Angloglobalism, multilingualism and world literature

Abstract

This essay explores the rise of global anglophone as a methodological rubric, and the place of English in global literary studies. My exposition pivots around a set of interwoven claims. While contemporary globalization has led to increasing linguistic homogenization, the rise of global anglophone does not herald the end of postcolonialism nor is it a force bent on erasing the cultural and linguistic diversity of literatures of the world. Rather, its valence can be generatively explored in the context of recent debates about the provenance of comparative and world literatures, and the emergence of multilingual transregional literary enclaves that are smaller than the globe and larger than a nation. Wariness about the moral economy of the angloglobalism can often be in tension with contemporary processes of anglophone transculturation. Further, the rise of global anglophone is inseparable from current debates in translation studies and the emergence of English as a global vernacular and a target language. Lastly, the global dominance of English appears less threatening when visualized through a comparative historical lens that illuminates the role of other world languages. As scholarship on premodern and early modern cultures indicates, linguistic cosmopolitanism and vernacular expressivity have not typically existed as antinomian forces in literary history.