Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: What Does Littérature-monde Mean for French, Francophone and Postcolonial Studies?
- From World Literature to Littérature-monde: Genre, History and the Globalization of Literature
- Francophone World Literature (Littérature-monde), Cosmopolitanism and Decadence: ‘Citizen of the World’ without the Citizen?
- From Weltliteratur to World Literature to Littérature-monde: The History of a Controversial Concept
- Littérature-monde in the Marketplace of Ideas: A Theoretical Discussion
- The Postcolonial Manifesto: Partisanship, Criticism and the Performance of Change
- Postcolonialism, Politics and the ‘Becoming-Transnational’ of French Studies
- Mapping Littérature-monde
- Afterword: The ‘World’ in World Literature
- Appendix: Toward a ‘World-Literature’ in French
- Notes on Contributors
From Weltliteratur to World Literature to Littérature-monde: The History of a Controversial Concept
from From World Literature to Littérature-monde: Genre, History and the Globalization of Literature
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: What Does Littérature-monde Mean for French, Francophone and Postcolonial Studies?
- From World Literature to Littérature-monde: Genre, History and the Globalization of Literature
- Francophone World Literature (Littérature-monde), Cosmopolitanism and Decadence: ‘Citizen of the World’ without the Citizen?
- From Weltliteratur to World Literature to Littérature-monde: The History of a Controversial Concept
- Littérature-monde in the Marketplace of Ideas: A Theoretical Discussion
- The Postcolonial Manifesto: Partisanship, Criticism and the Performance of Change
- Postcolonialism, Politics and the ‘Becoming-Transnational’ of French Studies
- Mapping Littérature-monde
- Afterword: The ‘World’ in World Literature
- Appendix: Toward a ‘World-Literature’ in French
- Notes on Contributors
Summary
The term littérature-monde, proposed by the forty-four signatories of the manifesto which appeared on 16 March 2007 in the journal Le Monde to describe a concept further developed in their book published by Gallimard in May of the same year, is not exactly a neologism. Although the term Francophonie, against which it sets itself, has a considerable number of problematic connotations, littérature-monde is itself just as loaded. Indeed, we should be aware of its associations and should explore the issues raised by them. Although it appears to be a completely new expression in French, the forty-four's concept of littérature-monde is actually drawn from three preexisting concepts or phenomena. The first is the concept of travel literature and world writing developed since 1992 by Michel Le Bris, himself a signatory of the manifesto. For him, littérature-monde signifies a literature open to the world or, in other words, a literature which speaks of the real and the lived rather than turning in on itself in a state of narcissistic self-consciousness (2007: 25). The second is the concept of the Tout-monde, defined by the Martinican thinker and writer Édouard Glissant as being ‘le monde actuel tel qu'il est dans sa diversité et dans son chaos’ [today's world as it is in its diversity and chaos] (Chanda, 2000). The Tout-monde is not a systematic or rationalizing vision of the world, but instead underlines the global spread of the concept and practice of creolization, a practice of cultural exchange which rejects unequal power relationships. Glissant's Tout-monde links the littérature-monde of the forty-four signatories to the hybrid or culturally mixed literatures which are often on the syllabus in Francophone studies in English and North American universities. These Francophone literatures are sometimes the output of migrants or new citizens whose multiple cultural influences encourage a new way of seeing and telling the world. The last of the three is the term ‘world literature’ which is regularly used in comparative literature studies in Anglo-American universities (Schulz and Rhein, 1973).
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- Transnational French StudiesPostcolonialism and Littérature-monde, pp. 36 - 48Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2010