Major Histories, Minor Literatures, and World Authors

Abstract

In his article Major Histories, Minor Literatures, and World Authors Theo D'haen discusses how the idea of literature has made a remarkable comeback in literary studies. A feature of this revival has been increased attention from a world perspective to literatures until recently little studied beyond disciplinary boundaries, particularly so some major literatures such as Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and various Indian-language literatures. As such, these literatures have come to join what has usually been thought of as literature. What this move, however to be welcomed in itself, obscures is the even further peripheralization of a number of smaller literatures, amongst them many European ones. Thus literature in its newly emerging guise is merely upping the ante for such minor literatures, or, alternatively, reshaping such literatures in the image and interest of the few major literatures which are deemed worthy of inclusion in the new literature.