ABSTRACTS

What's Wrong With the Litteraturemonde System?

Kathryn Kleppinger
(New York University)

This is the first paper proposed for the panel: "Dis-functions, Malfunctions, Functionality in the World Literatures in French Manifestoes."





Using as a basis of analysis Pascale Casanova's provocative book-length essay, La République Mondiale des Lettres (1999), Kathryn Kleppinger will situate the Littérature-Monde manifesto (Le Monde, April 2007) and Le Bris and Rouaud's collection of essays in both the French and international literary fields. She will examine the internal contradictions and even potentially violent disagreements contained in what seems to want to pass as a coherent, programmable policy for launching a major rethinking of literary categories (or "world literature in French.") She will address specifically such issues as the idea of "the Nation" and within this the place of France; the process and meaning of writing in French - depending on one's native language; and the stakes involved in throwing "francophonie" out the widonw. Most broadly, her paper seeks to interrogate the literary and political impact of universalim as both a broadening and yet limiting force.