A Companion to Comparative Literature presents a collection of more than thirty original essays from established and emerging scholars, which explore the history, current state, and future of comparative literature. Features over thirty original essays from leading international contributors Provides a critical assessment of the status of literary and crossâ€{u3D6C}tural inquiry Addresses the history, current state, and future of comparative literature Chapters address such topics as the relationship between translation and transnationalism, literary theory and emerging media, the future of national literatures in an era of globalization, gender and cultural formation across time, Eastâ€{u7973}t cultural encounters, postcolonial and diaspora studies, and other experimental approaches to literature and cultureINDICE: List of Contributors viii Introduction 1 Ali Behdad and Dominic Thomas Part I Roadmaps 13 1 A Discipline of Tolerance 15 Rey Chow 2 Why Compare? 28 David Ferris 3 Method and Congruity: The Odious Business of Comparative Literature 46 David Palumboâ€{uCA75} 4 Comparisons, World Literature, and the Common Denominator 60 Haun Saussy 5 Comparative Literature in America: Attempt at a Genealogy 65 Kenneth Surin Part II Theoretical Directions 73 6 The Poiein of Secular Criticism 75 Stathis Gourgouris 7 Vanishing Horizons: Problems in the Comparison of China and the West 88 Eric Hayot 8 Art and Literature in the Liquid Modern Age: On Richard Wollheim, Zygmunt Bauman and Yves Michaud 108 Efraín Kristal 9 A Literary Object’s Contextual Life 120 Michael Lucey 10 The Theater of Comparative Literature 136 Sharon Marcus Part III Disciplinary Intersections 155 11 What Pictures Tell Us about the Letter: Visual and Literary Practices in Latin America 157 Jorge Coronado 12 If There’s a Text in this Class, Where Did it Come From? Or, What Does Marilyn Monroe Have to do With The Sorrows of Young Man Werther? 176 Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller 13 Comparative Literature in the Age of Digital Humanities: On Possible Futures for a Discipline 193 Todd Presner 14 Comparing Pain: Theoretical Explorations of Suffering and Working Towards the Particular 208 Zoë Norridge 15 Comparativism, Transfers, Entangled History: Sociological Perspectives on Literature 225 Gisèle Sapiro Part IV Linguistic Trajectories 237 16 Orphaned Language: Traumatic Crossings in Literature and History 239 Cathy Caruth 17 Contested Grammars: Comparative Literature, Translation, and the Challenge of Locality 254 Simon Gikandi 18 Comparative Literature and the Global Languagescape 273 Mary Louise Pratt 19 Persian Incursions: The Transnational Dynamics of Persian Literature 296 Nasrin Rahimieh 20 Rudimentariness as Home 312 Mireille Rosello Part V Postcolonial Mobilities 333 21 Afroâ€{u5D72}opean Studies: Emerging Fields and New Directions 335 Allison Van Deventer and Dominic Thomas 22