| abstract |
The world has experienced rapid socioeconomic changes and transformations in the last five decades. These transformations have been accelerated by technological developments, which have facilitated transnational movements, free trade, and flows of multinational corporations. Globalization has made and continues to make our world a more interdependent and interconnected place. This dissertation examines how globalization has reshaped literature and literary studies, and how the theory of globalization can be used to critically approach literature. It focuses on literary texts from the United States and Saudi Arabia, that engage with the economic and cultural forms of globalization. It discusses how contemporary novels by Adbulrahman Munif, Rajaa Alsanea, Fahad Al-Ateq, and Dave Eggers have given rise to new aesthetics and thematized and represented the processes of globalization in an era when cultural identity is changing.
More importantly, it examines what literature can do for the understanding of globalization and its processes. In addition, globalization has changed the way we think about literature. Literature is not seen as purely aesthetic as the old notions, rather in some ways, it is both aesthetic and a cultural production. Literature is always associated with the print form and it is more valued in the print form. The Internet novel, such as Girls of Riyadh, challenges the old thoughts that literature is purely aesthetic. Thus, it is significant to investigate the impact of globalization on the reception, formation, and dissemination of literary texts.
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