“Transnationalism” and/or the Canon in Comparative Literary Studies

The article examines the model of “literary transnationalism” as a new meaning of Goethe’s Weltliteratur as an antithesis and antidote to the “centre vs. periphery” model (or majority vs. minority), through which the mainstream literary heritage can be filtered in its extra-territorial or decentered existence. She refers to models of “literary mobility” that have developed within the studies on literature and migration in the twentieth century. The author places the “transnational paradigm” as originating inside a remarkably rich contemporary theoretical horizon, which goes beyond traditional literary studies (that is, focused on a monolingual and monocultural idea of literature) and finds fruitful connections with those theoretical discourses that deal with themes such as plurilingualism, translation, heteroglossia, and transculturalism.