As we mark the twentieth anniversary of Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory, this special issue underscores the inherent and ongoing value of multidisciplinary critical inquiry. With the second decade of our young century slouching toward its fruition, globalism has become increasingly beset by political and cultural hostility. Entitled “Thinking Literature across Continents,” this special number addresses the “how and why” of literary study in a transnational context.
In this special issue, the contributors challenge us to reconsider our own critical perspectives vis-à-vis a wide range of literary works and genres. In their important volume Thinking Literature across Continents (2016), Ghosh and his coauthor J. Hillis Miller interrogate our contemporary analyses of world literature, pedagogy, and the ethics of literary study itself. As Ghosh observes in his introductory remarks to Thinking Literature across Continents, “the trans-moment or trans-now is about enacting a communication—difficult...
