Roberto Schwarz and World Literature

First of its kind, this essay collection examines the intellectual trajectory of Latin America’s foremost literary critic and dialectician, underscoring its relevance for contemporary debates on world literature. The volume shows how Schwarz’s concrete analyses of Brazilian literature and culture offer a theoretical blueprint to understand the literary registration of capitalism’s combined and uneven development. Exploring concepts such as misplaced ideas, objective form, and volubility, the contributors show how the nuance of Schwarz’s interpretive practice can be productively remodelled into a program for world-literary studies. Throughout the volume, Schwarz’s unparalleled contributions to cultural theory, long neglected in the Anglophone academy, are rigorously and creatively debated. Roberto Schwarz and World Literature is a primer on literary criticism as concrete practice and an indispensable book for those interested in how literary form mediates social reality. "An exciting and ambitious volume, designed not so much to introduce Schwarz to an Anglophone readership (his translated works have already established him as one of the most important literary theorists of his generation) as to engage critically with his work, demonstrating its reach and power, drawing out its intellectual lineages and affinities and – above all – showing why his writings on Brazilian literature are so indispensable to contemporary debates on method in world-literary studies." —Neil Lazarus, Emeritus Professor, University of Warwick "An outstanding collection of essays on the work and influence of Roberto Schwarz, one of the most important literary critics and critical theorists of our time. Thomas Waller has brought together a distinguished group of scholars who offer definitive assessments of Schwarz's impact on comparative and world literature, peripheral aesthetics, and Latin American studies. This will be the ‘go to’ reference for anyone interested in pursuing a materialist approach to literary and cultural analysis."—Keya Ganguly, Professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota