Of Outer and Inner Gatekeepers. An Intersectional Perspective on »New World Literature«

Author(s)

Sandra Folie

Abstract

Intersectionality describes overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, like gender, sex, race, ethnicity, class, age, religion, etc. It is discussed in various disciplines and therefore often used in inter-/transdisciplinary research. Recently, intersectional theory has found its way into literary studies; especially narratology, dealing with the structure and function of narrative, has expressed interest in an intersectional approach (Klein and Schnicke 2014). However, Euro- and androcentric presuppositions in literary studies are also an issue on a more structural level. As Hill Collins and Chepp (2013) argue, the attractiveness and influence of intersectionality often stems from an “epistemological recognition that a field’s dominant assumptions and paradigms are produced within a context of power relations, where white, middle-class, heterosexual, male, able-bodied experiences are taken as the (invisible) norm” (p. 64–65). Accordingly, feminist, queer, and postcolonial literary critics and activists have demonstrated during the past few decades that neither the literary market nor literary studies are free of class, ethnic, gender, national, racial, and other prejudices. This attendance to the problem of recognition helped to clarify and address the structures that render people who deviate from the white, male, middle-class, heterosexual etc. norm invisible. As comparison is quite a common method to reveal such existing inequalities, the relative unpopularity of intersectional theory within comparative literature and cultural studies comes as a surprise; especially since its scholars traditionally move between a number of philological as well as cultural areas and, thus, call the suspenseful field of (in)commensurabilities their very own territory. In times of ever-increasing globalization and transnational connectedness, world literature studies have proven to be one particularly contentious field, within which the question why (not) compare (cf. Radhakrishnan; Friedman) – ultimately, a question of power – is lively debated. Some researchers even proclaim a “new world literature” (Löffler 2014; Sturm-Trigonakis 2007) which clearly differs from the old canonical concept and its reputation of being “a white male affair in large part” (Damrosch 2003, p. 16; paraphrasing Guillory 1993, p. 32). Whiteness respectively race/ethnicity and gender stand out as the central markers of inequality.
Based on a number of influential agents in the literary market, or what I call the outer gatekeepers (e.g. publishers, literary criticism, literary prizes), who also (re)produce certain mindsets, which I refer to as inner gatekeepers , I am going to explore to what extent Euro- and Androcentrism are still present in current world literature discourses. In other words: if white men dominate the “old” world literature, is the “new” world literature by implication a “black female affair”?

Organisation(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Journal

Textpraxis. Digitales Journal für Philologie

Volume

16

No. of pages

25

ISSN

2191-8236

DOI

https://doi.org/10.17879/35139763083

Publication date

05-2019

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

602053 Comparative literature studies, 504014 Gender studies

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Literature and Literary Theory, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/of-outer-and-inner-gatekeepers-an-intersectional-perspective-on-new-world-literature(0a783045-4ec2-4853-8f24-87efde89d342).html