Description
Book SynopsisRanjan Ghosh and J. Hillis Miller—two thinkers from different continents, cultures, training, and critical perspectives—debate and reflect upon what literature is, can be, and do in variety of contexts ranging from Victorian literature and Chinese literary criticism to Sanskrit Poetics and Continental philosophy.
Trade Review"As Ghosh makes a gesture to develop a new sense of universal literature, one that infuses both Western and developing world literary traditions and histories, Miller reflects on the impact of deconstruction and the dominance of new media in Western culture and society, and provides some redemptive values of literature. Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty." -- Y. Shu * Choice *
"Immensely knowledgeable and thought-provoking." -- Susana Onega * CounterText *
"The focus of Ranjan Ghosh and J. Hillis Miller’s ambitious, distinctive, and highly engaging book
Thinking Literature across Continents is nothing less than the world (the meaning of 'the world' and what is happening to it, above all from the perspective of people involved in education, whether teaching or being taught), together with that seemingly familiar yet peculiar, elusive thing called literature." -- Nicholas Royle * Comparative Literature Studies *
"The highest appeal of the volume lies in their recourse to supposedly incommensurable discursive and artistic practices. Each issue at the core of the five parts of the book is treated back to back by Ghosh and Miller, with a laudable desire to engage in some ways of exchange." -- Laurent Dubreuil * Comparative Literature Studies *
Table of ContentsPreface / J. HIllis Miller vii
Acknowledgments / Ranjan Ghosh ix
Acknowledgments / J. Hillis Miller xi
Introduction: Thinking across Continents / Ranjan Ghosh 1
Introduction Continued: The Idiosyncrasy of the Literary Test / J. Hillis Miller 9
Part I: The Matter and Mattering of Literature
1. Making Sahitya Matter / Ranjan Ghosh
2. Literature Matters Today / J. Hillis Miller
Part II: Poem and Poetry
3. The Story of a Poem / Ranjan Ghosh 71
4. Western Theories of Poetry: Reading Wallace Stevens's "The Motive for Metaphor" / J. Hillis Miller 93
Part III: Literature and the World
5. More than Global / Ranjan Ghosh 111
6. Globalization and World Literature / J. Hillis Miller 134
Part IV: Teaching Literature
7. Reinventing the Teaching Machine: Looking for a Text in an Indian Classroom / Ranjan Ghosh 155
8. Should We Read or Teach Literature Now? / J. Hillis Miller 177
Part V: Ethics and Literature
9. The Ethics of Reading Sahitya / Ranjan Ghosh 207
10. Literature and Ethics: Truth and Lie in
Framley Parsonage / J. Hillis Miller 232
Epilogue / Ranjan Ghosh 259
Notes 263
Bibliography 291
Index 307
