Writing about Polish Literature in an Age of “Post-Global” Literary Studies
Writing about Polish Literature in an Age of “Post-Global” Literary Studies

Summary/Abstract: How to write about Polish literature in English in the 2020s? How to do it outside of the frame of Polish Studies? What is the place of Polish literature in the fields of comparative literature and world literature? These are some of the questions that a scholar of Polish literature might ask in relation to recent debates about the writing of global, transcultural and planetary literary histories.1 When en- gaging with these debates, we are challenged with a series of paradigmatic shifts that invite us to move beyond the concept of narrowly understood national lit- eratures in the spirit of decolonisation, and at the same time to pay renewed at- tention to the specificity of local cultures, histories, and modes of literary pro- duction. The methodological tools put forward by proponents of new ways of conceptualising and writing literary histories offer us an opportunity to conceive of a fresh, expansive way of writing about Polish literature that would bring to light its transnational, transcultural, and translational iterations and connections. This, of course, comes with a set of unique challenges, which might lead to fur- ther critical debates.

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