Summary

Both the shape and substance of literary studies have been dramatically transformed since the late 20th century by a growing interest in the transnational nature of literary production and circulation, and by explorations of how literature engages with forms of experience that transcend nation-state boundaries. During this period, the nation-state model for organizing literary studies has been augmented by a number of others, including comparative, multicultural, postcolonial, world, and global, that have dramatically transformed the geographical and cultural organization of the field. This shift has been accompanied by a wide range of theoretical work on the concept of the transnational. In addition, critical analyses of literary texts across a range of historical periods have paid increasing attention to the treatment of transnational and cross-cultural experiences in literature, so that the importance of the transnational as an organizing principle for scholarship and teaching has been matched by its emergence as a key subject of inquiry—and vigorous debate—in literary studies.