Publishing Series of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities,

Jagiellonian University Press

Hermeneia in Greek means the art of interpretation, but also the art of mediation. Under this name is hidden not only the need of understanding reality, but also the need of mediating between different spans of culture. Choosing this name for our series of publications, the Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities would like to call attention to three phenomena: understanding as an unmovable, but nonetheless unconnected basis of the humanities, a material of life with many origins, which understanding has to do with, a large amount of languages, with the help of which people, from varied spheres of work, articulate the need for understanding. The series Hermeneia, not unlike the purpose of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, is called to be a witness to not only the academic, but also the existential multi-faceted nature of our culture. 

The “world of letters” has always seemed a matter more of metaphor than of global reality. In this book, Pascale Casanova shows us the state of world literature behind the stylistic refinements—a world of letters relatively independent from economic and political realms, and in which language systems, aesthetic orders, and genres struggle for dominance.

Pascale Casanova, The World Republic of Letters. Translated into Polish: Anna Turczyn, Elżbieta Gałuszka, Kraków 2017. 

 

The “world of letters” has always seemed a matter more of metaphor than of global reality. In this book, Pascale Casanova shows us the state of world literature behind the stylistic refinements—a world of letters relatively independent from economic and political realms, and in which language systems, aesthetic orders, and genres struggle for dominance. Rejecting facile talk of globalization, with its suggestion of a happy literary “melting pot,” Casanova exposes an emerging regime of inequality in the world of letters, where minor languages and literatures are subject to the invisible but implacable violence of their dominant counterparts.

 

Inspired by the writings of Fernand Braudel and Pierre Bourdieu, this ambitious book develops the first systematic model for understanding the production, circulation, and valuing of literature worldwide. Casanova proposes a baseline from which we might measure the newness and modernity of the world of letters—the literary equivalent of the meridian at Greenwich. She argues for the importance of literary capital and its role in giving value and legitimacy to nations in their incessant struggle for international power. Within her overarching theory, Casanova locates three main periods in the genesis of world literature—Latin, French, and German—and closely examines three towering figures in the world republic of letters—Kafka, Joyce, and Faulkner. Her work provides a rich and surprising view of the political struggles of our modern world—one framed by sites of publication, circulation, translation, and efforts at literary annexation. (Source: Harvard UP)

Pascale Casanova is an associated researcher at the Center for Research in Arts and Languages and a literary critic in Paris. She is the author of Beckett the Abstractor (Paris, 1997), winner of the Grand Prix de l'Essai de la Société des Gens des Lettres.