Productive Comparative Angst: Comparative Literature in the Age of

Multiculturalism

By LINDA HUTCHEON The current explosion from the Americanization of the work of those post­
of interest in the state war European émigré philologists and literary histo­
of the discipline called rians, through to the domestication of what was
comparative literature may be a sign of institutional called "theory" when it was housed in comparative
anxiety or intellectual excitement - or perhaps both. literature departments, to the current questioning of
The rapid publication of the book Comparative Lit­ the centrality of the "Lit" in CompLit. Tellingly,
erature in the Age of Multiculturalism, edited by perhaps, the first two were called reports "on stan­
Charles Bernheimer,' is more than a tribute to the dards"; the most recent one has been amended by
efficiency and publishing savvy of the Johns Hop­ the ACLA to bear the title of a report on "the state
kins University Press; it is a sign of the urgency felt of the discipline."
by comparativists to rethink and even to reconfigure The second section of Comparative Literature in
their affiliations in the light of recent intellectual the Age of Multiculturalism contains the three re­
and academic realignments. Within a year of the sponses to the Bernheimer Report-by K. Anthony
December 1993 Modern Language Association Appiah, Mary Louise Pratt, and Michael Riffa­
convention, at which the newest public debate for­ terre - that were presented for debate at the 1993
mally began, this collection of essays has made MLA convention. The third and largest section is
available for even wider discussion the American given over to thirteen "position papers" from re­
Comparative Literature Association's 1993 Bern­ spected comparativists of several generations, re­
heimer Report entitled "Comparative Literature at sponding in turn not only to the reports themselves
the Turn of the Century." Following on books like but also to the very different stances taken in the
The Comparative Perspective on Lit erature: Approaches three MLA papers. Chosen for the "diversity in crit­
Theory and Practice.' this volume joins a host of ical perspective and institutional affiliation" (xi)
others? in examining what it calls the " anxiogen ic" they represented, these scholars offer a wide range
state of comparative literature in the United States of opinion and position. In short, if you come to
(and elsewhere) today. Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism
This state of anxiety may well feel familiar to looking for a single answer to any of your worries
those who recall René Wellek's 1958 worries (in about the discipline, or if you are not comfortable
"The Crisis of Comparative Literature")" about the with the postmodern-ly plural and contingent, you
lack of both subject matter and methodology in will not find your anxieties lessened by your read­
what many refer to by the contraction " C om pL it." ing. This is not a book for the faint of (metanarra­
Indeed, as Bernheimer notes in his introduction, the tive) heart.
various shifts in the discipline's focus "since World It is, however, a book for provoking thought,
War II can be viewed as a series of attempts to cure, specifically thought on four major areas of concern
contain, or exploit the anxiety of comparison" (3). for comparativists today, as reflected in the Bern­
The most recent in this series of attempts was heimer Report: 1) the historical Eurocentrism of the
brought about by that new ACLA document: just CompLit tradition and its relation to the multicul­
like the Levin Report of 1965 and the Greene Re­ tural reality of the present; 2) the continuing con­
port of 1975, the 1993 Bernheimer Report is un­ cerns about the desirability of reading-and com­
avoidably the product of a particular generation of paring-literatures in their original languages and
comparativists.' The reprinting in this volume of not in translation; 3) the position of theory in the
these three reports makes possible the kind of com­ discipline today; 4) the debate between what might
parison that clearly reveals the generational shift be called the "formalists" and the "contextualists"­
or, in institutional terms, literary studies versus cul­
tural studies.
LINDA HUTCHEON is Professor of English and Comparative Lit­ Few would deny that the history of comparative
erature at the University of Toronto. She is the auth or of eight
books, the latest of whi ch is Irony 's Edge: The Theory and Politics literature in North America is the history of its Eu­
of Irony (1995 ). ropean émigré founding fathers; for some, that past
300 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

