Literature as an experience of globalisation: An interview with Svend Erik Larsen

Abstract

Abstract Svend Erik Larsen is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Aarhus University, Denmark, and a member of Academia Europaea. He has authored more than 10 books and 400 articles. His latest works include journal articles, ‘Australia between White Australia and Multiculturalism: A World Literature Perspective’ (2017), ‘Migration and Translation in a World Literature Perspective’ (2017), ‘World Literature in an Extended Media Landscape’ (2017), Yingyong Fuhaoxue (2018) and the monograph Literature and the Experience of Globalization: Texts without Borders (2017), translated as Wu bianjie wenben: wenxue yu quanqiuhua (2020). Professor Larsen was interviewed by Doctor Li Shuling while he was in China to give a series of lectures on literature and globalisation. Speaking about the problems in the current research on literature and globalisation, Professor Larsen suggests viewing globalisation as a cultural process and to reread literary works from both historical and global perspectives. This implies studying literature and world literature framed against the concrete everyday experience of globalisation in highly developed societies as well as in poor marginalised regions. He expounds the focal points of literary studies in globalised conditions, the dynamic relationship between local literature and world literature, the challenges and opportunities before minor literature and micro literature today, and the path for local literature to become global. He believes that world literature will help democratise the study of literature in global conditions.