Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LCLW (Literary Communities and Literary Worlds)

Teaser

Literary Communities and Literary Worlds (LCLW) is, in the broadest terms, a project about the nature of and relationship between community, labour and belonging. At a time of increasing nativism and nationalism, it considers the fates of several mid-twentieth century authors...

Summary

Literary Communities and Literary Worlds (LCLW) is, in the broadest terms, a project about the nature of and relationship between community, labour and belonging. At a time of increasing nativism and nationalism, it considers the fates of several mid-twentieth century authors who moved from one literary community to another. Leaving behind the hard-won networks, readerships, practices and even languages of the communities from which they had emerged, these authors refused to remain literary exiles: residents abroad but forever tethered to their native literary cultures. Instead, seeking to gain entry to a new literary field, they strove to cultivate new relationships, to identify new avenues for publication and circulation, to understand the demands and interests of new readers, and to acquire new materials and new crafts. By tracking their efforts, and by connecting these with a host of other agents and institutions – publishers, editors, little magazines, book series, universities, writers’ circles – LCLW also seeks to tell a story about the conditions of literary production and reception; about the horizons of expectation and possibility from which works emerge and which determine their meanings; and about the literature and literary world of the mid-twentieth century. The authors at the heart of the project are Stefan Heym, Vladimir Nabokov and Denise Levertov, all of whom succeeded in gaining entry to the American literary field, having begun their careers in the German, Russian and British fields respectively. In considering their trajectories, it becomes possible to distinguish between citizenship and the kind of belonging achieved within a community of practice, and to trace the costs and demands of such belonging. It becomes possible also to identify the peculiar dimensions of, as well as the relationships, between, the fields from which they departed, and the one into which they arrived, and thus to begin building a picture of the structure of the literary world in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s – a period shaped by crises and conflicts whose shadows loom over those of the present. Alongside these figures, LCLW also considers the trajectories of another set of authors: Richard Wright, Peter Abrahams, Guy Butler and Kamau Brathwaite. All four incorporated West African aesthetic materials into signal works of the 1950s and 1960s, and all encountered West African artists and intellectuals. Indeed, Wright, Butler and Brathwaite visited Ghana within a few years of one another, in the late 1950s. But only Brathwaite seems to have made any real effort to engage with a West African community of letters. The trajectories of these authors open up a secondary line of inquiry for LCLW, into the nature and portability of literary materials, bringing into view the differences between literary communities that are capable of enforcing submission to their codes, and those which may be treated simply as sites of material extraction.

To summarize, LCLW has had four primary research objectives. To advance the understanding of literary context; to develop a comprehensive theory of the literary world, by identifying different forms of literary community ; to contribute to the understanding of literature and the literary world of the mid-twentieth century; and, above all, to determine the importance of literary practice and literary institutions to these communities, by focusing on and elucidating various strategies of integration and belonging.

Work performed

Work undertaken during this initial period of the project has consisted chiefly of research into the lives and careers of the focal authors; research into theories of literary communities and the literary world; research into particular literary communities; and analysis of the literary practices of the focal authors. By consulting biographies, autobiographies and volumes of correspondence, as well as relevant critical studies it has been possible to begin building a picture of the focal authors’ migrations, and of the communities from which they departed and into which they sought to gain entry. This picture has been supplemented by research into the archives of Heym, Wright, Levertov, Nabokov and Brathwaite. At the same time, by assembling and reading relevant theories of the literary world, particularly those grounded in the sociology of culture, it has been possible to develop the project’s methodological framework. Research into the mid-twentieth-century American, British and German émigré literary communities has made it possible to sketch their internal dimensions and dynamics, as well as the points at which they intersect. By identifying key agents and institutions – particular periodicals, publishers, editors and intercessors – it has been possible to develop a sense of the hierarchies and conditions of participation peculiar to each of these communities. Research into West African literary communities, and the literary community of the Gold Coast in particular, has brought to light the extent to which these communities and their traditions were frequently ignored by foreign authors, and has also prompted the development of a second line of argument and research, focused on literary materials. Detailed analyses of the works of Heym and Nabokov especially have confirmed that changes in literary practice are the primary means and effects of integrative strategies. These findings have been amplified by the study of the poet Denise Levertov, who began her career in the British literary field in the 1940s, before taking up a position in the US field in the 1950s. If anything, the addition of Levertov has made it possible to focus attention on the US field of the mid-twentieth century as a site of arrival, and to cover a broader range of literary forms: poetry, highbrow fiction, middlebrow fiction, popular theatre. With regard to Wright and Abrahams, analysis of their works has revealed an attempt to integrate materials extraneous to their fields, rather than the kinds of changes in practice observable across the careers of Nabokov, Heym and Levertov. This provides a kind of negative confirmation of the original hypothesis.

Final results

LCLW was conceived as a means of addressing debates within the disciplines of world and comparative literature, and of enhancing the subject knowledge and research skills of the Experienced Researcher (ER). It has issued already in a number of conference papers and seminar papers, and a chapter in The Cambridge Companion to World Literature, ‘Literary Worlds and Literary Fields’. By the end of the project, two further journal articles will be submitted for publication, and the ER will have organized a workshop, ‘The Materials of African Literature’, and co-edited a special issue on this topic for the journal Cambridge Quarterly. The ER will also prepare a proposal for a monograph on aspects of the project’s findings. In broader terms, LCLW has allowed the ER to experience the very different research culture and practices of a large American public university. It has also allowed the University of Birmingham and the University of Illinois at Chicago to strengthen a previously-existing relationship, which should allow for further collaborations and exchanges. In the coming months, the ER will begin his secondment at the George Padmore Institute in London, which will enable him to engage with a wider public, whilst acquiring further skills in archiving and preservation.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/english/zimbler-jarad.aspx.