has lived on as a kind of cosmopolitan, "poetic parative literature, by its very nature, is alre ady a
Euro-chic'" that may still be worn as a " 'classy' de­ particularly "hospitable sp ace" for what Mary
signer label" tod ay.' While even the 1965 Levin Re­ Louise Pratt calls " th e cultivation of multilingual­
port stressed the need to transcend that cultural ism, polyglossia, the arts of cultural mediation, deep
limitation and the 1975 Greene Report emphasized intercultural understanding, and a genuinely global
the "global" nature of literature, the discipline has consciousness" (62) . This utopian view of CompLit
nonetheless largely remained based in European lit­ as the "site for powerful int ellectual renewal in the
erary and historical traditions. The essays in this study of literature and culture" (62 ) is part of its
volume thoughtfully combat any knee-jerk reje ction history too , in a way: in the nervous postwar years
of thi s fact, however. K. Anthony Appiah urges: of its North American founding, it was seen as rep­
"Study these interconnected European literatures, I resenting "the spirit of peace, sincerity, reas on able­
say. They make sense together. They were made for ness, and hope." " Inherently pluralist, CompLit is
each other.:" However, he goes on, stud y as well argued to be "aware of but not defined by D iffer­
other interconnected bodies of writing that cohere ence in all its powerful forms: language, religion,
around other cultural notions in other parts of the race, class, and gender." 12 This idea of the discipline
world . David Damrosch also reminds us that, in the as "a theoretical free space and a more cosmopoli­
face of the enormous scope of comparative litera­ tan environment for multilingual an d multi accentu­
ture's "mission, " working within only the European al community "13 goes a long way toward m aking
languages may have been, for European-trained comparative literature into the "humanities counter­
scholars, " less a matter of cultural imperialism than part to international relations.'?"
it was a melancholy acceptance of unbridgeable lim­ The d issenting view in the volume is that of those
its. " 9 like Emily Apter who suggest that CompLit's day
The early constructions of the field - like those of ma y in fact have pa ssed, that now is the time for
other fields of literary study - have now been called postcolonial and not comparative stu dies: "With its
into question because of their omissions, omissions interrogation of cultural sub jectivity and attention to
made more evident through the increasingly diverse the tenuous bonds between identity and nati onal
demographics not only of North American society language, po st colonialisrn quite naturally inhe rits
but of the North American academy itself. As an in­ the mantle of comparative literature's hi storical
ternationalist dis cipline, comparative literature legacy.''' ; While Apter and others reject that implied
could not remain untouched by the pluralistic de­ consensual or utopian model in favo r of a dis sen sual
mands for canon revision and the ethical considera­ one th at would confront First with Third World
tions vis-à-vis minoritized groups th at were part of cultures, Rey Chow offers an important reminder:
the contested ac ademic and intellectual clim ate of " Ins tead of being a blank spac e ready to be adopted
the 1980s. In fact , it has faced particular and partic­ or assimilated by comparativ e literature, non-West­
ularly troublesome problems because of its compar­ ern language and literature programs have been sites
ative function. These included problems as different of production of knowledge which function along­
as accu sations of implied universal ism , on the one side United States State D epartment poli cies vis-a­
hand, and, on the other, charges of essentializing in vis the particular nations and cultures concerned"
the face of the mimetic imperative that often accom­ ( 108). From another angle, David Damrosch stress­
panies notions of authenticity . There have been es the need to historici ze and contextualize im perial­
problems caused by geopolitical com plexities and ism. Empire is not a recent phenomenon; it is not
the historical processes of globalization, democrati­ only a European one (126).
zation , and decolonization that are collectively Postcolonial work is, of course, being done in na­
changing how literature and culture have be en un­ tiona I literature departments as well, largel y becaus e
derstood and studied. [0 And, of course, there have of its frequ ently unilingual focus: the cultural power
been problems cau sed by the image of the compara­ of colonialism lives on in language. This brings me
tivist as colonizing imperialist taking over individual to the second source of anxiety for compa ra tivists-e­
linguistic and literary domains. the familiar one of linguisti c competence and of the
The Bernheimer Report 's advocacy of "a plural­ pedagogic and ethical issues involved in "engaging"
ized and expanded contextualizing of literary stud­ two or more literatures adequately in th eir original
ies" (11 ) is one response to these diverse problems, languages. The question of the use of translations
one to which I will return shortly. But a number of h as provoked a predictable " elitist versus populis t"
the contributors to this volume suggest that com­ debate. " However, multilingualism, as we are re­
 HUTCHEON 301

