What does globalization mean in terms of literature?
This is such a recent conversation. I was an undergraduate in the mid ’90s and you barely heard people talking about globalization and literature. To a large extent, people are trained to think about literature in terms of the nation. Almost from the outset of the modern novel, it’s been associated with a sense of nationhood. When was the last time you heard someone talk about the great New Haven novel or the great European Union novel? This differentiates the novel from other cultural forms. It’s almost uniquely seen as capable of capturing “nationhood.” To even think about literature and globalization is to push against deeply held traditions. Through literature today, we can watch writers confront all the strange and different communities that we come into contact with each day. Not to say that literature hasn’t always done this, but there’s something particularly dramatic and pressing now. Think back to earlier periods in literature. Back in the 19th century, when we saw an earlier
