In this papier, I propose first, a brief review of the notion of ‘defamiliarization’. In its long history defamiliarization was understood in three ways: as an existential attitude (or a form of life), as a critical instance, and as a heuristic tool.
Then, I show how defamiliarization can serve to define a renewed comparatism, by asking why the latter is functional and necessary in a context of globalization that has supposedly abolished otherness.
The optimal conditions for pursuing a comparatism of defamiliarization consist in a comparatism that explores four dimensions: historical, geographical, intermedial and interdisciplinary. To knowledge of other cultural and linguistic domains, which is the traditional territory of comparativism, I am proposing to associate the knowledge of the literature and arts of the past, a reflection on the difference between the media, and incursions into other disciplines. To defamiliarize an object is to tackle it using multiple angles of approach, by favoring complexity and decentering a route by which literary comparatism aligns with scientific procedures. Defamiliarization is an oppositional approach subordinated to a scientific objective.
It is thanks to this multiplication of perspectives that problematics and concepts can be redefined and apprehended in a global context.