Comparison and Gender Injustice in Worlds of Pandemics

Abstract

With several notable exceptions, comparative literature scholarship has not fully addressed the relationships between literature and global challenges and crises. In our era of multiple intensifying pandemics, not to mention often anaemic humanities enrolments (paradoxical, given robust interest in the arts both within and outside academia), it is crucial that comparative literature go more global: engaging more deeply with a broader array of texts, pathways and processes than ever before with a focus on providing insights into global challenges and crises as well as possibilities for amelioration on a vast scale. This article focuses on three novels: He Jiahong’s Chinese-language Hanging Devils: Hong Jun Investigates (1994) from China; Oh Jung-hee’s Korean-language The Bird (1996) from Korea; and Bina Shah’s English-language Before She Sleeps (2018) from Pakistan. These narratives highlight intersections in different parts of Asia among gender inequities/gender-based violence and corruption in criminal justice, intergenerational trauma and environmental catastrophe, respectively. To be sure, scholarship on literature is unlikely to provide immediate remedies. Yet, by helping readers better understand how literature engages with global challenges, scholarship on literature, including the field of comparative literature, can contribute to increasing motivations and the ability to take the essential leap to become champions for change.