Against Sinocentrism: Internal orientalism in world literature
Against Sinocentrism: Internal orientalism in world literature

Summary/Abstract: Much discussion of world literature, as seen in the theories of Franco Moretti and Pascale Casanova, is still not entirely able to rid itself of Eurocentric and Western-centric biases. More recently, Zhang Longxi, a leading Chinese cross-cultural scholar, despite his good intentions, displays Sinocentric limitations by claiming that imperial China “functioned as a center in the East Asian region”. Based on the assumption that Zhang’s argument is emblematic of a larger current of Sinocentrism in China, this article argues that East Asian countries, most notably Korea and Japan, developed their own literatures and cultures, although they have been influenced by Chinese culture. This article calls for a more globally-oriented paradigm and asserts that any form of ethnocentrism, Eurocentric or Sinocentric, is injurious, or even fatal, to the salutary development of world literature.

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