'This was supposed to be an entry on the “Global” but there was too much to say—which both begs the question of the usefulness of the term and speaks to the degree to which we've left the nation behind as a literary paradigm. “Global” is vexing because it encompasses a wide range of more specific paradigms (such as imperial, international, transnational, global South, Oceanic Studies, postcolonial, geopolitical) and thus flattens out and depoliticizes the uneven terrain across which literature travels. Antoinette Burton has argued, for instance, that the term often masks the imperialism or neoimperialism that is the context for the creation and circulation of literature designated global.' (Introduction)
