John Steinbeck,Cosmopolitanism and Global Literature

The purpose of the present paper is to explore the ways in which John Steinbeck utilizes the ideas of cosmopolitanism and socialism in his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath(1939)interweaving them into the U.S.reality of the 1930s.It also deals with the term“global literature”,taking it as a starting point for the analysis of Steinbeck’s novel.Taking the lead of Wai-Chee Dimock,the author views American literature as no longer a sovereign literary domain,but as a blend of literatures that are ever evolving and multiplying,interweaving with other cultures.From this standpoint,the paper discusses The Grapes of Wrath in terms of transnational imagination,placing it into the scope of the“world literature”.It is an attempt to identify the“connective tissues”that make the novel belong to the global literature and investigate how they are represented in the text.

Comparative Mobilities

This essay explores recent incursions into comparative modalities and highlights how global comparative literature better reflects the ways in which borders and mobility have become definingelementsof the21stcentury.However,thehumanities remainunderattack.Recent openings towards decolonizing the curriculum and strengtheningsynergies between various social justice approaches may prove fruitfulin coordinating defenses.Todayconomic and historical circumstances are such that it has become increasingly hard to think of literary traditions in monolithic terms since globalization has dramatically transformed the circulation of literary works In our understanding,a comparativist is not necessarily invested either in demonstrating the intrinsic connections between cultural or literary objects as traditional practitioners of comparative literature have been,or committed to disclosing incommensurable differences,as postcolonial comparativists have been Instead,the comparative frame of mind is defined by the fundamental insight that any cultural product or production is inherently heterogeneous and hence requires no external object of comparison Put otherwise,a comparative frame of mind does not require the co-presence of two or more cultural or literary archives in practicing comparative literature,for any single object can be read in relation to,oreven against,itsowncontext.Likewise,languagesarenot,andshould notbeconsidered monolithic entities Rather,they are historical containers,mobile vessels that transport perpetually evolving references and symbols across borders,the portals and vectors that allow for multi-dimensional cultural and linguistic expression.We therefore argue that the persistent privileging of multi-lingual fluency as the raison d'etre of comparative literature needs to be relinquished,and that instead one needs to embrace the idea that one can bea comparatist withinasingle language.In other words,we argue that comparison is as relevant within diverse national traditions as it is between them.