Literatures of Liberalization: Global Circulation and the Long Nineteenth Century (New Comparisons in World Literature)

This book traces the global circulation of cultures and ideologies from the technological and democratic revolutions of the long nineteenth century to liberal and neoliberal modernity. Focussing on moments of coerced (colonial and postcolonial) and voluntary contact rather than national boundaries, the author draws attention to the global scope of literatures and geopolitical commodities as actants in world affairs, as in processes of liberalization, democratization, and trade, but also to the distinctiveness of each local environment at its moments of transculturation. Based in extensive experience in collaborative, multilingual, interdisciplinary networks, the book synthesizes existing theoretical scholarship, provides original case studies of world-historical Victorian and modern writers, and articulates a new interdisciplinary methodology for literary studies in a global context. It will be of interest to Victorianists, modernists, comparatists, political theorists, translators, and scholars of world literatures, world ecology, and globalization. "This book traces the global circulation of cultures and ideologies from the technological and democratic revolutions of the long nineteenth century to liberal and neoliberal modernity. Focusing on moments of coerced (colonial and postcolonial) and voluntary contact rather than national boundaries, the author draws attention to the global scope of literatures and geopolitical commodities as actants in world affairs, as in processes of liberalization, democratization, and trade, but also to the distinctiveness of each local environment at its moments of transculturation. Based in extensive experience in collaborative, multilingual, interdisciplinary networks, the book synthesizes existing theoretical scholarship, provides original case studies of world-historical Victorian and modern writers, and articulates a new interdisciplinary methodology for literary studies in a global context. It will be of interest to Victorianists, modernists, comparatists, political theorists, translators, and scholars of world literatures, world ecology, and globalization."--Publisher's website Front Matter ....Pages i-xiv The Transcultural Transformation of a Field (Regenia Gagnier)....Pages 1-36 Global Circulation and Some Problems in Liberalism, Liberalization, and Neoliberalism (Regenia Gagnier)....Pages 37-59 Dialogical Imaginations: European Ideas of Plasticity, Freedom, and Choice in the Long Nineteenth Century (Regenia Gagnier)....Pages 61-81 Trollope’s Modernity: The Speed-up, Stress, and Resentments of a Public Sphere (Regenia Gagnier)....Pages 83-105 The Global Circulation of Charles Dickens’s Novels (Regenia Gagnier)....Pages 107-130 Global Literatures of Decadence (Regenia Gagnier)....Pages 131-165 Crossed Histories: Social Formations in Friction 1783–Present (Regenia Gagnier)....Pages 167-216 Coda on Processes of Sex, Gender, and Desire in the Anthropocene (Regenia Gagnier)....Pages 217-235 Back Matter ....Pages 237-247