Even at first glance, major overlaps can be identified between the topic of transnational history and comparative literature – the other subject comprising my joint honours degree. Both are concerned with challenging traditional national categorisations, refusing to remain constrained by borders. Both seek to investigate the manifestation of certain trends in various spatial settings, and how those trends travel, interact, influence one another and take on new shapes as a result. Thus, comparative literature and transnational history share the characteristic of being centred around the idea of motion. Flows are at the heart of both disciplines. This very movement may explain the slipperiness of their definitions, with much ink spilled over the respective terms.
Take comparative literature, for example. The word comparative begs the question: what is being compared? Who chooses which books are worthy of being analysed, placed under critical scrutiny? Much like national histories, the idea of “national literatures” has a deep-set foundation making it difficult to displace as the go-to category of identification. Jane Austen is profoundly English, Gustave Flaubert indubitably French; most would agree that the works of such authors reflect a national spirit. And, to an extent, this is a perfectly correct assumption. On the other hand, this lens can also exclude the characteristics of texts that expand beyond the bounded realms of the nation. Comparative literature teases out these connections by placing texts from different regions into a sort of dialogue (technically termed a contrapuntal method of analysis), revealing their similarities and discrepancies.
The idea of transnational spaces, of in-betweens in which exchanges occur between marginal communities, also brought to mind connections with comparative literature. Homi Bhaba’s text on cultural translation is a perfect example of the fertility of the cultural interstice, in which contact between various groups spawns new understandings, transfers, alterations through mistranslations and the development of hybrid forms. The in-between remains nestled between nations, failing to qualify for their simple categorisations, residing in a vibrant limbo. These under-studied spaces are where comparatists thrive. Their dynamic, ever-shifting nature makes them both fascinating and frustratingly difficult to pin down.
A practical link between the two discipline is their reliance on written sources. Despite the differences in the nature of these sources, both literary and historical studies depend on them as fuel to feed their methodological analyses. Texts can be used to reconstruct flows and networks. They are valuable marks on the slate of the past, left un-wiped by time. Yet they need to be understood in order for their secrets to be unlocked, which is where language comes into play. It’s all well and good talking about crossing borders and expanding scope, but the language barrier can be a formidable one in both disciplines. In comparative literature, translation can act as both a solution to the sheer, unmasterable quantity of global languages, and a fascinating area of study in its own right. It is a great example of texts travelling from one cultural sphere to another, perhaps losing certain linguistic specificities, perhaps gaining new associations, changes birthed by the crucial transnational encounter that ensured their accessibility.
Moving into this semester, I’ve hopefully set myself up, through the process of writing this post, to be more attentive to the inter-relatedness of my classes. Putting what they have been teaching me into practise, I should recognise the permeability of their disciplinary borders and remain open to the potentially fruitful in-betweens that may reveal themselves.