Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective

Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, University of Stockholm, Sweden; Stefan Helgesson, University of Uppsala, Sweden; Margareta Petersson, University of Växjö, Sweden; Anders Pettersson, University of Umeå, Sweden.

• Vol. 1: Notions of literature across times and culturesAnders Pettersson, Introduction: Concepts of literature and transcultural literary history; Marja Kaikkonen, Becoming literature: Popular fiction in twentieth-century China; Martin Svensson Ekström, One Lucky Bastard: On the hybrid origins of Chinese “literature”; Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, Japanese literary history writing: the beginnings; Gunilla Gren-Eklund, The pleasure of poetry – Sanskrit poetics and kâvya; Bo Holmberg, Adab and Arabic literature; Leif Lorentzon, Let the house be dead silent: A discussion of literariness in (East) African oral literature; Tord Olsson, Experiences of Orature in Sahelian West AfricaVol. 2: Literary genres: an intercultural approachGunilla Lindberg-Wada, Literary genres: An intercultural approach; Noriko Thunman, The autobiographical novel ⁄short story “Watakushishôsetsu” in Japanese literature; Lena Rydholm, The theory of ancient Chinese genres; Christina Nygren, Drama for learning and pleasure: Japan, China and India in a comparative perspective; Kerstin Eksell, Genre in early Arabic poetry; Bo Utas, “Genres” in Persian literature 900–1900; Lennart Rydén, Byzantine saints’ Lives as a literary genre; Anders Pettersson, Conclusion: A pragmatic perspective on genres and theories of genres Vol. 3: Literary interactions in the modern worldMargareta Petersson, Introduction: Cultural encounters between literary cultures. The example of the novel; Per Erik Ljung, Inventing traditions: A comparative perspective on the writing of literary history; Stephen Larsen, African literature, or African literatures? Reflections on a terminological problem; Keiko Kockum, The role of Western literature in the formation of the modern Japanese novel; Bo Holmberg, Transculturating the epic: The Arab awakening and the translation of the Iliad; Stephen Larsen, Euro-African dialogue: Some examples of African hypertexts of European hypotextsVol. 4: Literary interactions in the modern worldLeif Lorentzon, Something very light, perhaps a little educative: Negotiations of cultural hierarchies an the Ghanaian novel in English between Nkrumah and Armah; Nelson González-Ortega, Amerindian and European narratives in interaction; Margareta Petersson, Hybridity in Indian English literature; Stefan Helgesson, Modernism under Portuguese rule: José Craveirinha, Luandino Vieria and the doubleness of colonial discourse; Marja Kaikkonen, The detective in the service of the emperor, the republic, and the communist party; Christina Nygren, Appropriations of European theatre in Japan, China and India; Gail Ramsay, Globalisation and cross-cultural writing in the United Arab Emirates and Oman; Roberta Micallef, Cultural encounters in contemporary Turkish children’s literature: Victims or heroes?; Stefan Helgesson, Going global: An afterword