New issue of World Literature Studies: Slovak literature in interliterary and transcultural contexts
The latest issue of the quarterly World Literature Studies, published by the Institute of World Literature of the SAS, was published at the end of last year.
The theme of the latest issue is the question of the mutual relations between Slovak and world literature, or more simply: What is the place of Slovak literature in world literature? The studies seek ways to answer this question and find that neither "worldliness" nor "Slovakness" is a prominent attribute. They outline a wide range of possible views of Slovak literature within the world literary system: through interliterary relations, cultural transfer, transculturalism, Christian spirituality, Slavic mutuality, feminism, or cosmopolitanism. They problematize concepts such as "centre"/"periphery", "smallness" or "lateness" and undermine hegemonic concepts of world literature. Miloslav Vojtech, Marta Fülöpová, Dagmar Garay Kročanová, Peter Darovec, Dobrota Pucherová, and Mary Orsak contributed studies to the issue.
Editors Anikó Dušíková and Dobrota Pucherová provide context for this topic in the introduction. i.: "The theme of this issue of World Literature Studies, which we prepared within the framework of the research grant project VEGA 2/0127/23 'Slovak literature in interliterary and transcultural contexts (2023 – 2026)', can be read as a continuation of the reflection on small literatures and world literature in previous issues of the journal: 2/2022 (World literature from the perspective of 'small' literatures, eds. Róbert Gáfrik – Miloš Zelenka), 3/2022 (Transculturalism and literary-historical narratives in Central Eastern Europe, eds. Judit Görözdi – Zoltán Németh – Magdalena Roguska-Németh), or 3/2023 (World literature and national literature, ed. Péter Hajdu), but also in other publications on which employees of the Institute of World Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences collaborated, for example in the collection World literature from a perspective 'small' literatures (eds. Magdolna Balogh – Adam Bžoch, 2024)."
The issue also features a study by Libuša Heczková and Kateřina Svatoňová on the forms of masculinity in Patoček, Levinas and Wenders, as well as studies by Aleš Urválek and Veronika Králová on the journal Merkur in the field of German history of ideas and reviews of engaging book titles.
The journal for the research of world literature is published four times a year by the Institute of World Literature of the SAS.
The entire issue, with links to individual texts, is available in open access HERE.
Compiled by: Peter Zlatoš, Institute of World Literature of the SAS