World Authorship

The original essays in Oxford Twenty-First Century Approaches to Literature mean to provoke rather than reassure, to challenge rather than codify. Instead of summarizing existing knowledge, scholars working in the field aim at opening fresh discussion; instead of emphasizing settled consensus they direct their readers to areas of enlivened and unresolved debate.

Booksellers, authors, and academics have been talking about world literature since Goethe made the term fashionable in the early nineteenth century. Yet amidst all the talk of books that 'circulate' and literature as a kind of universal property that can function as a 'window on the world', how do we account for the people who live in real places, and who write, translate, market, and read the texts that travel on these global journeys? World Authorship breaks new ground by showing how to bring together the real-world contexts of authorship with the literary worlds of fiction.

Written by world-leading academics and creative professionals including authors, translators, publishers, editors, prize jurors, and literary festival organizers, World Authorship updates Michael Foucault's 'author function' by significantly expanding the network of people and practices involved in literature. It covers keyword aspects of world authorship, grounding them in the study of actual literary texts to illuminate how literature is shared and made in different parts of the world and at different times in history. At the heart of all contributions, however, is one key question: where is the human element in world literature? By covering everything from 'Beginnings' to 'Voice', World Authorship provides the answer.

Tobias Boes, Professor, University of Notre Dame,Rebecca Braun, Professor, Lancaster University,Emily Spiers, Lecturer, Lancaster University

Tobias Boes is Associate Professor of German at the University of Notre Dame, United States. Trained in Comparative Literature, he specializes in the modernist period, the theory and history of the novel, and in cultural interactions between Germany and the world at large. Major publications include Formative Fictions: Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Bildungsroman (Cornell University Press, 2012) and Thomas Mann's War: Literature, Politics, and the World Republic of Letters (Cornell University Press, 2019).


Rebecca Braun is Professor of Modern Languages and Creative Futures at Lancaster University, United Kingdom, where she also directs the multi-disciplinary Institute for Social Futures. Her research ranges across languages and cultures to explore how creative practice can shape our engagement with societies of the future. She has published widely on practices of authorship around the world, and with particular expertise in twentieth and twenty-first-century German-language writing. Major publications include a 2016 special issue of Celebrity Studies on literary celebrity (co-edited with Emily Spiers) and the forthcoming Authors and the World: Placing Literature in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Germany.


Emily Spiers is Lecturer in Creative Futures at Lancaster University, United Kingdom. Her work focuses on future-oriented, innovative trends in communicative and literary practices. She explores how futures are being envisaged, anticipated and made through art and literature -- and how creative narratives can help articulate multiple futures in fields as diverse as defence, education and climate change. Major publications include a 2016 special issue of Celebrity Studies on literary celebrity (co-edited with Rebecca Braun), and Pop-Feminist Narratives: The Female Subject under Neoliberalism in North America, Britain, and Germany (Oxford University Press, 2018)

1. Introduction, Rebecca Braun
2. Beginnings: A World History of Authorship, Alexander Beecroft
3. Celebrity: On the Different Publics of World Authorship, Rebecca Braun
4. Censorship: The Challenge of Writing in Oppressive Regimes, Alexandra Harrington
5. Collaboration: Re-thinking Origins and Ownership, Sondra Bacharach
6. Commissions: The Politics of Origin and Market, Ra Page
7. Communities: Forging the Voices of Poets in Africa, Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva
8. Death: On Barthes's Images of Authorship without Authority, Beno?t Peeters
9. Digital Writing: Authorship and Platform, Daniel Punday
10. Engagement: Authoring European Futures, Benedict Schofield
11. Festivals: Constructing an Alternative Public Sphere, Gis?le Sapiro
12. Independence: Online Experimental Fiction in China, Michel Hockx
13. Language: Digital Technologies Diversifying World Authorship, Nathalie Carr?
14. Law: Making Authorial Personhood for the World, C?sar Dom?nguez
15. Media: Channels for New Kinds of Authorship in Africa, Chidi Ukwu
16. Nation: Authors as Exemplars of Political Communities, Tobias Boes
17. Networks: Poetry, Festivals, and Information Technology in Latin America, 1993-2017, Luis Bravo
18. Performance: Worlding Literature through Spoken-Word Poetry, Emily Spiers
19. Popularity: Authorship and Audiences over Time, Susan Bassnett
20. Prizes: A Personal View of the UK Awards Industry Today, Daniel Hahn
21. Readers: The Space Between Us All, Zahid Hussain
22. Representation: The Role of the Literary Agent in India, Sridhar Aghalaya in conversation with Emily Spiers
23. Self-Publishing: Transforming Ways of Writing and Reading, Jeffrey R. Di Leo
24. Translation: Michael Kr?ger and Paul Muldoon in Conversation, Karen Leeder
25. Universities: Creating Authors through Higher Education, George Green and Graham Mort
26. Voice: I am My Own Song From Offstage, Ulrike Almut Sandig