Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T06:07:01.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beyond Discipline? Globalization and the Future of English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Paul Jay
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Economic and cultural globalization threatens the nation-state's ability to control institutions like the university, where a general emphasis on national subjectivities and ideologies is giving way to a focus on diasporic and postnational formations. Globalization challenges our tendency in literary studies to organize programs and curricula along national lines. This is particularly true for English literature, the contemporary production and consumption of which no longer take place within discrete national borders but unfold in a complex system of transnational economic and cultural exchanges. As we reorganize our approach to English in this context, we need to develop a thorough understanding of the key terms, issues, and debates that have marked the rise of globalization studies. Most important, we need to resituate English in a global framework without subjecting postnational literatures to the colonizing effects of some of our traditional hierarchies and practices.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 116 , Issue 1: Special Topic: Globalizing Literary Studies , January 2001 , pp. 32 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Abou-El-Haj, Barbara. “Languages and Models for Cultural Exchange.” King 139–44.Google Scholar
Abu-Lughod, Janet. “Going beyond Global Babble.” King 131–37.Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996.Google Scholar
Aravamudan, Srinivas. Tropicopolitans: Colonialism and Agency, 1688-1804. Durham: Duke UP, 1999.Google Scholar
Buell, Frederick. National Culture and the New Global System. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994.Google Scholar
Buell, Frederick. “Nationalist Postnationalism: Globalist Discourse in Contemporary American Culture.” American Quarterly 50 (1998): 548–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carafiol, Peter. The American Ideal: Literary History as a Worldly Activity. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991.Google Scholar
Clifford, James. “Traveling Cultures.” Cultural Studies. Ed. Lawrence, Grossberg et al. New York: Routledge, 1992. 96–112.Google Scholar
Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1997.10.4324/9780203228920CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin E., Court Institutionalizing English Literature: The Culture and Politics of Literary Study, 1750-1900. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983.Google Scholar
Featherstone, Mike. “Global and Local Cultures.” Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change. Ed. Jon, Bird et al. London: Routledge, 1993. 169–87.Google Scholar
Friedman, Susan Stanford. Mappings: Feminism and the Cultural Geographies of Encounter. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, Rosemary Marangoly. The Politics of Home: Post-colonial Relocations and Twentieth-Century Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. The Consequences of Modernity. London: Polity, 1990.Google Scholar
Gikandi, Simon. Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism. New York: Columbia UP, 1996.Google Scholar
Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Graff, Gerald. Professing Literature: An Institutional History. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.Google Scholar
Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1992.Google Scholar
Grewal, Inderpal, and Caren, Kaplan, eds. Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1994.Google Scholar
Hannerz, Ulf. “Scenarios for Peripheral Cultures.” King 107–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannerz, Ulf. Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990.Google Scholar
Hulme, Peter. Colonial Encounters: Europe and the Native Caribbean, 1492-1797. London: Methuen, 1986.Google Scholar
Fredric, Jameson, and Masao, Miyoshi, eds. The Cultures of Globalization. Durham: Duke UP, 1998.Google Scholar
Jay, Gregory. “The End of ‘American’ Literature: Toward a Multicultural Practice.” College English 53 (1991): 264–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jay, Paul. “The Myth of ‘America’ and the Politics of Location: Modernity, Border Studies, and the Literature of the Americas.” Arizona Quarterly 54 (1998): 165–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, Caren. Questions of Travel: Postmodern Discourses of Displacement. Durham: Duke UP, 1996.Google Scholar
King, Anthony, ed. Culture, Globalization, and the World-System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997.Google Scholar
Lipsitz, George. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place. London: Verso, 1994.Google Scholar
Miller, J. Hillis. Black Holes. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1999.Google Scholar
Porter, Carolyn. “What We Know That We Don't Know: Remapping American Literary Studies.” American Literary History 3 (1994): 467–526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Readings, Bill. The University in Ruins. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1996.Google Scholar
Robertson, Roland. Globalization. London: Sage, 1992.Google Scholar
Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage, 1994.Google Scholar
Scholes, Robert. The Rise and Fall of English. New Haven: Yale UP, 1998.Google Scholar
Turim, Maureen. “Specificity and Culture.” King 145–48.Google Scholar
Viswanathan, Gavri. Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. London: Oxford UP, 1998.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Modern World System II. New York: Academic, 1974.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, Immanuel. “The National and the Universal: Can There Be Such a Thing as World Culture?” King 91–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waters, Malcolm. Globalization. London: Routledge, 1995.Google Scholar
Wolff, Janet. “The Global and the Specific: Reconciling Conflicting Theories of Culture.” King 161–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar