Review of: "Towards a Definition of Small Literatures"

Calculus of World Literature: Comparativity beyond MeasurabilityThe article "Towards a De nition of Small Literatures" (henceforth TDSL) written by Jeanne Glesener, Marko Juvan, and Benedikts Kalnačs is rigorously elaborated with incisively presented argument.According to the authors, the small literature is a fuzzy concept.Its meaning is not xed; it is exible.The exible concept of small literature is delineated based on its various functions.Its scope of application extends in multiple directions, contingent upon context and the manifold conditions under which it is applied.A key point of the article is the authors' distinction among the small, minor, peripheral, marginal, and migrant.The article proposes that these concepts should form a spectrum, shifting from small to large, minor to major, peripheral to central, marginal to core, and native to migrant.They established the concept of smallness as a new hallmark in world literature studies.Smallness might be a new strategy for de-and re-worlding literature (see Ming Tiampo "Pluriversal Avant-Gardisms: Deworlding, Reworlding, and Worlding the Avant-Garde", Globalizing the Avant-Garde, David Ayers et al. (eds), De Gryuter, 2025).This exible notion of smallness is constructed as a combination of qualitative and quantitative criteria.As shown in TDSL, rethinking the category of smallness introduces a different perspective on using global-local and central-peripheral axes in conceiving world literature.World literature is xed on a grand scale-large nations, powerful countries, in uential politics, and prosperous economies.Within this geopolitical framework, the greatness of literature is attributed, which limits the diversity of the world's voices with their concomitant diversity and variability.This reengagement with the world from the point of view of small literature is its re-patterning from a globe Qeios qeios.com