Douwe Fokkema - Publications#

General literary studies and literary history

Theories of Literature in the Twentieth Century (1977, 4th printing 1995), co-authored with Elrud Ibsch. Translated into Italian, Spanish, Greek, Chinese (both in Hong Kong and in Beijing), Korean, and Indonesian.









Literary History, Modernism, and Postmodernism (1984). Translated into Portuguese and Polish.










Issues in General and Comparative Literature (1987). Only available in India.

Modernist Conjectures: A Mainstream in European Literature 1910-1940 (1988), co-authored with Elrud Ibsch. There is also a Dutch edition: Het Modernisme in de Europese letterkunde (1984).









Knowledge and Commitment: A Problem-Oriented Approach to Literary Studies (2000), co-authored with Elrud Ibsch. Earlier editions appeared in Dutch (Literatuurwetenschap en cultuuroverdracht, 1992) and Chinese (Wenxue yanjiu yu wenhua canyu, 1996). Translated into Brazilian-Portuguese under the title Conhecimento e Compromisso (2006).








Perfect Worlds: Utopian Fiction in China and the West(forthcoming, 2011).

Fokkema edited or co-edited several books in this field:

Comparative Poetics (1976),

Tekstboek algemene literatuurwetenschap (1977),

General Problems of Literary History, Proceedings of the 10th Congress of the ICLA, vol. 1 (1985),

Approaching Postmodernism (1986, translated into Chines),

Exploring Postmodernism (1987),

Théorie littéraire: Problèmes et perspectives (1989), translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, and Chinese,

Proceedings of the 12th Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, 5 vols. (1990),

Postmodernism in the Literature and Culture of Central and Eastern Europe (1996, also published in Polish), and International Postmodernism: Theory and Literary Practice(1997).

He was co-editor of the 'Utrecht Publications in General and Comparative Literature' (1985-2002), published by John Benjamins, Amsterdam.

Modern Chinese literature and culture

Literary Doctrine in China and Soviet Influence, 1956-60 (1965).









Report from Peking (1972). The Dutch edition, Standplaats Peking,appeared in 1970.

Het Chinese alternatief in literatuur en ideologie (1972).

Chinees dagboek (1981).

Fokkema co-edited China nu: Balans van de Culturele Revolutie(1973) and China op het breukvlak (1981). He was co-editor of the 'Chinese Bibliotheek' (1973-83), 14 volumes (in Dutch) published by De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam. He also edited 'Focus: China' for the European Review 11 (2003), No.2.

General cultural studies

Culturele identiteit en literaire innovatie (1996).











Fokkema co-edited:

Innovatie: Bijdragen tot het Symposion 'Innovatie in wetenschap, kunst en bedrijfsleven' (1990),

Cultural Participation: Trends since the Middle Ages (1993),

Dutch Culture in a European Perspective, vol. 5: Accounting for the Past, 1650-2000 (2004), published by Royal Van Gorcum (Assen) en Palgrave-Macmillan (Basingstoke and New York). The Dutch edition, Rekenschap 1650-2000, appeared in 2001. Chinese translation: Ouzhou shiye zhong de helan wenhua, 1650-2000 nian: chanshi lishi (2007).

Creative writing

Fokkema published a volume of poetry, Rivieren (1957) and two novels, Zichtbare steden (1993) and Marco's Missie (1999). The latter was translated into Chinese as Maerke de shiming and appeared in the journal Dangdai waiguo wenxue (Contemporary foreign literature) 83 (2001), No.1; reprinted in: 2001 nian zhongguo zuijia fanyi wenxue (The best translated literature in China in 2001), ed. Xie Tianzhen (2002).