Browse Hierarchy COM5217: Adventures in World Literature

"Adventures in World Literature" introduces students to the contested concept of 'world literature'. It considers the various ways of studying and understanding literature as it travels across borders in translation, following the curves of transnational history. Discussions focus on literary writing not in the form of a stable canon, but as an active engagement with diverse and changing cultural environments. Attention will be paid to recent accounts of world literature, a concept which globalization has propelled to the forefront of literary studies. Topics for discussion include: world literature and its production and consumption; literary canons beyond the nation; cosmopolitanism; colonialism and postcolonialism, exile and migration. The texts we will be reading and analysing together differ in their genre and age, and come from across the globe.