comparative lit in times of multiculturalism hutcheon

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University of Oklahoma

Productive Comparative Angst: Comparative Literature in the Age of MulticulturalismAuthor(s): Linda HutcheonSource: World Literature Today, Vol. 69, No. 2, Comparative Literature: States of the Art(Spring, 1995), pp. 299-303Published by: University of OklahomaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40151140

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ProductiveComparativeAngst:ComparativeLiteraturein theAge ofMulticulturalismBy LINDA HUTCHEON The currentexplosionof interest n the stateof the disciplinecalledcomparativeiteraturemaybe a sign of institutionalanxietyor intellectualexcitement or perhapsboth.The rapid publicationof the book Comparative it-erature n the Age of Multiculturalism dited byCharlesBernheimer,1s more than a tribute to theefficiencyand publishingsavvyof the Johns Hop-kinsUniversityPress; t is a sign of the urgency eltby comparativistso rethinkand evento reconfiguretheir affiliations n the light of recent intellectualand academicrealignments.Within a year of theDecember 1993 Modern Language Associationconvention,at whichthe newestpublic debatefor-mally began, this collection of essays has madeavailable for even wider discussion the AmericanComparativeLiterature Association's 1993 Bern-heimerReportentitled "ComparativeLiteratureatthe Turn of the Century."Followingon books likeTheComparativeerspectiven Literature:pproachesto Theory nd Practice? his volume joins a host ofothers3n examiningwhat it calls the "anxiogenic"state of comparativeiterature n the United States(andelsewhere) oday.This state of anxiety may well feel familiar tothose who recall Rene Wellek's 1958 worries (in"The Crisisof ComparativeLiterature")4bout thelack of both subject matter and methodology inwhat manyrefer to by the contraction"CompLit."Indeed,as Bernheimer otes in his introduction, hevariousshiftsin the discipline's ocus "sinceWorldWarII can be viewed as a series of attempts o cure,contain,or exploit the anxietyof comparison" 3).The most recent in this series of attempts wasbroughtabout by that new ACLA document:justlike the Levin Reportof 1965 and the GreeneRe-port of 1975, the 1993 BernheimerReport is un-avoidably he productof a particulargenerationofcomparativists.5 he reprinting n this volume ofthese threereportsmakespossiblethe kind of com-parison that clearly reveals the generationalshift

fromthe Americanization f the work of thosepost-warEuropeanemigrephilologistsandliteraryhisto-rians, through to the domestication of what wascalled "theory"when it was housed in comparativeliteraturedepartments,o the currentquestioningofthe centralityof the "Lit" in CompLit. Tellingly,perhaps,the first two were calledreports"on stan-dards"; he most recent one has been amendedbythe ACLA to bear the title of a reporton "the stateof the discipline."The second section of Comparative iteraturenthe Age of Multiculturalismontains the three re-sponsesto the BernheimerReport by K. AnthonyAppiah, Mary Louise Pratt, and Michael Riffa-terre that were presentedfor debate at the 1993MLA convention.The third and largestsection isgiven over to thirteen "position papers"from re-spected comparativistsof several generations,re-sponding n turn not only to the reports hemselvesbut also to the very different stances taken in thethreeMLApapers.Chosen for the "diversityn crit-ical perspective and institutional affiliation"(xi)they represented, hese scholars offer a wide rangeof opinion and position. In short, if you come toComparative iteraturen theAge of Multiculturalismlookingfor a single answer to any of your worriesabout the discipline,or if you are not comfortablewith the postmodern-lypluraland contingent, youwill not find your anxieties lessenedby your read-ing. This is not a book for the faint of (metanarra-tive)heart.It is, however, a book for provokingthought,specifically houghton four majorareas of concernfor comparativistsoday, as reflectedin the Bern-heimerReport:1) the historicalEurocentrism f theCompLittraditionand its relation to the multicul-turalrealityof the present;2) the continuingcon-cerns about the desirabilityof reading and com-paring literatures n their original languagesandnot in translation;3) the position of theoryin thediscipline oday;4) the debate betweenwhatmightbe called the "formalists"nd the "contextualists"or, in institutional erms,literary tudiesversus cul-turalstudies.Few would deny that the historyof comparativeliteraturen North America s the historyof its Eu-ropeanemigrefoundingfathers; or some, thatpast

Linda Hutcheon is Professor f Englishand Comparative it-eratureat the Universityof Toronto. She is the authorof eightbooks, the latest of which is Irony'sEdge: The Theoryand Politicsof Irony(1995).


