Global Matters: The Transnational Turn in Literary Studies

Paul Jay offers an interesting study of a popular theme of the international nature. -Dr. Zulfiqar Ali, The Midwest Book Review (November 2014)

Global Matters is a lucid and extremely valuable synthesis of some of the trickiest and most interesting scholarship of the past twenty years. Judicious yet also pleasantly polemical, and anchored in refreshing readings of some much-read texts, it will be the object of heartfelt gratitude on the part of students and teachers alike. -Bruce Robbins, Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University

In Global Matters, Paul Jay provides invaluable guidance to recent debates about globalization and illuminates the contemporary novel's vibrant transnationalism. This judicious and remarkably lucid book lays the ground for exciting new developments in transnational literary scholarship. -Jahan Ramazani, author of A Transnational Poetics

Global Matters displays admirable clarity and fairness in its presentation of current debates about globalization and postcoloniality in relation to the transnational turn in literary studies. Paul Jay's book is timely and well conceived. It has two parts that mirror each other: the first presents an overview of cultural and literary theory dealing with transnationalism and the second provides readings of selected texts to demonstrate the necessity of transnational approaches to literature. -Susan Stanford Friedman, Virginia Woolf Professor of English and Women's Studies and Sally Mead Hands Bascom Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Global Matters offers a thoughtful and balanced consideration of recent theories of globalization. Paul Jay's insistence that the long histories of colonialism shape contemporary global matters and that we cannot choose between the cultural and economic dimensions of globalization is especially welcome. -Ania Loomba, Catharine Bryson Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania

Global Matters helps the reader make sense of some of the most exciting developments and complex disagreements in transnational literary and cultural studies over the past two decades. Paul Jay argues that novelists have responded creatively to the apparently increased volume of global exchanges that have taken place since the end of the Cold War, and he connects these developments to the U.S. civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s. Jay displays an admirable ability to synthesize complex ideas about transnationality and to show how they can enrich the study of literature. -Sanjay Krishnan, Boston University