For the past decade or two, world literature has established itself as the dominant paradigm for studying the transnational circulation of literary models and texts. And yet Russian and Soviet literature seem decidedly missing from most of the world literature theoretization. The issue at stake here is not so much another blank spot on the geographical and historical map of world literature—there are plenty of these and it is uncharitable to hold any book or its author(s) responsible for failing to provide comprehensive coverage of the whole world,—but the alternative logics of textual production and circulation that these literary geographies pioneered. Following up on an exploratory workshop at Queen Mary University of London, this conference will focus on the consequences of the Soviet projects for world literature, including its own, multinational literary system.
View the conference schedule here.
