Federal Literatures: Toward a Theory of Literary Intranationality

Abstract

Abstract: There is a general tendency to associate a national literature with a nation-state, a link that at times verges on the mystical. Yet it is common knowledge that there are considerably more sociological nations than nation-states, suggesting that often there is more than one nation in a given country and likely more than one national literature. This essay scrutinizes the real contours of the national bodies of writing produced in multination states in an attempt to develop a method for examining literary production other than the “national literature” paradigm—more specifically, federal literatures.

Key words: ethnonational, federalism, multination states, national literature, world literature

CLC Number:

Albert Braz. Federal Literatures: Toward a Theory of Literary Intranationality[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2018, 38(5): 14-25.

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