant motion across and beyond its maps and networks. Writers such as Sholem Asch, Jacob Glatstein, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Anna Margolin, Saul Bellow, and Grace Paley all responded to a demand to write beyond local Jewish and American audiences and toward the world, as a global market and as a transnational ideal. At the same time, their work is deeply informed by an intimate connection to Yiddish, a Jewish vernacular with its own global network and institutional ambitions. This book tracks the attempts and failures, through translation, to find a home for Jewish vernacularity in the institution of world literature. Beyond fame and global circulation, world literature holds up the promise of legibility, in which a threatened origin becomes the site for redemptive literary creativity. But this promise inevitably remains unfulfilled, as writers struggle to balance potential universal achievements with untranslatable realities, rendering impossible any complete arrival in the US and in the world. The exploration of the translational uncertainty of Jewish American writing joins postcolonial critiques of US and world literature and challenges Eurocentric and Anglo-American paradigms of literary study. In bringing into conversation the fields of Yiddish studies, American Studies, and world literature theory, the book proposes a new approach to the study of modern Jewish literatures and their implication within global empires of culture.

scholarly journals Global Masterpieces and Italian Dialects

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Segnini
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Minority Status ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Italian Dialects

This essay suggests that the ultraminor can function as a paradigm to examine literature that emphasizes the minority status of the language in which it is composed. Engaging with Deleuze and Guattari’s definition of minor literature and with Pascale Casanova and Lawrence Venuti’s reflections on the role of translation in the shaping of world literature, it develops a comparison between two rewritings of Shakespeare into Italian dialects: Eduardo De Filippo’s translation of The Tempest into Neapolitan and Luigi Meneghello’s translation of Hamlet into vicentino. The essay underlines how these endeavors represent translations into languages that, at the time of writing, are considered by their authors in decline and doomed to extinction, and argues that both authors use translation to emphasize the historical memory of their native idioms. Both De Filippo and Meneghello, in fact, set out to challenge the subordinate status of Neapolitan and vicentino by proving that dialects are apt to express great thought as well as philosophical, abstract, and theoretical concepts.

Translating the Translational: A Comparative Study of the Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese Translations of Xiaolu Guo's A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Flair Donglai Shi
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
English Language ◽  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Chinese Student ◽  
Visual Design ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Minor Literature ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Translational Strategies

The untranslatability of this particular novel does not come from the ‘resistant singularity’ claimed by world literature scholars like Emily Apter, but has to do instead with its inherently translational nature as a novel about intercultural (mis-)communication. Comparative close readings of the three versions published in Britain, Taiwan, and mainland China focus on paratexts, intra-textual visual design, and specific translational strategies. Caught between the established traditions of diasporic Chinese literature and liuxuesheng wenxue (‘overseas Chinese student writing’), A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers and its Chinese-language translations offer insights into the dialectic between ‘minor’ literature and ‘world’ literature, discussed here with a particular focus on the global hegemony of the English language.

An integrated-process model of service quality, institutional brand and behavioural intentions

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 487-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parves Sultan ◽  
Ho Yin Wong
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Integrated Process ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Behavioural Intentions ◽  
Index Model ◽  
Quality Literature ◽  
Integrated Process Model

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and test an integrated-process model/an index model by incorporating the antecedents and consequences of service quality in a higher education context. Design/methodology/approach – This research employed both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The data from three focus groups, conducted at an Australian University, generated key themes and their interrelationships. The theoretical model was then tested using the structural equation modelling (SEM) technique on a sample of 528 University students. Findings – The findings show that information (or marketing communications) and past experience are the antecedents of perceived service quality (PSQ). PSQ is a second order construct and has three dimensions: academic, administrative and facilities. The consequences of PSQ include trust, satisfaction, university-brand (UniBrand) performance and behavioural intentions. Overall, the results suggest a good validity of the model, and the nine path coefficients are found statistically significant. Originality/value – The model explains how service quality is formed, and how PSQ affects UniBrand and positive behavioural intentions overtime. This paper develops and validates three new constructs including information, past experience and UniBrand performance. In addition, it improves and validates other constructs including service quality, satisfaction, trust and behavioural intention. The paper also advances service quality literature and validates five hypothesised relationships between constructs that are relatively new in the service quality literature. Finally, this study validates a comprehensive three-tiered “integrated-process” model/an index model that includes antecedents, dimensions and consequences of service quality taking a University as a case. Universities aiming for a sustainable presence in a competitive global market and intending to enhance brand performance and attract and retain students are encouraged to consider this model and its implications.

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