JOHN KINSELLA, INTERNATIONAL REGIONALISM, AND WORLD LITERATURE

Abstract

This article focuses on the question of John Kinsella’s invisibility in World Literature from the perspective of his International Regionalism (IR). First, it compares the similarity and difference between Kinsella and Joseph S. Nye’s international regionalism, and pinpoints the development of Kinsella’s IR from Disclosed Poetics, Activist Poetics, Spatial Relations to Polysituatedness. Second, it concentrates on analyzing the background of Kinsella’s IR through three kinds of ideologies: veganism, anarchism, and pacifism, in order to mark the unique identity problem of Kinsella – identity dilemma in-between pre- and post-nation as Australia. Third, it clarifies the reason why Kinsella is invisible in the World Literature canon as Emily Apter mentions in “On Translation in a Global Market,” in line with the question why Kinsella was mainly in the footnotes of Robert Dixon and Brigid Rooney’s Scenes of Reading: Is Australian Literature a World Literature. In conclusion, on the one hand, Kinsella’s IR about the World and Literature does not fit in the Center, or the Periphery, nor the Semi-Center & Periphery; on the other hand, Kinsella’s IR might more aptly be termed International Community-ism, because Kinsella’s World is built up by very small communities.

Keywords:

• John Kinsella
• International Regionalism
• Australia
• World Literature

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 John Kinsella rarely uses the capital “International Regionalism” in his books, nor with colon: “international regionalism,” but just international regionalism. This article will use International Regionalism and its initials IR hereafter specifically for Kinsella’s term, in order to tell the difference between Kinsella, Nye, and Garg.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: I would like to thank The National Social Science Fund of China (“Boris Groys' Theory of Literature and Art,” No. 16CWW002).