New Books in British Studies

"Kazuo Ishiguro is Not Writing World Literature"


Listen Later

How has a writer known principally for his contained domestic novels come to represent the most dynamic elements of world literature? In Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2025), Chris Holmes expands our understanding of how world literature engages with the most pressing crises of the 20th and 21st centuries by examining Ishiguro's fascination with characters who are profoundly constrained in their ability to understand global systems to which they are subject. Rather than following the established pattern of so-called global novels, which crisscross the planet exhibiting a knowing cosmopolitanism, Ishiguro's fictional engagement with the world comes principally in the form of characters who are cut off from the global systems that abuse them.

By examining the ways in which Ishiguro foregrounds the in-process thinking of those who fail to comprehend their place in the flow of politics, culture, and ideas, Holmes positions Ishiguro as the great chronicler of everyday lives, and as such, prepares a mode of reading world literature that questions the assumptions for how we live and think with others when each of us is deeply limited.

Chris Holmes is Associate Professor and Chair of Literatures in English at Ithaca College. He is the host of the literary interview podcast, Burned by Books, and he is host and co-producer on Novel Dialogue, the podcast of the Society of Novel Studies, both of which are New Books Network partners. His most recent essays appear in NOVEL, MFS, Critique, and Public Books.

Caroline Levine is David and Kathleen Ryan Professor of the Humanities at Cornell University. She is the author most recently of The Activist HumanistForm and Method in the Climate Crisis, and Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

New Books in British StudiesBy Marshall Poe

  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4

4

3 ratings


More shows like New Books in British Studies

View all
In Our Time by BBC Radio 4

In Our Time

5,401 Listeners

Dan Snow's History Hit by History Hit

Dan Snow's History Hit

4,630 Listeners

Coffee House Shots by The Spectator

Coffee House Shots

184 Listeners

Americano by The Spectator

Americano

259 Listeners

The Book Club by The Spectator

The Book Club

8 Listeners

John Anderson: Conversations by John Anderson

John Anderson: Conversations

287 Listeners

Today in Focus by The Guardian

Today in Focus

984 Listeners

The Ancients by History Hit

The Ancients

2,941 Listeners

The Rest Is History by Goalhanger

The Rest Is History

12,517 Listeners

The Rest Is Politics by Goalhanger

The Rest Is Politics

3,142 Listeners

Ukraine: The Latest by The Telegraph

Ukraine: The Latest

1,753 Listeners

Empire by Goalhanger

Empire

2,009 Listeners

Past Present Future by David Runciman

Past Present Future

308 Listeners

Battle Lines by The Telegraph

Battle Lines

160 Listeners

Alas Vine & Hitchens by Daily Mail

Alas Vine & Hitchens

10 Listeners