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Though literature and literary study have needed defense for most of their respective histories, the current crisis in academic literary study and the humanities more generally has forced scholars into the uncomfortable position of selling their disciplines and simultaneously warning students about the risks involved in earning what the dominant public considers to be "useless" degrees. The paradox, of course, is that dissuading would-be studiers is both ethical and destructive: it is necessary to inform students of the frightful instability of careers in literary study, but doing so renders such careers even more unstable. While some argue that the decline of the discipline is a result of practices within the discipline, I suggest that the root of the problem lies in the dominant discourse, which forces scholars to defend the discipline according to dominant notions of success. Using Frank Lentricchia's "Last Will and Testament of an Ex-Literary Critic" as a hinge between discussions of the value of literary study and elaborations of the antisocial thesis in queer theory, I contend that the discipline is not socially valued for the same reason it is socially valuable: it facilitates the pleasure of experiencing and envisioning new possibilities in and through the circulation of discourse. Since this aim does not (easily) translate into wealth accumulation or employability, it does not read as "success" and therefore the discipline has difficulty being socially valued. Rather than explaining the various benefits of earning a degree in literature, I argue that the discipline should embrace (its) failure as both a challenge to and re-imagining of dominant notions of success. / English

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<p> The emergence of South-South relations in politics and economics refracts strangely through the literature produced in these postcolonial regions. Two primary worldviews emerge in these texts. The first focuses on the continued presence of imperial powers in the South and their culpability in eruptions of violence. The second shifts to modes of domination emerging within South-South interactions. Salman Rushdie's canonical <i>Midnight's Children</i> examines the Bangladeshi genocide through a variety of literary strategies, especially hyperbole, to produce a crisis of history to indict the Cold War arms trade on equal terms with a war criminal. Similarly, Boubicar Boris Diop's novel <i>Murambi, The Book of Bones</i> helps contextualize the Rwandan genocide within the circuits of international attention&mdash;weapons supplies, political support and humanitarian aid&mdash;that put the lie to the world's supposed "indifference." On the contrary, <i> Murambi's</i> fragmented and polyvocal form evinces the multiple and contradictory investments Rwandans suffered through. East Africa is also home to a South Asian diaspora that arrived before the European powers and now advance India's exponential trade relations with Africa. M.G Vassanji's <i> The In-Between World of Vikram Lall</i> caricatures one of these "Asian Shylocks" to critique the diaspora's class politics and, simultaneously, the racism and xenophobia that led to their 1969 mass deportation from Uganda by Idi Amin. Vassanji's focalizer weaponizes capital accumulation to claim that it protects against such racism, even if it confirms racist caricatures. This argument is not unlike that made by emergent economies from the postcolonial South, which have turned to neoliberal developmental policies to guarantee their independence. Despite the unsustainability of such policies, both Vassanji's novel and Aravind Adiga's <i>The White Tiger</i> take seriously capitalism's ability to nullify old hierarchies even while building new ones. Adiga's focalizer breaks free of his place in the caste system on the strength of capitalism's ability to profane this scared hierarchy. Such anti-caste politics challenge the category of 'radical politics' as espoused by anti-capitalists and adherents of Gandhi, who fought feverishly for the preservation of caste. Taken together, these two novels represent emergent Southern businessmen who fight local antagonisms through international capital, producing a complicated situation that helps us understand the allure of accumulation in emergent economies and its impact on South-South relationships.</p>