Comparative Literature Around the World: Global Practice is a collection of essays that describes what comparatists do, globally, rather than prescribes what comparatists should be. This volume of descriptive essays is important for understanding how Comparative Literature has been practiced around the world. Three essays discuss Comparative Literature in European countries (France, Germany and Sweden) while twelve essays examine countries from five other continents (Turkey, Persian/Arabian Gulf, Iran, Georgia/Russia, India, China, Japan, U.S., Canada, Brazil, Morocco, and New Zealand). This book provides a survey of Comparative Literature to give some global perspectives rather than engage in the unending dialogue about what this discipline is. Unlike many other books in the field, this collection pays attention to cultures, in often multilingual countries, where literary study was Comparative Literature avant la lettre. Europe made a substantial contribution to Comparative Literature as a discipline in a European context. The initial development of Comparative Literature in non-Western countries was often more about crosscultural and cross-civilizational readings and writings practiced by writers and intellectuals. In the U.S., Comparative Literature departments have been the incubators of sub-disciplines, such as postcolonial studies, women’s studies, film studies. This collection combines these and other elements in a global perspective.
