Archipelagic Buddha and Christ: Towards Multilingualism as Method

Literary multilingualism has precipitated an energetic reflection on the theory and praxis of Comparative Literature, Translations Studies, and World Literature in the 21st century. However, the critical reception of literary multilingualism has remained relatively monolingual. It continues to observe the sovereignty of language, text, genre and literariness. These are imagined as nation-states with unbreachable borders. Literary multilingualism is spoken of as language(s) crossing nationalized lingual borders within a literary text that is in turn confined to the written forms of the poem and novel. Would it be possible to devise a multilingual method of critical reception by: (1) imagining language as inherently multilingual in that each language comprises other languages and encompasses word, sound, image and performance; (2) defining literature as both spoken and performed (orature) and written (literature); (3) seeing text as intertextual; and (4) considering literariness as language practice not generic division. Starting with ‘Archipelagic Thinking’, that it is possible for language and literature to be distinct and connected at the same time, we invite multilingual reflections on literary theory and praxis around the following three axes: (1) multilingual iconization of historical figures such as but not limited to Buddha and Christ; (2) multilingual and multigeneric sources of the iconization of historical figures; and (3) multilingual histories of literature/orature.