Table Of ContentTHE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK
OF WORLD THEORY
ii
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THE BLOOMSBURY
HANDBOOK OF
WORLD
THEORY
Edited by Jeffrey R. Di Leo and Christian Moraru
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BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
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First published in the United States of America 2022
Copyright © Jeffrey R. Di Leo and Christian Moraru, 2022
Each chapter copyright © by the contributor, 2022
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CONTENTS
Preface and acknowledgments viii
notes on contributors x
Introduction: World Theory in the New Millennium 1
Jeffrey R. Di Leo and Christian Moraru
Part One Arts and Humanities
1 Worlding History 21
Fabio López Lázaro
2 Worlding Philosophy 49
Brian O’Keeffe
3 Worlding Ethics 61
Nigel Dower
4 Worlding Art 75
Nikos Papastergiadis
5 Worlding Postmodernism 89
Hans Bertens
6 Worlding Comparative Literature 101
Christian Moraru
7 Worlding Popular Culture 119
Esther Peeren
8 Worlding Music 131
John Mowitt
9 Worlding Cinema 141
Alex Taek-Gwang Lee
vi CONTENTS
10 Worlding Theater 151
Gina Masucci MacKenzie
11 Worlding Religion 163
Gerda Heck and Stephan Lanz
Part Two Social and Behavioral Sciences
12 Worlding Sociology 177
Veronika Wittmann
13 Worlding Anthropology 193
Nigel Rapport
14 Worlding Economics 207
Peter Hitchcock
15 Worlding Psychoanalysis 219
Dany Nobus
16 Worlding Women 231
Robin Truth Goodman
17 Worlding Gender 247
Vrushali Patil
18 Worlding Queer 259
Sri Craven
19 Worlding Identity 277
Zahi Zalloua
Part Three The Professions
20 Worlding Higher Education 295
Michael Thomas
21 Worlding Public Policy 313
Kenneth J. Saltman
22 Worlding International Education 327
Lien Pham
23 Worlding International Relations 343
Sophia A. McClennen
24 Worlding Media Studies 355
Toby Miller and Jesús Arroyave
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CONTENTS vii
25 Worlding Journalism 367
Vera Slavtcheva-Petkova
26 Worlding Publishing 377
Jeffrey R. Di Leo
27 Worlding Architecture 395
Richard Ingersoll
Part Four Natural and Formal Sciences
28 Worlding Logic 405
Paul M. Livingston
29 Worlding Spatiality Studies 417
Robert T. Tally Jr.
30 Worlding Cybernetics 427
Andrew Culp
31 Worlding Systems Theory 445
Bruce Clarke
32 Worlding Biology 457
Adam Nocek
33 Worlding Environmental Studies 473
Robert P. Marzec
34 Worlding Earth and Climate Studies 491
Claire Colebrook
index 501
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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As American novelist Don DeLillo writes and variously suggests in his later books, the world
is a “world of others.” Our Handbook is a moment in the more systematic grappling with
this otherness on a range of scales and from a whole spectrum of disciplinary angles. For a
long time, such efforts played out chiefly within the sphere of human culture. Of late, more
and more of us have decided, however, that the previous sentence’s closing phrase is not
necessarily redundant. Whether in parallel or in conversation with this insight, discussions
of “world,” “worldliness,” and “worldedness” have broken through the human ceiling to
canvas the “other” side of anthropocentric and even animate knowledge and, pace Martin
Heidegger, to try to wrap one’s brain around what it means to have a world, be in the world,
or be of it if you are a rock, a fly, or any other kind of existent. “Worlds theory,” then? Or, to
play it safe—at least as far as certain philosophers are concerned—“world theory,” singular?
Even so, and with another popular idiom, this putative one-world world is a “world of other
worlds,” as some of our contributors imply or argue explicitly. Be that as it may, it turned
out that the coeditors’ immediate, private world of reading, thinking, and writing was not
enough to put this book together. They also needed, and have received, help from colleagues,
friends, contributors, editors, and still others without whom neither the broader world nor
the Handbook would be what it is.
Thus, Jeffrey R. Di Leo would like to acknowledge the contributors to this book he has
come to know and admire through his work as editor of symplokē and executive director
of the Society for Critical Exchange and its Winter Theory Institute, specifically Bruce
Clark, Claire Colebrook, Andrew Culp, Robin Goodman, Peter Hitchcock, Gina Masucci
MacKenzie, Robert P. Marzec, Sophia A. McClennen, John Mowitt, Brian O’Keeffe, Esther
Peeren, Kenneth J. Saltman, Alex Taek-Gwang Lee, Robert T. Tally Jr., and Zahi Zalloua.
He would also like to thank all of those who have contributed to this book, and whom he
has come to know through their work on this Handbook. The experience of getting to know
so many distinguished scholars and practitioners of theory from around the world primarily
through correspondence has been a rewarding and special experience for him. He thanks all
contributors for sharing their insights and for working within the time and space constraints
of this book—which for many was not an easy thing given the challenges of the Covid-19
pandemic. He is also grateful to Keri Ruiz for her assistance in the production of this book,
and to Vikki Fitzpatrick for her administrative support, especially in securing materials used
for the development of this book. Finally, as always, he would like to thank his wife Nina, for
her unfailing encouragement, support, and patience.
In addition, Christian Moraru would like to convey his gratitude to the following institutions
and individuals for providing funding, guidance, and other forms of assistance benefiting his
work on the Handbook: University of North Carolina, Greensboro’s Chancellor Franklin
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
D. Gilliam, Jr., for his support of advanced research; also at UNCG, Office of Research
and Economic Development and Vice Chancellor, Dr. Terri L. Shelton; the Class of 1949
Distinguished Professor in the Humanities Endowment; the College of Arts and Sciences for
a 2021 research leave awarded by Dean John Z. Kiss; the Atlantic World Research Network
and its Director, Professor Christopher Hodgkins; the International Programs Center and
its Associate Provost for International Programs, Dr. Maria Anastasiou; the Walter Clinton
Jackson Library staff; the English Department’s Head, Professor Scott Romine, for his
unparalleled leadership. Also, Beth Miller has helped with editing and has done the index.
Gratefully acknowledged are the support, kindness, and friendship of Henry Sussman,
Bertrand Westphal, Zahi Zalloua, Nicole Simek, Keith Cushman, Karen Kilcup, Stephen
Yarbrough, Jean-Michel Rabaté, and Radu Ţurcanu. As usual, Camelia has gone out of her
way to do her essential part, day in and day out.
We also want to thank, at Bloomsbury, Editorial Director Haaris Naqvi, whose support
has been substantial and unflagging. Editorial Assistants Amy Martin and Rachel Moore have
been very effective and uniquely responsive. We would like to recognize our colleagues from
marketing and production also, as well as the Press’s anonymous evaluators. Finally, we should
note that Bertrand Westphal has kindly allowed us to use an excerpt from a 2020 interview
as an epigraph to Chapter 6, “Worlding Comparative Literature.” The fragment came out in
“‘Literature Helps Worlding the World’: A Conversation with Bertrand Westphal,” interview
by Marius Conkan and Emanuel Modoc, in Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and
Theory 6.1 (2020), https://doi.org/10.24193/mjcst.2020.9.02.
