Circulation

Abstract

The term “circulation” is often used in a rather unspecific way throughout different disciplines as Stefanie Gänger has shown and critiqued for the case of Global History (2017). Gänger explains this unspecific and cross-disciplinary use with the wide semantic range that the term has received in the fields of physiology, economics, and astronomy: on the one hand, it evokes the notion of an unbounded movement, as in the example of blood circulation; on the other, it creates an idea of wholeness and unity, similar to the planetary cycle, and the image of a self-evident process that is independent from concrete actors. In general terms, we understand circulation as a dynamic of recursive movements in space and time that keeps “literature” moving at a constant or changing speed in more or less stable spatial structures.

In Focus

The term “circulation” is often used in a rather unspecific way throughout different disciplines, as Stefanie Gänger has shown and critiqued for the case of Global History Full reference in Zotero Library. Gänger explains this unspecific and cross-disciplinary use with the wide semantic range that the term has received in the fields of physiology, economics, and astronomy: on the one hand, it evokes the notion of an unbounded movement, as in the example of blood circulation; on the other, it creates an idea of wholeness and unity, similar to the planetary cycle, and the image of a self-evident process that is independent from concrete actors.

Within debates on Global Literature, David Damrosch—to give just one prominent example—understands “World Literature” as ‘a mode of circulation and of reading’ Full reference in Zotero Library, establishing the term “circulation” as the first of three keywords in his study What is World Literature?, the other two being “translation” and “production”. Damrosch conceives of “circulation” as the decisive driving force of the transformation that “World Literature” is constantly undergoing, but he loses sight of the specific function and mode of action of this movement in the diversity of his ‘detailed case studies’ Full reference in Zotero Library.

The image of “circulation”, however, already enables and even demands its conceptualisation as a particular form of how literary works move through time and space. It differs, we would like to argue, from other modes of medial movements such as “exchange”, “distribution”, “dissemination”, or “transmission”. What do we mean, then, when we speak of a “circulation of literature”, or of “literary circulation”?

Explorations

This curated collection explores potentials and pitfalls of the concept, not only to assert “circulation” as a central factor of literary dynamics, but also as an analytical concept that can be negotiated and developed further. We intend to create a materially and phenomenally exact notion of circulation that is distinct from the merely metaphorical use of the term developed in the shadow of Stephen Greenblatt’s New Historicism Full reference in Zotero Library and Albrecht Koschorke’s mediology of “corporeal fluids” (‘Körperströme’) and “correspondence” Full reference in Zotero Library.

In general terms, we understand circulation as a dynamic of recursive movements in space and time that keeps “literature” moving at a constant or changing speed in more or less stable spatial structures. Two different ideal types (Max Weber) of movement and their corresponding models of “circulation” can be distinguished. On the one hand, literature moves along controlled paths with a secure infrastructure in a clearly defined group, returning to its origin in a circular fashion; such dynamics can be adequately described with the help of a model of closed circulation. On the other hand, literature also moves in progressively structured circuits that expand spirally in time or organise themselves by branching into net-like structures; these surplus and incremental dynamics, which are particularly common in literary transfer movements, can be adequately described within the framework of a model of open circulation. In both cases, the processes are usually based on existing or emerging infrastructures that sustain the movement, and they feature different “threshold areas” where actors, institutions, and practices influence the direction, speed, and quality of the movement.

Perspectives

The insights in this curated collection “circulation” encompass a multitude of perspectives on this keyword as economic reality, imaginary practice, forced and forceful system, as well as the traceability of networks. Using the Suhrkamp Verlag’s translation and publication of Brazilian literature as a case study, Douglas Pompeu argues for a recalibration of the concept of World Literature in Europe that accounts for what he calls the “Realpolitik” of literary languages. In a similar yet historical vein, Larissa de Assumpção maps out how the various reprints and translations of Carl Franz van der Velde’s early nineteenth-century novels united readers across the world, even though he was already beginning to be forgotten in his native Germany. De Assumpção’s work, hence, somewhat echoes the much older and coincidental transcultural synchronicity of the circulation of Medieval songs that Yūji Nawata, Tatsuo Terada, and Tomomi Yoshino map out for anthologies in Japan and the German-speaking world 1000–1340. Bringing the question of circulation to the present, finally, Anouk Luhn reads Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç’s text ‘Display’ as a circulatory unravelling of a specific set of promiscuous temporalities, that figures an affect-driven movement of textual longing.

In the first of two shorter insights, Susanne Strätling proposes to understand the poetic and metapoetic potential of the material infrastructure of circulation, specifically that of oil pipelines, as a promising new path into literary studies. Approaching the subject matter from a wholly different direction, Bart Soethaert offers an ANT-inspired insight on why and how circulation should be seen from a praxeological perspective, namely with its actors, dispatchers, and connectors in mind. This initial series concludes with Raphaëlle Efoui-Delplanque’s conversation with Kenyan author Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, in which they speak about her work’s retracing of circulations of things, people, and ideas, particularly from an African viewpoint and vis-à-vis the European induced circuits and extractions.

These insights were in part initiated or furthered by research stays, workshops, and other forms of exchange and discussions that have occurred in and around research area 4 of the EXC 2020 Temporal Communities. They are, hence, only extensions, snapshots, and seeds for the further development of ‘Articulations’. One future outcome to be noted here is that the relation between “circulation” and “value” has been in focus especially during the publication process of the volume, The Value of Circulation, published in 2023 Full reference in Zotero Library.

Insights

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Responses

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