“World Theory”
“World Theory”

Summary/Abstract: This short essay proposes that East European literary and cultural studies attempt to broaden the theoretical and methodological scope of its practices, in order to reach audiences outside of our home disciplines which are both conceptually and institutionally threatened. Several examples of new directions in the field are discussed in order to illustrate possibly productive modes of inquiry. The term “World Theory” is not intended to be a long-lasting one; rather, an analogy to the turn in literary studies that led to World Literature breaking canonical boundaries and offering many new objects of analysis. This route is of course only one of many useful approaches to the future of East European Literary Studies, but it is a necessary one if we are to play a key role in related disciplines, and not just be subsumed by them.

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