자본주의 세계경제체제와 세계문학의 신화

Abstract

Even though Said criticized Orientalism inherent in the gaze of Westerners about thirty years ago, his notion provides a still relevant critical viewpoint in examining the discourses of world literature. Western scholars continue to imagine the “world” in world literature consists of Western countries and ‘Oriental’ countries. They select, appropriate, and reduce non-Western literary works when they represent the images of the Other in the Western mind and when they are palatable to the sophisticated tastes of European readers. Given this persistent Orientalism and cultural imperialism, it is now high time to look into the nature of the current discursive rise of world literature. Considering the present academic situation in which the gale-force winds so-called ineffective, low-yielding humanities departments in the universities all around the world, it is difficult to understand the revival of world literature discourses separate from the globalization of English and the capitalist world economy system. In particular, the debate over the original of world literature among the comparativists in American academia suggest the naked truth of the ideal World Republic of Letters which has been turned into a battle ground of capitalist desires. In exploring the ways to introduce Korean literature as a world literature, therefore, it is all the more necessary to be aware of the cold reality of current world literary market and prepared to engage in the discursive war with the myth of world literature.