International Comparative Literature has grown vigorously since World War II, but its variegated regional and local settings still play a significant role in determining what kinds of literary criticism can be shared. Drawing on experience in the International Comparative Literature Association, Gerald Gillespie highlights the more recent story of the huge American realm of comparativistic discourse as a major instance of the competing imperatives of regional and global concerns. Examining selected examples of "pragmatic engagement" and of relationships among the arts (especially literature and film), he suggests the natural limits of a large range of discourse models in "real-world" circumstances, and the importance of relating literary life to other artistic modes and media. Gillespie proposes rethinking cultural relativism in a positive direction that will foster revalidation of all levels of literary life from the local to the global.