minded in this volume, is in itself trans-ideological torical, gay and lesbian (and queer) theorists to
in the sense that it can "as easily serve the agenda of make ideology an unavoidable issue in literary stud­
reactionary politics as it can serve progressive ies, comparative or otherwise. One of the results of
ones." " Thus, its intrinsic positive value (assu med this shift of focus has been the rise of a North Amer­
in the Levin and Greene Reports) is called into ican version of what in Britain had been dubbed
question, even as the limits of unilingualism are rec­ cultural studies . The Bernheimer Report expresses
ognized: not all literary concerns can be satisfactori­ this shift in quite cautious terms as a broadening of
ly investigated through translations. Elizabeth Fox­ the field of inquiry that "does not mean that com­
Genovese takes a strong stand on this issue, urging parative study should abandon the close analysis of
the seeking of alternatives to the use of translations rhetorical, prosodic, and other formal features but
with its implicit throwing up of hands because " we that textually precise readings should take account
are too limited (read imperialist) to appreciate it in as well of the ideological, cultural, and institutional
the original" (135). A sensible and attractive alter­ contexts in which their meanings are produced"
native is the one offered by Damrosch: collaborative (4 3) .
work for scholars and collaborative training for stu­ This may sound like a safe-enough compromise,
dents (132). but the strong reactions of contributors would sug­
The issue of translation merges with that of Euro­ gest otherwise. While accepting that formal and
centric critique in the third area of common con­ contextual studies are necessarily complementary,
cern among the contributors to Comparative Litera­ Michael Riffaterre asserts the need to "decontextu­
ture in the Age of Multiculturalism. The ready alize" and focus on the esthetic features of litera­
availability of English versions of the European ture. " Peter Brooks protests the "abjectly apologic
structuralist and poststructuralist theorists' work has tone" of the Report which suggests that the teaching
threatened CompLit departments' housing of theo­ of literature is "an outmoded mandarin practice"
ry: national literature departments of all kinds can (99) instead of the study of the "processes by which
now "do" theory. There is little doubt that the rise meaning is made, the grounds for interpretation "
and fall of the institutional power and cohesion of ( 10 1). Warning of the dangers of interdisciplinary
the Yale Comparative Literature group has left its amateurism, Brooks eloquently argues that "real"
mark on the discipline and , many would argue, interdisciplinarity " comes when thought processes
upon the very process of reading. The compara­ reach the point where the disciplinary boundary one
tivists who write for this volume, however, are divid­ comes up against no longer makes sense-when the
ed in their views of the continuing importance of internal logic of thinking impels a transgression of
theory to CompLit's self-definition. Yale 's current borderlines. And to the extent that this is teachable
chair of Comparative Literature, Peter Brooks, feels at all, it requires considerable apprenticeship in the
theory is still the lingua franca of the discipline discipline that is to be transcended" (102) .
(103), and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese feels it would Many contributors attest to their belief in what
"be difficult to imagine comparative literature with­ one calls the "valuable specificity" of literature. "
out theory, not least since the mere posing of the For some, this is a reason for remaining, in Brooks's
comparative problem is inherently theoretical" terms, a "viable Interlocutor to cultural studies,"
(139). Appiah, on the other hand, while agreeing one that can insist that "contextualizations of litera­
that theory has been important historically to ture in ideological and cultural terms remain aware
CompLit, does not see it as either the goal or the of literature's institutional definitions and of the
defining uniqueness of the discipline (53) . uses of poetics and rhetoric in understanding the
The theories of textuality that the Yale School ways in which literature creates meanings that both
represented are not, of course, the only components resemble and differ from those produced in other
of what we lump together these days as "theory," discourses" (103). But need CompLit's position
and that comes through loud and clear in the posi­ here merely be one of interlocutor? Has any com­
tion papers published in this book. With the increas­ parativist, even the most formalist, ever really read
ing importance of feminist theory in North America, literature outside of some context, as not inextrica­
a major interest in context-social, cultural, histori­ bly embedded in a vast set of cultural practices?
cal, political context-was added to the This is not a rhetorical question; nor is it an utterly
with textuality . The impact of feminist work dove­ naive one, despite appearances. It points to my gen­
tailed with the theories of Foucault, Bakhtin, and uine puzzlement over what feels like a false dichoto­
Benjamin, and of Marxist, postcolonial, New His­ my.
302 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

