To understand the place that literature has in our social and cultural settings, we should ask: what range of meanings does “literature” have for us? This will begin to show that theoretical concepts of literature are not something abstract and remote, they actually concern our everyday experience and how we make sense of our social lives. Hence we also need to think about what “culture” means for us, with attention to cultural values ̶ and that includes how we can approach the study of culture. This will give us a better understanding of where we can locate the place of literature, and it will enable us to ask: how does literature affect our cultural practices? On this foundation, we will introduce some main ideas of structuralism, post-structuralism, and post-humanism, because all of these are vital for our own socio-cultural life ̶ and for the way literature can “make sense” to us. Students are cordially invited to join in a discussion of these critical questions!
Michael STEPPAT
Michael STEPPAT is Professor of Literature in English at the University of Bayreuth (Germany), and an international faculty member at SISU in Shanghai (School of English Studies). He has published several books on Interculturality and Literature, as well as volumes on American studies (Discourses of Exception, Exclusion, Exchange) and on Cross-cultural Representations of Honor Cultures and Face Cultures. Michael Steppat was formerly a Professor at Arizona State University and the University of Texas (Austin), and he is a research fellow at the John Kluge Center of the Library of Congress (Washington DC).
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