Further Reading
José Lambert : World Literature, Comparative Literature and Translation Studies
World Literature, Comparative Literature and Translation Studies
Date: October 25, 2019 - Friday
Time: 13:30-15:00 P.M.
Venue: Room406, Building 1, Hongkou Campus
Language: English
Summary:
One of the well-known topoi in CL is the concept of Weltliteratur, often quoted in German, borrowed from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (18th-19th Century). During a long period however, CL tended to avoid taking WL too seriously as an object of study. But WL suddenly became a hot topic at the end of the 20th century, under the influence of contemporary Internationalization and, more particularly, due to the success of Casanova 1999, where the Goethe-heritage was fully revised. Which is not really an event in scholarship: the revision of traditions.
But the arguments underlying the sudden shift (volte-face) in CL reflect symptomatic orientations in the views on literature and CL (the discipline) on behalf of (mainly USA-based) comparatists that look enlightening as a key to Literary Studies in general to the extent that they indicate how a scholarly research topic (literature) is implicitly defined on the basis of national implications and priorities. And exclusions.
Speaker Biography:
José Lambert (born 1941) is a Professor of Comparative Literature best known for his work in Translation Studies. In 1989 he created a special research program in Translation Studies at KU Leuven. This was to become the basis of the Centre for Translation Studies (CETRA), a research summer school of which Lambert is Honorary President. In 1989 Lambert co-founded, with Gideon Toury, Target, International Journal of Translation Studies.
