ENGL 513-01: Critical Approaches to World Literature

Section Description:

In this seminar, we will read a wide range of classics world literature — including the Thousand and One Nights, the Kebra Negast, the Shanameh, the Tale of Genji, the Popol Vuh, and the Song of Roland– while engaging with contemporary critical debates about world literature by critics and theorists such as David Damrosch (How to Read World Literature), Lawrence Venuti (The Translator’s Invisibility), Zhang Longxi (From Comparison to World Literature), and Emily Apter (Against World Literature). We will also consider connections between literature and material culture; to that end, our weekly seminars will be supplemented by several excursions to area museums, including the Freer/Sackler Gallery, the National Museum of African Art, and Dumbarton Oaks.