Seminar series 2018-2019

Modern Languages and the Limits of ‘World Literature’

Suspicion of methodological nationalism alongside greater attention to translingual and transcultural writing and a questioning of the category of the postcolonial have led to rising interest in the concept of ‘world literature’. Yet the interaction between modern languages and ‘world literature’ raises as many questions as it answers. The seminar series will explore such questions from a range of perspectives, asking: What does it mean to read and write across borders? What might the concept of ‘world literature’ reveal and conceal about transnational modes of the literary? Do such border crossings look different if seen through the lens of modern languages? What role does difference play in the two fields and how does this relate to the circulation of texts in a global market?

Thursday 11 October 2018
Dr Maeve McCusker, Queen’s University Belfast, ‘Intimate enemies? Representing the béké (White Creole) in contemporary Caribbean fiction’.