The overall aim of World Literature is to study literature in a larger context than the linguistic and cultural context where local literatures originate, but also to always take the local conditions and particularities into account. This endeavor requires an enhanced sensitivity to two features. First, we have to be aware of the possibility of any local environment, no matter its size, to foster literature that can be labelled world literature. At this point, I will focus on the tiny town of Weimar in Germany where Goethe revived the notion of world literature. Second, we have to focus on cross-cultural issues beyond literature itself with regard to theory and methodology, which implies the formation of an interdisciplinary research agenda involving broader fields of disciplines than has often been the case in the literary studies. I will list a few hot topics of that nature. The lecture will exemplify this double awareness and the ensuing agenda for future literary studies.
新闻报道
