World Literature, Arabian Nights, and Translation

Abstract

The contemporary consensus of world literature entails that it’s a conception both ‘one and unequal’. What this dissertation aims to do is to work towards a balance. While utilizing a staple tool of the humanities, the metaphor, this work interrogates three assumptions of world literature. Its disposition as normative, its emphasized location as the foreign, and its form as a clear translation. Drawing from a multidisciplinary workbench that includes history, philosophy, and theory, I contend and argue against this assumption claiming that world literature is volatile, its significant location is that of home, and its form is a blurred line between translation and adaptation while favoring the latter. I conclude by discussing the limitations of my thesis and postulating the road ahead for world literature