Teaching Responsibility
LJMU Schools involved in Delivery:
Humanities and Social Science
Learning Methods
Lecture
Seminar
Tutorial
Module Offerings
6117ENGL-SEP-MTP
Aims
1. To introduce students to the concept of ‘world literature’ through a selection of texts from the twentieth to the twenty-first centuries in relation to the rise and expansion of a global modernity
2. To examine on-going critical debates around key areas of research in the global humanities: the meaning of a global modernity, the politics of translation, the impact of global capitalism on class, race and gender
3. To compare literary and critical perspective on the political and aesthetic stakes of the concept of world literature in relation to current global affairs
Learning Outcomes
1.
To understand and contribute to on-going debates on the concept of world literature.
2.
To develop independent intellectual interests in relation to the main areas of interest of this module:
3.
To adopt secondary material and critically engage with theoretical perspectives on world literature.
Module Content
Outline Syllabus:Selected novels, poetry, essays, journalism, memoir and short fiction written by contemporary writers from Asia and Africa and dealing with key issues at the heart of the module. Indicative authors are Nigerian writer Nnedi Okorafor, Indian writer Arundhati Roy and South African writers Alex LaGuma and Henrietta Rose-Innes.
Module Overview:
This module will introduce the concept of 'world literature' through a selection of texts from the twentieth to the twenty-first centuries in relation to the rise and expansion of a global modernity. You will examine on-going critical debates around key areas of research in the global humanities: a singular modernity, the politics of translation, the periphery and the world system.
This module will introduce the concept of 'world literature' through a selection of texts from the twentieth to the twenty-first centuries in relation to the rise and expansion of a global modernity. You will examine on-going critical debates around key areas of research in the global humanities: a singular modernity, the politics of translation, the periphery and the world system.
Additional Information:The periphery is where the future reveals itself' (JG Ballard). This module draws on recent debates on the concept of world literature and the relationships between centre and periphery in global modernity. It considers how a world-system perspective can shed light on literary representations of an uneven and unequal world. The module focuses on the key debates that animate this field of research: the concept of a singular modernity and its links with capitalism, the problem of distant vs close reading, the politics of translation, the ideology of globalism, the position of the cosmopolitan writer, and the representation of the 'unrepresentable' totality of capitalism beyond Europe and North America.