Complexity, Hybridity, and Comparative Literature

In her article "Complexity, Hybridity, and Comparative Literature" Marina Grishakova discusses "implied hybridity" in discourses, aesthetic systems, and media as a form of emergent complexity — as distinct from hybridity resulting from the mixture or blending of heterogeneous elements. Grishakova argues that complexity theories widely used in social sciences and, to a lesser extent, in literary and cultural studies, suggest a possibility to avoid dualistic thinking and offer a flexible conceptual framework for comparative literature studies. Aesthetic systems, as part of society's "imaginary," respond to, and reorganize in response to, impulses received from other domains, but also modify their environments and forge new imaginaries. The difficulty of sustaining the paradoxes of complexity presents a challenge for comparative literature scholars as part of the "positive uncertainty" of the discipline. Marina Grishakova, "Complexity, Hybridity, and Comparative Literature" page 2 of 9 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 15.7 (2013): Special Issue New Work in Comparative Literature in Europe. Ed. M. Grishakova, L. Boldrini, and M. Reynolds