All the Difference in the World: Postcoloniality and the Ends of Comparison (Cultural Memory in the Present)

Natalie Melas

ISBN 10: 0804731985 / ISBN 13: 9780804731980

Published by Stanford University Press, 2006

About this Item

Softcover volume, measuring approximately 6" x 9", displays light shelfwear. Binding is sound. Pages are clean and bright. xvi/278 pages. "This book is about culture and comparison. Starting with the history of the discipline of comparative literature and its forgotten relation to the positivist comparative method, it inquires into the idea of comparison in a postcolonial world. Comparison was Eurocentric by exclusion when it applied only to European literature, and Eurocentric by discrimination when it adapted evolutionary models to place European literature at the forefront of human development. This book argues that inclusiveness is not a sufficient response to postcolonial and multiculturalist challenges because it leaves the basis of equivalence unquestioned. The point is not simply to bring more objects under comparison, but rather to examine the process of comparison. The book offers a new approach to the either/or of relativism and universalism, in which comparison is either impossible or assimilatory, by focusing instead on various forms of incommensurability ―comparisons in which there is a ground for comparison but no basis for equivalence. Each chapter develops a particular form of such cultural comparison from readings of important novelists (Joseph Conrad, Simone Schwartz-Bart), poets (Aimé Césaire, Derek Walcott), and theorists (Edouard Glissant, Jean-Luc Nancy).".

Seller Inventory # ABE-1615771316408

Bibliographic Details

• Title: All the Difference in the World: Postcoloniality and the Ends of Comparison (Cultural Memory in the Present)
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0804731985
• ISBN 13: 9780804731980
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

This book is about culture and comparison. Starting with the history of the discipline of comparative literature and its forgotten relation to the positivist comparative method, it inquires into the idea of comparison in a postcolonial world. Comparison was Eurocentric by exclusion when it applied only to European literature, and Eurocentric by discrimination when it adapted evolutionary models to place European literature at the forefront of human development. This book argues that inclusiveness is not a sufficient response to postcolonial and multiculturalist challenges because it leaves the basis of equivalence unquestioned. The point is not simply to bring more objects under comparison, but rather to examine the process of comparison. The book offers a new approach to the either/or of relativism and universalism, in which comparison is either impossible or assimilatory, by focusing instead on various forms of “incommensurability”―comparisons in which there is a ground for comparison but no basis for equivalence. Each chapter develops a particular form of such cultural comparison from readings of important novelists (Joseph Conrad, Simone Schwartz-Bart), poets (Aimé Césaire, Derek Walcott), and theorists (Edouard Glissant, Jean-Luc Nancy).

About the Author

Natalie Melas is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Cornell University.