Islam and New Directions in World Literature

Brings forth the Islamicate as an aesthetic and critical force in World Literature Since its advent, Islam has been cross-pollinating world literatures in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean and the Americas, constantly enriching and enriched by various humanistic traditions in multiple languages, spanning the lives of individuals and societies throughout history. Yet, scholarship on Islam as World Literature has been sparse despite its significant contribution. Islam and New Directions in World Literature understands Islamic literary and cultural heritages as dynamic forces, constantly enriching and enriched by various humanistic traditions in multiple languages. Exploring Islam's presence in world literatures in two strands - on the one hand examining the orientalist versions and usages of Islam; on the other hand analysing the presence of Islam as a discursive and creative tradition - this book advances a consideration of Islam as an agent in the history of World Literature. In so doing, it delinks World Literature from its default 'Global North' originary moments and geographies, and posits the Islamicate as an alternative modality of literary worldliness. It avoids antagonising one literature against the other, and instead creates hospitable sites of fresh interpretations across hemispheres in a collection of chapters that engage a plurality of scholarly fields, and cover a variety of periods, literary traditions and languages. Key Features  Brings forth the Islamicate as an aesthetic and critical force in World Literature  Disrupts the one-way traffic in the field of World Literature studies by regarding Islam as both an alternative and a critical force behind creative processes  Covers a wide range of regions (Western European, Turkic, Indo-Persian, Middle-Eastern, African, Chinese literatures), temporal settings, literary traditions (fiction, poetry, critical theory and philosophy, oral literature and orature), as well as languages of the Islamicate  Asserts interdisciplinarity and moves beyond the binary frame of East vs West or North vs South  Includes a foreword by Jeffrey Einboden Sarah R. Bin Tyeer is Assistant Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. Claire Gallien is Assistant Professor at the University of Montpellier 3 and is a member of the Institut de Recherche sur l'Âge Classique et les Lumières at the CNRS.