De Gruyter Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective

Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective is a research project funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). Initiated in 1996 and launched in 1999, it aims at finding suitable methods and approaches for studying and analysing literature globally, emphasizing the comparative and intercultural aspect. Until today, literary cultures and traditions have usually been studied separately, each field using its own principles and methods. The project can be considered as a contribution to gradually removing this problem and helping to gain a better understanding of literature and literary history by means of a concerted empirical research and deeper conceptual reflection. Each of the four volumes is devoted to a special research topic: Volume 1: Notions of literature across times and culture; Volume 2: Literary genres: an intercultural approach; Volume 3: Literary interactions in the modern world; Volume 4: Literary interactions in the modern world.