New Directions in World Literature School of Modern Languages Research Seminar

As world literature has become a much-frequented site in the humanities for discussing cosmopolitanism, globalisation, intercultural exchange and mediation, inquiries into how world literature is conceived and constructed in scholarly discourse and beyond the academy have acquired a new energy.

This seminar will consider the tools and concepts available for representing world literature, for narrativising it as history, or indeed for exploiting, critiquing or resisting the hegemony of world literature as a quasi-new epistemological formation.

Each of the three invited speakers will give a brief presentation followed by a panel discussion moderated by Andrew Cusack. There will be an opportunity for questions from the audience.

This is a free online event. Everyone welcome!

Birgit Tautz (George Taylor Files Professor of Modern Languages, Bowdoin College): ‘Translation or How to Move beyond the National (and towards the Local/Global)'

Adam Talib (Associate Professor, Durham University; Co-Editor of the journal Middle Eastern Literatures): ‘Celebrate, Audit, Sabotage: Playing the World Literature Game'

Francesca Orsini (Professor of Hindi and South Asian Literature, SOAS, University of London): ‘Located, Multilingual: for a Ground-Up Approach to World Literature'

Please contact the seminar organiser, Andrew Cusack on [email protected] with any questions about the event.

Image: Rabindranath Tagore in London 1879. Open source from Wikipedia.