Literary transnationalism: A Europeanist’s perspective

Abstract

Literary transnationalism is a relatively new term critically mediating the relationships between national literatures and the wider forces of globalizing culture. ‘Literary’ or ‘critical’ ‘transnationalism’ describes aspects of literary circulation and movement that defy reduction to the level of the nation-state. The term originated in American Studies as a means of bringing American literary discourse into a new relationship with the world that it inhabits. Can the concept of ‘transnationalism’ help in broader discussions of world literature and literary globalization? Literary transnationalism in this sense would identify that point at which two or more geo-cultural imaginaries intersect, connect, engage with, disrupt or conflict with each other in literary form. In this article I discuss transnationalism in terms of its origins and intellectual history in order to suggest ways in which transnational theory might be developed as an analytical tool of both global breadth and historical depth with particular reference to European literature.