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300 WORLDLITERATURE ODAYhas lived on as a kind of cosmopolitan, "poeticEuro-chic"6hatmaystill be worn as a " 'classy'de-signer abel" oday.7While eventhe 1965 Levin Re-port stressed the need to transcend that culturallimitationand the 1975 GreeneReport emphasizedthe "global"nature of literature, he disciplinehasnonetheless argelyremainedbasedin European it-eraryand historical traditions. The essays in thisvolumethoughtfully ombatany knee-jerk ejectionof this fact, however. K. Anthony Appiah urges:"Study hese interconnectedEuropean iteratures,say. They make sensetogether.They were madeforeach other."8However, he goes on, study as wellother interconnectedbodies of writingthat coherearound other culturalnotions in otherpartsof theworld. David Damroschalso remindsus that,in theface of the enormousscope of comparative itera-ture's"mission,"workingwithinonly the Europeanlanguages may have been, for European-trainedscholars,"less a matter of cultural mperialism hanit was a melancholyacceptanceof unbridgeableim-its."9The earlyconstructions f the field like those ofotherfields of literary tudy have now been calledinto questionbecause of theiromissions,omissionsmade more evidentthrough he increasinglydiversedemographicsnot only of North Americansocietybut of the North Americanacademy tself. As an in-ternationalist discipline, comparative literaturecould not remainuntouchedby the pluralisticde-mands for canon revisionand the ethical considera-tions vis-a-visminoritizedgroupsthat were part ofthe contested academic and intellectual climate ofthe 1980s. In fact,it has facedparticular ndpartic-ularly roublesomeproblemsbecause of its compar-ative function.These includedproblemsas differentas accusationsof implieduniversalism,on the onehand,and, on the other,chargesof essentializingntheface of the mimetic mperativehat often accom-panies notions of authenticity.There have beenproblemscaused by geopoliticalcomplexitiesandthe historicalprocessesof globalization,democrati-zation, and decolonization that are collectivelychanginghow literatureand culture have been un-derstood and studied.10And, of course, there havebeenproblemscausedby the imageof the compara-tivist as colonizing mperialistakingover individuallinguisticandliterarydomains.The BernheimerReport's advocacyof "a plural-ized and expandedcontextualizingof literary tud-ies" (11) is one responseto these diverseproblems,one to which I will returnshortly.But a number ofthe contributors o this volume suggest that com-

parative iterature,by its very nature, is alreadyaparticularly "hospitable space" for what MaryLouise Pratt calls "the cultivationof multilingual-ism, polyglossia, he arts of culturalmediation,deepintercultural nderstanding, nd a genuinelyglobalconsciousness" 62). This Utopian iew of CompLitas the "site for powerful ntellectualrenewal n thestudy of literatureand culture"(62) is part of itshistorytoo, in a way: in the nervouspostwaryearsof its North American ounding, t was seen as rep-resenting"thespiritof peace, sincerity,reasonable-ness, and hope."11nherentlypluralist,CompLitisarguedto be "awareof but not definedby Differ-ence in all its powerfulforms: language,religion,race, class,andgender."12his idea of the disciplineas "a theoretical ree space and a more cosmopoli-tan environment or multilingualand multiaccentu-al community"13 oes a long way toward makingcomparativeiteraturento the "humanities ounter-partto international elations."14The dissentingviewin the volumeis that of thoselike Emily Apter who suggest that CompLit'sdaymay in fact have passed, that now is the time forpostcolonialand not comparative tudies:"With tsinterrogation f cultural ubjectivity nd attention othe tenuous bonds between identity and nationallanguage, postcolonialismquite naturallyinheritsthe mantle of comparativeliterature'shistoricallegacy."15WhileApterand othersreject hatimpliedconsensualor Utopianmodel in favorof a dissensualone that would confront First with Third Worldcultures,Rey Chow offers an importantreminder:"Insteadof beinga blankspaceready o be adoptedor assimilatedby comparativeiterature,non-West-ernlanguageand literature rogramshavebeen sitesof productionof knowledgewhich function along-side United States State Departmentpoliciesvis-a-vis the particularnations and cultures concerned"(108). From anotherangle,David Damroschstress-es the need to historicizeand contextualizemperial-ism. Empireis not a recentphenomenon; t is notonlya Europeanone (126).Postcolonialwork s, of course,beingdone in na-tional literaturedepartments s well, largelybecauseof its frequentlyunilingual ocus: the culturalpowerof colonialism ives on in language.This bringsmeto the secondsource of anxiety or comparativiststhe familiarone of linguisticcompetenceand of thepedagogicand ethical ssues involved n "engaging"two or more literaturesadequately n their originallanguages.The question of the use of translationshas provokeda predictable"elitistversuspopulist"debate.16However, multilingualism,as we are re-


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HUTCHEON 301mindedin this volume, is in itself trans-ideologicalin the sense that it can "aseasilyservethe agendaofreactionary politics as it can serve progressiveones."17Thus.,its intrinsicpositivevalue (assumedin the Levin and Greene Reports) is called intoquestion,even as the limits of unilingualism re rec-ognized:not all literary oncernscan be satisfactori-ly investigated hroughtranslations.ElizabethFox-Genovese takesa strongstand on this issue, urgingthe seekingof alternativeso the use of translationswith its implicitthrowingup of hands because "weare too limited (readimperialist) o appreciate t inthe original" 135). A sensibleand attractivealter-native s the one offeredby Damrosch:collaborativeworkfor scholarsand collaborativeraining or stu-dents(132).The issue of translationmergeswith that of Euro-centriccritiquein the third area of common con-cern amongthe contributors o Comparative itera-ture in the Age of Multiculturalism. The readyavailabilityof English versions of the Europeanstructuralist ndpoststructuralistheorists'workhasthreatenedCompLit departments'housingof theo-ry: nationalliteraturedepartmentsof all kinds cannow "do"theory.There is little doubt that the riseand fall of the institutionalpower and cohesion ofthe Yale ComparativeLiteraturegroup has left itsmark on the discipline and, many would argue,upon the very process of reading. The compara-tivistswhowrite for thisvolume,however,are divid-ed in their views of the continuing importanceoftheoryto CompLit'sself-definition.Yale's currentchairof ComparativeLiterature,PeterBrooks,feelstheory is still the lingua franca of the discipline(103), and ElizabethFox-Genovesefeels it would"bedifficult o imagine comparativeiteraturewith-out theory,not least since the mere posing of thecomparative problem is inherently theoretical"(139). Appiah, on the other hand, while agreeingthat theory has been important historically toCompLit,does not see it as either the goal or thedefininguniquenessof the discipline 53).The theories of textualitythat the Yale Schoolrepresented renot, of course,the only componentsof what we lump togetherthese days as "theory,"and that comes through oud and clearin the posi-tionpaperspublished n this book.With the increas-ing importance f feminist heory n NorthAmerica,a major nterest n context social, cultural,histori-cal, political context was added to the concernwith textuality.The impactof feministwork dove-tailed with the theories of Foucault, Bakhtin,andBenjamin,and of Marxist,postcolonial,New His-

torical, gay and lesbian (and queer) theorists tomakeideologyan unavoidable ssue in literary tud-ies, comparative r otherwise.One of the results ofthis shift of focushas been the rise of a NorthAmer-ican version of what in Britain had been dubbedcultural studies. The BernheimerReportexpressesthis shiftin quitecautious terms as a broadeningofthe field of inquirythat "does not mean that com-parative tudyshould abandonthe close analysisofrhetorical,prosodic, and other formal featuresbutthat textuallyprecisereadingsshould take accountas well of the ideological,cultural,and institutionalcontexts in which their meanings are produced"(43).This may sound like a safe-enoughcompromise,but the strongreactionsof contributorswould sug-gest otherwise. While accepting that formal andcontextual studies are necessarily complementary,Michael Riffaterre ssertsthe need to "decontextu-alize" and focus on the esthetic features of litera-ture.18Peter Brooksproteststhe "abjectlyapologictone" of the Reportwhichsuggests hat the teachingof literature s "an outmoded mandarinpractice"(99) instead of the studyof the "processesby whichmeaning is made, the grounds for interpretation"(101). Warningof the dangersof interdisciplinaryamateurism,Brooks eloquently argues that "real"interdisciplinarity comes when thought processesreachthe pointwhere the disciplinary oundaryonecomes up againstno longermakessense whentheinternal ogic of thinking mpels a transgression fborderlines.And to the extentthat this is teachableat all, it requiresconsiderableapprenticeshipn thediscipline hat is to be transcended"102).Many contributorsattest to their belief in whatone calls the "valuablespecificity"of literature.19For some, this is a reasonforremaining,n Brooks'sterms, a "viable interlocutor to culturalstudies,"one that can insist that "contextualizationsf litera-ture in ideologicaland cultural erms remainawareof literature's nstitutional definitions and of theuses of poetics and rhetoricin understanding heways in which literature reatesmeanings hat bothresembleand differ from those producedin otherdiscourses" (103). But need CompLit's positionhere merelybe one of interlocutor?Has any com-parativist,even the most formalist,ever reallyreadliteratureoutside of some context, as notinextrica-bly embedded in a vast set of culturalpractices?This is not a rhetoricalquestion;nor is it an utterlynaiveone, despite appearances. t pointsto my gen-uine puzzlementover what feels like a false dichoto-my.


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302 WORLDLITERATURE ODAYThe disciplinaryrainingof a comparativist,ikethat of anyscholarwho studiesEnglishor FrenchorKoreanor Nigerian iterature,eachesus all that in-terpretation oes not happen n a vacuum,that it is

alwaysrelational and dynamic. Our literarydisci-plinesmaywell traffic,not in politicalwisdom,butin "metrics,narrative tructure,double, triple andquadruplemeanings,"as StanleyFish has argued;20but the analysis of, say, narrative structure justmighthave to deal with thefact that storiesare writ-ten and read in certainways for certain reasons(consciousor unconsciousreasons)in certain con-texts at certain imes. These are theinsights hatourformal rainingallows us to carry orward o the in-terpretation f other cultural artifactsor other dis-courses.We neverstop being comparativeiteraturetrainees;our "deformationprofessionnelle"s per-manent.At least it is ifwe have had thattraining.The ACLAdocument s not only a reporton thestate of research n the disciplineas it now stands; tis a provocativechallengeto broaden the scope ofwhat we teachin CompLitdepartments.Likemanyof us, the Report'sauthors were formed and "de-formed"as comparativists;hey have that to buildupon and to deploy in new areas. The inevitabledangerfor our students in broadeningwhat is al-readyan impossiblybroad disciplineis the loss ofany useful and distinctive raining,even in skills ofinterpretation. he result, amentsAppiah,maynotbe interdisciplinarity ut "an unstructuredpost-

modernhodge-podge" 57). This is a warningwe asteachersmust heed for our students' sakes. But Istill do not thinkthe institutionalor pedagogican-sweris to leave culturalstudies to the national an-guage and literaturedepartments where culturalspecificitymay indeed make such a focus logical.This is JonathanCuller'ssolution, one that wouldleave comparativistso study "literature ompara-tively"and attempt"to attend to its globalmanifes-tations."21 ut the question of culturalspecificitywill not go awayso easily either as a problemor asa temptation forthoseengagingmore than one lit-eraryor cultural radition.22 ulture is no more orless "translatable"hanliterature.Culture, ike liter-ature, s a matterof form as much as of content.23The BernheimerReporthad advisedcaution forcomparative literature vis-a-vis cultural studies,"wheremost scholarshiphas tended to be monolin-gualand focused on issuesin specificcontemporarypopularcultures"(45). But the historicalcommit-ment of comparativestudies, conjoined with thearchivalwork of historiansthemselves, might be

preciselywhat the emerging ield of culturalstudiescould most profitfrom.And the seeming expansionof the scope of the disciplineto include not onlyhigh artbut also popularculture s maybemoreap-parentthan real:minimalhistoricizings needed toremind us that Shakespeare'splays were not whatwe would now call high art for the entire audienceof the Globe Theater,and that writers ike Rabelaisdeliberately hose to writein the vernacular,not inLatin.24 he monolingualand oftenparochialnatureof much cultural-studieswork in the recent pastneed not stand as the final definitionof this emerg-ing field.The additionof the workof comparativistscould serveto expand t insignificantways.Comparative literature's major disciplinarystrengthand major intellectual attractionhave al-ways seemed to me to lie in a positiveversion ofwhat Emily Apterconsiders ts "unhomely"quality(90) and what Bernheimercalls its "qualityof dis-possession a kind of hauntingby otherness" 12).I remainas worriedas ever,both in pragmaticandin politicalterms,about its vast scope even vasterin this new definition "chargedwith the study ofdiscourses and cultural productions of all sortsthroughout he entire world."25 also sharemanyofthe contributors'worriesabout the possibleinstitu-tionalconsequencesof a move outward romthe lit-erary:n thesedaysof financialconstraints,unstabledisciplinaryboundaries can mean unstable fund-ing.26Of course,the inherentversatility f compara-tivists can also mean the kind of institutional lexi-bilitythat couldspellsurvival.27Ifyou have evertaughtor beentaught n a Comp-Lit program,you will know that comparatistsmayappear o have little in common with one another:"As a disciplinewith no common body of knowl-edge other than literary tudies,and without a cen-tral purpose except to carryout its astringentorstimulantmotions,comparativeiterature ppears oinvitemisunderstandingven from its own familyofscholars."28 ut what Comparative iteraturen theAge ofMulticulturalismeveals s that any such mis-understandings part of the intellectualvitalityofthe field andpartof the continualself-criticism f aprotean disciplinethat has never been willing (orable) to fix its self-definition.That is what is frus-tratingaboutCompLit,but it is also what attractedmany of us to it. The ACLA, as an importantpro-fessional voice for comparativist tudies, has pro-vokedproductiveand continuingdebateon the fu-ture of the discipline through the BernheimerReport.This is not the last word, of course. Therecan, luckily,be no lastword on thissubject.

