History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe

Types and stereotypes is the fourth and last volume of a path-breaking multinational literary history that incorporates innovative features relevant to the writing of literary history in general. Instead of offering a traditional chronological narrative of the period 1800-1989, the History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe approaches the region’s literatures from five complementary angles, focusing on literature’s participation in and reaction to key political events, literary periods and genres, the literatures of cities and sub-regions, literary institutions, and figures of representation. The main objective of the project is to challenge the self-enclosure of national literatures in traditional literary histories, to contextualize them in a regional perspective, and to recover individual works, writers, and minority literatures that national histories have marginalized or ignored.
Types and stereotypes brings together articles that rethink the figures of National Poets, figurations of the Family, Women, Outlaws, and Others, as well as figures of Trauma and Mediation. As in the previous three volumes, the historical and imaginary figures discussed here constantly change and readjust to new political and social conditions. An Epilogue complements the basic history, focusing on the contradictory transformations of East-Central European literary cultures after 1989. This volume will be of interest to the region’s literary historians, to students and teachers of comparative literature, to cultural historians, and to the general public interested in exploring the literatures of a rich and resourceful cultural region.This volume is part of a book set which can be ordered at a special discount: https://www.benjamins.com/series/chlel/chlel.special_offer.literarycultures.pdf

Wlad Godzich, Distinguished Professor of General and Comparative Literature, University of California at Santa Cruz:
This monumental history of ECE literary cultures is both an authoritative account of these cultures and an ingenious prod to their further investigation. It is composed of learned, erudite, and vastly informative essays of the highest standard, many of which make distinct contributions to scholarship and criticism. The idiosyncratic and even quirky dynamics of the literary cultures of East Central Europe receive their due, and serve as the organizing principles of these four volumes. The reader will find a large variety of approaches and styles, and will be grateful to the editors for insuring clarity of expression throughout. This history is both a work of reference and an endless source of discovery.