Scale in Literature and Culture

This collection emphasizes a cross-disciplinary approach to the many dimensions of the problem of scale, with essays that range in subject matter from literature, film, architecture, the plastic arts, philosophy, and scientific and political writing. It argues that in a globalized era with impossibly accelerating demands for textual competency and the vast availability of digital texts, literary studies must adapt by applying quantitative methods rather than close reading. The essays also look at literary maximalism and writing that provides a multiplicity of voices and plots to aspire to global representation and stories that represent the collective.