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ENGL 476: Is There a Canon of World Literature

“World Literature is not an object, it’s a problem.” – Franco Moretti

What makes literature “worldly”? Who decides which works travel, and why? This course takes up these questions to explore World Literature not as a fixed canon of global texts, but as a dynamic, contested field shaped by histories of translation, circulation, and power.
Rather than offering a representative survey, we will approach world literature critically—unpacking how ideas of the “world” and “literature” are produced, negotiated, and resisted. Together, we will examine how systems of value—like Eurocentrism, canon formation, literary prestige, and postcolonial critique—structure which texts are read, how they are received, and whose voices are amplified or silenced in global literary conversations.
The course is theory-rich and best suited for students who are ready to dive into sustained analytical reading. We’ll pair major literary texts with critical essays by thinkers such as Goethe, Tagore, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Franco Moretti, Pascale Casanova, David Damrosch, Emily Apter, and Abdelfattah Kilito. These conversations will allow us to consider how language, geography, translation, and cultural politics shape the idea of world literature.
Students will engage in close reading, comparative analysis, and critical discussion. The goal is not to define what world literature is, but to explore how and why it remains an open and urgent question.