The Bloomsbury Handbook of World Theory: (Bloomsbury Handbooks)

Disciplines from literary studies to environmentalism have recently undergone a spectacular reorientation that has refocused entire fields, methodologies, and vocabularies on the world and its sister terms such as globe, planet, and earth. The Bloomsbury Handbook of World Theory examines what “world” means and what it accomplishes in different zones of academic study. The contributors raise questions such as: What happens when “world” is appended to a particular form of humanistic or scientific inquiry? How exactly does “worlding” bear on the theoretical operating system and the history of that field? What is the theory or theoretical model that allows “world” to function in a meaningful way in coordination with that knowledge domain? With contributions from 38 leading theorists from a vast range of fields, including queer studies, religion, and pop culture, this is the first large reference work to consider the profound effect, both within and outside the academy, of the worlding of discourse in the 21st century.

Table of Contents:
Preface and Acknowledgements Jeffrey R. Di Leo (University of Houston, Victoria, USA) and Christian Moraru (University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA) Notes on Contributors Introduction: World Theory in the New Millennium Jeffrey R. Di Leo (University of Houston, Victoria, USA) and Christian Moraru (University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA) Part 1: Arts and Humanities 1. Worlding History Fabio López-Lázaro (University of Hawaii, Manoa, USA) 2. Worlding Philosophy Brian O’Keeffe (Barnard College, USA) 3. Worlding Ethics Nigel Dower (University of Aberdeen, UK) 4. Worlding Art Nikos Papastergiadis (University of Melbourne, Australia) 5. Worlding Postmodernism Hans Bertens (Utrecht University, Netherlands) 6. Worlding Comparative Literature Christian Moraru (University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA) 7. Worlding Popular Culture Esther Peeren (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) 8. Worlding Music John Mowitt (University of Leeds, UK) 9. Worlding Cinema Alex Taek-Gwang Lee (Kyung Hee University, Korea) 10. Worlding Theater Gina MacKenzie (Holy Family University, USA) 11. Worlding Religion Gerda Heck (American University of Cairo, Egypt) and Stephan Lanz (Europa-Universität Viadrina, Germany) Part 2: Social and Behavioral Sciences 12. Worlding Sociology Veronika Wittmann (Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria) 13. Worlding Anthropology Nigel Rapport (University of St. Andrews, UK) 14. Worlding Economics Peter Hitchcock (City University of New York, USA) 15. Worlding Psychoanalysis Dany Nobus (Brunel University, UK) 16. Worlding Women Robin Goodman (Florida State University, USA) 17. Worlding Gender Vrushali Patil (Florida International University, USA) 18. Worlding Queer Sri Craven (Portland State University, USA) 19. Worlding Identity Zahi Zalloua (Whitman College, USA) Part 3: The Professions 20. Worlding Higher Education Michael Thomas (Liverpool John Moore University, UK) 21. Worlding Public Policy Kenneth J. Saltman (University of Illinois, Chicago, USA) 22. Worlding International Education Lien Pham (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) 23. Worlding International Relations Sophia McClennen (Penn State University, USA) 24. Worlding Media Studies Toby Miller (Loughborough University London, UK) and Jesús Arroyave (Universidad del Norte, Colombia) 25. Worlding Journalism Vera Slavtcheva-Petkova (University of Liverpool, UK) 26. Worlding Publishing Jeffrey R. Di Leo (University of Houston, Victoria, USA) 27. Worlding Architecture Richard Ingersoll (Politecnico de Milano, Italy) Part 4: Natural and Formal Sciences 28. Worlding Logic Paul Livingston (University of New Mexico, USA) 29. Worlding Spatiality Studies Robert T. Tally Jr. (Texas State University, USA) 30. Worlding Cybernetics Andrew Culp (California Institute for the Arts, USA) 31. Worlding Systems Theory Bruce Clarke (Texas Tech University, USA) 32. Worlding Biology Adam Nocek (Arizona State University, USA) 33. Worlding Environmental Studies Robert P. Marzec (Purdue University, USA) 34. Worlding Earth and Climate Studies Claire Colebrook (Penn State University, USA) Index

About the Author :
Jeffrey R. Di Leo is Professor of English and Philosophy at the University of Houston-Victoria, USA. He is Editor of the American Book Review, Founding Editor of the journal symploke, and Executive Director of the Society for Critical Exchange and its Winter Theory Institute. His recent publications includeThe End of American Literature: Essays from the Late Age of Print (2019), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory (Bloomsbury, 2019), What’s Wrong with Antitheory? (Bloomsbury, 2020), Philosophy as World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2020), and Vinyl Theory (2020). Christian Moraru is Class of 1949 Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English at University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA. His recent publications include Cosmodernism: American Narrative, Late Globalization, and the New Cultural Imaginary (2011), Reading for the Planet: Toward a Geomethodology (2015), and Romanian Literature as World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2018).

Review :
Undoubtedly, this Bloomsbury Handbook of World Theory is the most unusual English-language handbook I have encountered this year: original, inspiring, thought-provoking, and diversified. Because of its interdisciplinary — and even transdisciplinary — scope, the Bloomsbury Handbook of World Theory is indispensable for research libraries and would serve as an eye-opener for open-minded scholars in an infinity of domains. It reaffirms the pertinence (or the urgency?) of doing theory in a globalized world. Reading this Handbook from one cover to another can be a rewarding experience, no matter in which academic filed you locate yourself. These contributors want to bring the reader beyond. Written in conscious opposition to the priorities sustained by neoliberal globalism, the essays in The Bloomsbury Handbook of World Theory envision how a 'worlding' of academic fields as well as other discourses and professions can truly democratize and decolonize the domains of work, the arts, and education throughout the planet. These essays propose models rooted in both interdisciplinarity and individuality that can effectively resist the homogenization and top-down models universally dominant since the Fall of the Berlin Wall. By now, the world has been approached from almost every angle. As long as one is not satisfied with easy universalism, this goal is already difficult to achieve at a discipline level. Yet, Di Leo, Moraru and their many contributors go far beyond that. They end up interweaving all of the specific readings to help us better understand what is really meant by worlding. The effort is immense; the result is extraordinary. No better proof can be imagined that theory is alive and well than this visionary collection, which takes on the mystery of how thinking has changed, and will have to change further, in response to the challenge of the world scale. It treats what “the world” means not only to an extraordinary range of disciplines, ranging from the humanities to the natural sciences, but also in the professions and, perhaps most important, in zones of concern like sexuality and visual culture that are still seeking their optimum academic organization. The word “inter-disciplinary” is grossly inadequate to describe the intellectual ambition of this volume. Massive as it is, it is still more ambitious than its size indicates. The only thing standing in the way of calling it a landmark is its irresistible freshness.