globalization

"It looks as if globalization renders the study of language and literature necessarily pluralistic and multiplies the dimensions that texts and genres can have at one moment" (p. 497)

"the overwhelming economic identity of 'globalization' values one of the translation functions over the other: the promotion of language transparency and/or the hegemony of a single language. This economic identity of globalization does not urge the formation of grounds for language interaction or exchange. English is promoted by social and economic elites as the standard, and other languages are to be translated toward English not the other way round." (p. 498)

"Globalization is what is taking place in Abu Dhabi and Doha and not what is taking place in the study of language and literature in the West. We may notice that in general in Education City [several American universities have set up educational outposts there], the Western humanities are not taught. Rather, 'English skills' are taught in the interest learning Western practices of business, engineering, and medicine." (p. 513)

But what about the globalized study of language and literature? The Chinese and Japanese know English, but do the Americans and British know Chinese and Japanese?Do universities in the West spend millions of dollars on translation studies? Is there any sign of viewing the language of East and West as working simultaneously in both parts of the 'globe' to create mutual understanding?...The 'globalized' study of language and literature has been taking place as long as universities have existed, while ultimately acceding to narrow, ethnocentric, and jingoistic practices, thus canceling the very purpose of the broad studies.' (p. 513-4)

from David Bleich's "Globalization, Translation, and the University Tradition," New Literary History, vol. 39, 2008, pp. 497-517.

"By the twentieth century it could be argued that consumerism had become a state project, the protection and defence of consumers' interests having become a legitimate and central aspect of a government's responsibilities to its citizens during an era of expanding democracy. Consumption, or the right to enjoy its pleasures, had become an entitlement to citizen who had made sacrifices in two world wars and expected a share in the societies being reconstructed in their name in late 1940s and 1950s." (p. 213-4)

"Marx argued that modern capitalism creates a fetish of the commodity, the product becoming a hieroglyphic which we seek to decode to understand the labour relations behind it." (p. 218)

from Matthew Hilton's "The Death of a Consumer Society," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 18 (2008), . 211-236.