World Literature Under Another Name?

World Literature Under Another Name?

Indian Orientalism, Aamir Mufti and Baidik Bhattacharya have shown, was a precondition for Goethe’s notion of Weltliteratur, and ancient Indian literature became a regular part of histories and anthologies of world literature.

Through vishvasahitya (vishoshohitto) Tagore offered an alternative conception of world literature as literature of fullness of expression and experience irreducible to “time-place-thing”—thus not dependent on or reducible to the global range, circulation, or translation of texts (R. Chaudhuri)—, and in the 1960s and the 1970s, magazines enthusiastically took up the call to publish the literatures of the decolonizing world with spectacular, with special issues showcasing an unprecedented range of texts and countries. Yet today, while historical scholarship on the Indian Ocean worlds and on the Persianate cosmopolis excites an expansive imagination, and international film festivals gather a substantial collective of viewers educated and curious about world cinema, world literature has not found similar…