Lennon, Brian. In Babel's Shadow: Multilingual Literatures, Monolingual States. Forthcoming, 2010, The University of Minnesota Press.
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Antinomies of Literature
1. Language as Capital
2. Translation Being Between
3. Containment
4. Language Memoir and Language Death
5. The Other Other Literature
Afterword: Unicode and Totality
Composite of author's drafts of jacket/catalog copy:
In the study of twentieth- and twenty-first century literary multilingualism, it is easy to take for granted the availability of one's research objects to critical study, discounting or rationalizing the protest through which multilingual literary works challenge the constraint of the printed book, and thus the literary-critical archive, itself. In Babel's Shadow: Multilingual Literature, Monolingual States examines the material limit of multilingual literary expression in print-capitalist culture -- and therefore the limit, as well, of the literary journalism, criticism, and scholarship that analyzes and comments on multilingual literature. Suggesting that world literature is more a scene than it is a "system," and that literature and literariness are best grasped as antinomies, or paradoxes of publication, In Babel's Shadow describes a specific need for electronic literature, as a form of textual culture that book culture bars from literary history -- without reifying "new media," either, as a readily available alternative.
Focusing on the intersection of the critical space of U.S. literary studies with the material space of the transnational book publishing industry, In Babel's Shadow: Multilingual Literature, Monolingual States includes readings of works of postwar Indo-Anglian, Cold War U.S., British, and German, contemporary North American multiethnic, and contemporary Turkish and German Turkish literature, in relation to recent debates in global English studies, transnational and comparative U.S. literary studies, translation theory, and comparative and world literature. Together, they comprise a critical essay on the fate of literature in a world gripped by the crises of globalization.
A study of the limits of multilingual literary expression in print culture
Multilingual literature defies simple translation. Beginning with this insight, Brian Lennon examines the resistance multilingual literature offers to book publication, itself. In readings of G. V. Desani's All About H. Hatterr, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, Christine Brooke-Rose's Between, Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation, Emine Sevgi Özdamar's Mutterzunge, and Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul, among other works, Lennon shows how nationalized literary print culture inverts the values of a transnational age, reminding us that works of literature are, above all, objects in motion.
Looking closely at the limits of both multilingual literary expression, itself, and the literary journalism, criticism, and scholarship that comments on it, In Babel's Shadow is a critical essay on the fate of literature in a world gripped by the crises of globalization. [Version 4 - my second rewrite of UMP catalog copy]
A study of the limits of multilingual literary expression in print culture
Multilingual literature defies simple translation. Beginning with this insight, Brian Lennon examines the resistance multilingual literature offers to book publication, itself. In readings of G. V. Desani's All About H. Hatterr, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, Christine Brooke-Rose's Between, Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation, Emine Sevgi Özdamar's Mutterzunge, and Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul, among other works, Lennon shows how nationalized literary print culture inverts the values of a transnational age, reminding us that works of literature are, above all, objects in motion.
These cross-sections of the contemporary literary scene will be of great interest to readers interested in transnational culture, translation theory, literary multilingualism, print culture, and new media. Together, they comprise a critical essay on the fate of literature in a world gripped by the crises of globalization. [Version 3 - my rewrite of UMP catalog copy]
Focusing on the intersection of the critical space of U.S. literary studies with the material space of the transnational book publishing industry, In Babel's Shadow: Multilingual Literature, Monolingual States includes readings of works of postwar Indo-Anglian, Cold War U.S., British, and German, contemporary North American multiethnic, and contemporary Turkish and German Turkish literature, in relation to recent debates in global English studies, transnational and comparative U.S. literary studies, translation theory, and comparative and world literature. [Version 2 - field & period categories]
In the study of twentieth- and twenty-first century literary multilingualism, it is easy to take for granted the availability of one's research objects to critical study, discounting or rationalizing the protest through which multilingual literary works challenge the constraint of the printed book, and thus the literary-critical archive, itself. In Babel's Shadow: Multilingual Literature, Monolingual States examines the material limit of multilingual literary expression in print-capitalist culture -- and therefore the limit, as well, of the literary journalism, criticism, and scholarship that analyzes and comments on multilingual literature. Suggesting that world literature is more a scene than it is a "system," and that literature and literariness are best grasped as antinomies, or paradoxes of publication, In Babel's Shadow describes a specific need for electronic literature, as a form of textual culture that book culture bars from literary history -- without reifying "new media," either, as a readily available alternative. [Version 1 - argument]
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