Compte rendu publié dans Acta fabula (Mai 2015, vol. 16, n° 5) : "Une chronique du siège de la littérature comparée" par Didier Coste.
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Djelal Kadir, Memos from the Besieged City. Lifelines for Cultural Sustainability
Stanford : Stanford University Press, coll. "Cultural memory in the present", 2010
EAN 9780804770507
296 pp.
Prix : $24.95
Présentation :
Memos from the Besieged City argues for the institutional and cultural relevance of literary study through foundational figures, from the 1200s to today, who defied precarious circumstances to make significant contributions to literacy and civilization in the face of infelicitous human acts. Focusing on historically vital crossroads—Baghdad, Florence, Byzantium, Istanbul, Rome, Paris, New York, Mexico City, Jerusalem, Beijing, Stockholm, Warsaw—Kadir looks at how unconventional and nonconformist writings define literacy, culture, and intellectual commitment. Inspired by political refugee and literary scholar Erich Auerbach's path-breaking Mimesis, and informed by late twentieth-century ideological and methodological upheavals, the book reflects on literacy and dissidence at a moment when literary disciplines, canons, and theories are being reassessed under the pressure of globalization and transculturation. At the forefront of an ethical turn in the comparative analysis of cultures and their literary legacies, it reminds us of the best humanity can produce.
About the author
Djelal Kadir is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University and founding president of the International American Studies Association. His books include Columbus and the Ends of the Earth (1992) and The Other Writing (1993)