World as Critical Medium

Abstract This article looks at the role played by the analysis of Indigenous literatures in the emergence of current theories of world literature, focusing particularly on how they feature prominently in David Damrosch’s What Is World Literature? It argues that the study of Indigenous Latin American texts, and of the way they speak of the world, emphasizes the need for an increased attention to layers of mediation – and as such, it’s crucial to Damrosch’s redefinition of world literature, and to the renewed interest in the field at the turn of the 21st century. Through the analysis of Ateri Miyawatl’s Neijmantototsintle – La tristesa és un ocell – Sadness is a bird (2018), it asks how world literature can participate in the continued efforts to create research practices and disciplinary structures that move away from (neo)colonial and imperialist frameworks. By positing the world as a critical medium, this essay claims that such understanding of the world helps us give up on the pretense of immediate access. It makes world literature a medium of scholarly engagement conscious of its mediation and of the asymmetry of literary worlds.