Dialogism and comparative literature

The article concerns the current situation of the discipline of comparative literature, particularly the question of dialogue/dialogism and comparative literary studies. A general discussion on dialogue and dialogism (with special reference to Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory discussed by Julia Kristeva and also by others such as Paul de Man, Jola Škulj, Michael Holquist) leads to the conclusion that these concepts are crucial to the comparative literature at the time of the “cultural turn”. Finally, the author distinguishes two types of comparative studies: “traditional” comparative literature and “new” comparative literature (cultural comparatism). In the field of “traditional” comparative literature the dialogism is considered as a problem of intertextuality in its most literal sense, whereas in the field of cultural comparatism it is understood as a pragmatically oriented theory of knowledge.