Universityof Toronto


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HUTCHEON 3031Comparative iteraturen the Age of Multiculturalism,d.CharlesBernheimer,Baltimore, ohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,1995. Most pagereferences o this volume will appearn paren-theses n the text.Subsequent eferencesn the notes willuse theabbreviation L.2TheComparativeerspectiven Literature:pproacheso Theoryand Practice, ds. Clayton Koelb and Susan Noakes, Ithaca,N.Y., CornellUniversityPress,1988.3See Borderwork:eminist ngagementsithComparativeiter-ature, d. MargaretR. Higonnet,Ithaca,N.Y., CornellUniversi-ty Press, 1994;Building Profession:utobiographicalerspectiveson theBeginnings f Comparativeiteraturen the UnitedStates,eds. Lionel GossmanandMihaiI. Spariosu,Albany,N.Y., StateUniversityof New YorkPress, 1994; and the recenttranslationby Cola Franzenof ClaudioGuillen'sbookTheChallengefCom-parativeLiterature, ambridge,Ma., HarvardUniversityPress,1993.4Rene Wellek, "The Crisis of ComparativeLiterature,"nConceptsfCriticism,d. StephenNichols,New Haven, Ct., YaleUniversityPress,1963.5For a detailedconsideration f these generational hanges,seeRolandGreene,"TheirGeneration,"n CL,pp. 143-54.6PeterBrooks,"Must We Apologize?"n CL,p. 97. Furtherreferenceswillbe inparenthesesn the text.7ReyChow,"Inthe Nameof Comparative iterature,"n CL,p. 107. Furtherpagereferenceswill appearn parenthesesn thetext.8K. AnthonyAppiah, iGeist tories,"n CL,p. 54.9DavidDamrosch,"Literary tudy in an EllipticalAge," inCL,p. 130. Furtherpagereferenceswillappearn parenthesesnthe text.10MaryLouisePratt,"Comparativeiteraturend GlobalCit-izenship,"n CL, p. 59. Furtherpage referenceswill appear nparenthesesn the text.11Tobin Siebers,"SincerelyYours," n CL, p. 195. Siebers

questionswhether uch a worthysocialaim,however, s an ade-quateor evenappropriateoundationor a discipline.12Ed Ahearnand ArnoldWeinstein,"TheFunction of Criti-cism at the PresentTime: The Promiseof Comparative itera-ture," n CL,p. 78. They go on to note:"There s no periodorplace of artisticproductionwhich is not similarlymixed,cross-cultural,cross-pollinated.Virgin iteratures,ike the virgin and,are a myth.Comparativistsrethepeopletrained o bringus thisnews"(79).13Mary Russo, "TellingTales Out of School: ComparativeLiterature ndDisciplinaryRecession,"n CL,p. 189.14AhearnandWeinstein,p. 81.15Emily Apter, "ComparativeExile: CompetingMargins nthe Historyof ComparativeLiterature,"n CL, p. 86. Furtherpagereferenceswillappearn parenthesesn thetext.16See ElizabethFox-Genovese,"BetweenElitism and Pop-ulism:WhitherComparative iterature?"n CL,p. 134. Furtherpagereferenceswillbe inparenthesesn the text.17Chow,p. 110.18MichaelRiffaterre, Onthe Complementarityf Compara-tiveLiterature ndCulturalStudies,"n CL,pp. 67, 70.19FrancoiseLionnet,"Spacesof Comparison,"n CL,p. 172.Furtherpagereferenceswillappearnparenthesesn thetext.20StanleyFish, "WhyLiteraryCriticism s LikeVirtue,"Lon-donReview fBooks,10June 1993,p. 12.21JonathanCuller,"Comparative iterature, t Last!" n CL,p. 121.22See the important ointsmadeby Marjorie erloff,"'Litera-ture' n theExpandedField," n CL,p. 180;Damrosch,p. 123.23See Siebers,pp. 196-97.24Lionnet,p. 172.25Culler,p. 117.26SeePerloff,p. 182.27Russo,p. 193.28Greene,p. 145.

comparative lit in times of multiculturalism hutcheon

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