This research aims to carry out a comparative study between Brazilian Literature, the novel The Passion According to G.H. (A Paixão segundo G.H.) by Clarice Lispector, and Korean Literature, the novel Mother's Stake I (엄마의 말뚝 I/ Eommaui Malttuk I) by Park Wan Seo. The study investigates the relation of space/body in the narratives by contemporary women writers to propose a new conception of world literature by having as a starting point "Other" Literatures, as designated national literature works originated from the Global South. Thus, to conduct the research it was considered the following elements in the comparative reading: space/body, symbolic-imagetic bodies, cultural convergences, and cultural differences between the literary works by Clarice Lispector and Park Wan Seo. The main concept in discussion in this study is the concept of world literature presented on two axes: the concept of world literature, an overview of the notion, and re-readings of world literature—decentering. Therefore, this study proposes a re-reading of the concept of world literature based on the concept of planetarity by Gayatri Spivak (2003), departing from the practice of reading works from Global South Literature, in other words, Latin American Literature and Korean Literature, respectively, Brazilian Literature and Korean Literature.

Magical Realism is perhaps the prominent literary movement that embodied the timeless conflict between cultural particularity (postcolonialism) and universality (world literature). Although initially conceptualized within Europe, it was subsequently inextricably linked to Latin America and eventually constituted a universal genre of post-colonial literature. Today, its dominant articulation concerns a symmetrical juxtaposition and coevalness (Fabian) of two different temporal and cultural experiences and perspectives (Western and non-Western).

In this presentation, I will turn to two emblematic texts by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier: On the Marvelous Real in America (1949) and The Baroque and the Marvelous Real (1975). These texts had a catalytic effect on the conceptualization of magical realism and encompass all the aforementioned contradictions. In the first text, where he synthesizes the concept of the Marvelous Real, Carpentier initially admits the impossibility of achieving a universal literary-cultural perspective. On the other hand, however, through a dialectic of similarities and differences between Europe and Latin America, he will argue that Magical Realism, for historical-cultural reasons, is more suitable to develop in Latin America. In his later text, he returns to the concept of the Marvelous Real. This time, however, he tries to give it a universal connotation by partially disconnecting it from the reality of Latin America. To achieve this, he will resort to the European concept of Baroque, which claims that it is not an aesthetic movement but a transhistorical ontological relationship with the world, which, however, manifests itself within history with different intensities each time. Although Latin America is still the privileged place of the Baroque (and Marvelous Real), Carpentier also identifies moments and manifestations of the Baroque worldview within and outside European (and Latin American) aesthetic production.

At this point, I will try to connect the baroque universality proposed by Carpentier with the German philosopher Ernst Bloch, whose European philosophy of history seems incompatible with preserving non-Western cultural particularities. Bloch, in The Philosophy of the Future, however, argues that a «postulated multiplicity of voices is possible: a methodic profusion, an interweaving of time and epochs, and therefore a spaciousness in the flow of history, which would in no way necessitate any recourse to geographism.» I will argue that this spatial expansion that mediates spatial distance and temporal homogenization is supported by the concept of Baroque proposed by Carpentier and which constitutes a necessary complement to the corresponding idea of the Marvelous Real and consequently to the relationship of Magical Realism with World Literature.

In a conference themed “Comparative Literature: Perspectives, Practices, Positions” organized in March 2024, in which the author was one of the organizers, Harish Trivedi in his lecture cited the example of the volume titled Literatures of the World and the Future of Comparative Literature which had papers compiled out of the proceedings of the 22nd Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association edited by Péter Hajdu and Xiaohong Zhang. Trivedi drew attention to how the volume was divided into four parts: 1. Comparative Literature, 2. National Literatures and Diaspora Literature, 3. Translation Studies, and 4. World Literature. His point was that the space of comparative literature(CL) was being taken up by other ‘disciplines’ and it reflected even in the publications of the official international body of CL. Taking this as the point of departure, this paper examines select edited volumes on CL published in the 21st century from India in terms of the composition of their papers. The idea here is to understand the politics of disciplinarity, questions of ‘objects’ of study, and problems of methodology in research and pedagogy vis-à-vis publishing. India is taken as the location of this study because of two reasons: (i) its plurilingual and pluricultural situation which necessitates a comparative practice and (ii) it being a non-Euro-American and ‘postcolonial’ nation.

How does CL conceive its practice as different in relation to other disciplines like the ones listed above? Is there a gradual erosion of its space in published works? How do these volumes contribute to theorization, canon formation, pedagogy and research? What is their role in the institutional visibility and viability of CL? What do the current trends in publishing imply for CL and its practitioners, especially in India? These are some of the questions that this paper seeks to engage with.

Some of the volumes that will be examined for this paper, arranged chronologically, include:

1. 2007: James, Jancy, Chandra Mohan, Subha Chakraborty Dasgupta, and Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee, eds. Studies in Comparative Literature: Theory, Culture and Space. Delhi: Creative Books

2. 2012: Raj, Rizio Yohannan, ed. Quest of a Discipline: New Academic Directions for Comparative Literature. New Delhi: Cambridge UP India

3. 2013: Ramakrishnan, E. V., Harish Trivedi and Chandra Mohan, eds. Interdisciplinary Alter-natives in Comparative Literature. New Delhi: Sage

4. 2013: Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven, and Tutun Mukherjee, eds. Companion to Comparative Literature, World Literatures, and Comparative Cultural Studies. New Delhi: Cambridge UP India

5. 2017: Figueira, Dorothy and Chandra Mohan, eds. Literary Culture and Translation: New Aspects of Comparative Literature. Delhi: Primus Books

Indigenous life and culture are comparatively less depicted in Bengali literature, mainly due to the indigenous communities' residence in border regions and their limited interaction with Bengali society. Indigenous people are generally classified into two categories: plains and hill tribes, but there is much debate in Bangladesh’s institutional framework regarding the term 'indigenous.' However, analyzing the lives and culture of indigenous communities from a literary perspective is highly significant. This paper reviews the depiction of indigenous life and culture in Shaukat Ali's কপিল দাস মুর্মুর শেষ কাজ (Kapil Das Murmur's Last Task; 1968) and Alaudddin Al Azad's কর্ণফুলী (Karnaphuli; 1962). In Shaukat Ali's story, the Santal indigenous elder Kapil Das rebels against the moneylender, reflecting the age-old conflict between rulers and the oppressed. On the other hand, Alaudddin Al Azad’s novel Karnaphuli focuses on the struggle for survival of the Chakma community, illustrating the profound impact of the damming of the Karnaphuli River on their life and culture. Akhtaruzzaman Elias, in his essay চাকমা উপন্যাস চাই (Chakma Novel Needed), highlights the importance of writing novels in the Chakma language. He mentions that if the rich folklore, myths, and songs of the Chakma community are incorporated into novels, it would add a new dimension. According to him, even though a novel may not directly solve a problem, it provides direction towards human possibilities. Elias believed that Chakma novels, by reflecting the crises and struggles of the marginalized, oppressed, and downtrodden indigenous people, could help organize their worldview. However, his views later sparked mixed reactions among other indigenous groups in the hill regions. This paper analyzes the reflection of indigenous life and culture from a post-colonial perspective, highlighting the tension between their struggles for survival and cultural identity, which is largely overlooked in Bengali literature.