The disciplinary training of a comparativist, like precisely what the emerging field of cultural studies
that of any scholar who studies English or French or could most profit from. And the seeming expansion
Korean or Nigerian literature, teaches us all that in­ of the scope of the discipline to include not only
terpretation does not happen in a vacuum, that it is high art but also popular culture is maybe more ap­
always relational and dynamic . Our literary disci­ parent than real: minimal historicizing is needed to
plines may well traffic, not in political wisdom, but remind us that Shakespeare's plays were not what
in "metrics, narrative structure, double, triple and we would now cal1 high art for the entire audience
quadruple meanings," as Stanley Fish has argued;" of the Globe Theater, and that writers like Rabelais
but the analysis of, say, narrative structure just deliberately chose to write in the vernacular, not in
might have to deal with the fact that stories are writ­ Latin." The monolingual and often parochial nature
ten-and read-in certain ways for certain reasons of much cultural-studies work in the recent past
(conscious or unconscious reasons) in certain con­ need not stand as the final definition of this emerg­
texts at certain times. These are the insights that our ing field . The addition of the work of comparativists
formal training allows us to carry forward to the in­ could serve to expand it in significant ways .
terpretation of other cultural artifacts or other dis­ Comparative literature's major disciplinary
courses. We never stop being comparative literature strength and major intel1ectual attraction have al­
ways seemed to me to lie in a positive version of
trainees; our "déformation professionnelle" is per­
what Emily Apter considers its "unhomely" quality
manent. At least it is if we have had that training.
(90) and what Bernheimer calls its "quality of dis­
possession-a kind of haunting by otherness" (12).
Th e ACLA document is not only a report on the
I remain as worried as ever, both in pragmatic and
state of research in the discipline as it now stands; it
in political terms, about its vast scope-even vaster
is a provocative challenge to broaden the scope of
in this new definition "charged with the study of
what we teach in CompLit departments. Like many
discourses and cultural productions of all sort s
of us, the Report's authors were formed and "de­ throughout the entire world,":" I also share many of
formed" as comparativists; they have that to build the contributors' worries about the possible institu­
upon and to deploy in new areas. The inevitable tional consequences of a move outward from the lit­
danger for our students in broadening what is al­ erary: in these days of financial constraints, unstable
ready an impossibly broad discipline is the loss of disciplinary boundaries can mean unstable fund­
any useful and distinctive training, even in skills of ing ." Of course, the inherent versatility of compara­
interpretation. The result, laments Appiah, may not tivists can also mean the kind of institutional flexi­
be interdisciplinarity but "an unstructured post­ bility that could spell survival."
modern hodge-podge" (57). This is a warning we as If you have ever taught or been taught in a Comp-
teachers must heed-for our students' sakes. But I Lit program, you will know that comparatists may
still do not think the institutional or pedagogic an­ appear to have little in common with one another:
swer is to leave cultural studies to the national lan­ "As a discipline with no common body of knowl­
guage and literature departments-where cultural edge other than literary studies, and without a cen­
specificity may indeed make such a focus logical. tral purpose except to carry out its astringent or
This is Jonathan Culler's solution, one that would stimulant motions, comparative literature appears to
leave comparativists to study "literature compara­ invite misunderstanding even from its own family of
tively" and attempt "to attend to its global manifes­ scholars. But what Comparative Literature in the
rations.'?' But the question of cultural specificity Age of Multiculturalism reveals is that any such mis­
will not go away so easily-either as a problem or as understanding is part of the intellectual vitality of
a temptation-for those engaging more than one lit­ the field and part of the continual self-criticism of a
erary or cultural tradition." Culture is no more or protean discipline that has never been willing (or
less "translatable" than literature . Culture, like liter­ able) to fix its self-definition. That is what is frus­
ature, is a matter of form as much as of content." trating about CompLit, but it is also what attracted
The Bernheimer Report had advised caution for many of us to it. The ACLA, as an important pro­
comparative literature vis-à-vis cultural studies, fessional voice for comparativist studies, has pro­
"where most scholarship has tended to be monolin­ voked productive and continuing debate on the fu­
gual and focused on issues in specific contemporary ture of the discipline through the Bernheimer
popular cultures" (45). But the historical commit­ Report. This is not the last word, of course. There
ment of comparative studies, conjoined with the can, luckily, be no last word on this subject.
archival work of historians themselves, might be University of Toronto
 HUTCHEON 303

1 Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism , ed. qu esti ons whether suc h a worthy social aim, however, is an ade­
Charles Bernheimer, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, quat e or even appropriate found ation for a discipline.
1995 . Most pag e references to this volume will appear in paren­ 12 Ed Ahearn and Arnold Weinst ein, "The Function of Cri ti­

theses in the text. Subsequent references in the note s will use the cism at the Present Time: The Promi se of Co m pa rative Litera­
abbreviation CL. tu re," in CL, p . 78 . They go on to note: "There is no period or
The Comp aratiue Perspective on Literature: Approaches t o Theory place of artistic production whi ch is not similarl y mixed, cro ss­
and Practice, eds. Clayton Koelb and Su san Noakes, Ithaca, cultural, cross -poll in ated. Virgin literarures, like the virgin land ,
N .Y., Cornell Univ ersity Press, 1988. ar e a m yth . Comparativists ar e the people trained to bring us this
3 See Bordenoorh: Feminist Engagements wich Comparative Liter­ news" (79).
atu re, ed . M argaret R. Hig onnet, Ith aca, N .Y., Cornell Uni versi­ 13 Mary Ru sso, "Telling T ales Out of School: C ompara tive

ty Press, 1994; Building a Profession: Autobiographical Perspectives Literature and Discipl inary Recession ," in CL, p . 18 9.
on the Beginnings of Comp arat iue Literature in the United S tates, Ahearn and Wein stein, p. 81 .
eds. Lionel G ossman and Mihai I. Spariosu, Albany, N.Y., State 15 E mily Apter, " Co m parative Exile: Competing Margins in

Uni versi ty of New York Pr ess, 1994; and the recent tr an slati on the Histo ry of Compar ative Lit erature," in C L, p. 86 . Further
by Cola Fran zen of Cl audio Guill en 's book Th e Challenge of Com ­ page references will appea r in parentheses in the text.
parauue Litera ture, Cambridge, Ma., H arvard University Pre ss, See Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, " Between Elitism and Pop­
1993 . ulism : Whither Co mparative Lit erature?" in CL , p. 134. Further
4 René Wellek, "The Crisis of Compar ative Literature," in page references will be in parentheses in the text.
Concepts of Criticism, ed . St eph en Nichols, Ne w Haven, Ct., Yale t7 Ch ow, p. 110.

Un iversity Press, 196 3. 18 M ichael Riffaterre, " On the Complementa rity of Compara­

For a d etailed con sid erat ion of the se generational cha nges, tive Lit erature and Cultural Studies," in CL, pp . 67, 70.
see Roland G reene, "Their Generation," in CL, pp. 143-54. 19 Francoise Lionnet, "Spaces of Comparison," in CL, p. 172.

Peter Brooks, "Must W e Apologize?" in C L , p. 97. Further Further page refer enc es will app ear in parentheses in the text.
reference s will be in parentheses in the text. 20 Stanle y Fish, "Why Literary C riticism Is Like Virtue," Lon­

7 Rey Ch ow, " In the Name of Comparative Literature," in C L, don Rev iew of Books, I0 June 1993, p. 12 .
p. 107. Further page reference s will app ear in parentheses in the 21 Jon athan Cull er, "Comparative Literature, at Last!" in C L,

text. p . 12 1.
K. Anthony Appiah, " Geist Stories," in C L , p. 54. 22 See the important points made by Marjorie Perloff, "'Litera­

9 David Damrosch , "Literary Study in an E llip tical Age, " in ture' in the Expanded F ield ," in CL, p . 180; Damrosch, p. 123.
CL, p . 130 . Further page referen ces will app ear in parentheses in See Siebers, pp . 196-97 .
the text. 24 Lionnet, p . 17 2.

10 Ma ry Loui se Pratt, " Co m parative Liter ature and Gl ob al Cit­ Culler, p. 117 .
izenship," in C L , p. 59. Further page references will app ear in 26 See Perloff, p. 182 .

parentheses in the text. 27 Russo, p. 193.

11 Tobin Siebers, "Sincer ely Yours, " in CL, p. 195 . Siebers Gr een e, p. 14 5.