scholarly journals Teaching Comparative Literature in English(es): Decolonizing Pedagogy in the Multilingual Classroom

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-306
Author(s):  
Birgit Mara Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Primary Language ◽  
Pedagogical Practice ◽  
Literature Classroom ◽  
Linguistic Difference ◽  
Multilingual Classroom

This article reflects on the challenges that arise when the comparative literature classroom, especially in the Netherlands, is increasingly multilingual and simultaneously increasingly monolingual in its focus on English as a primary language. In view of moving comparative literary studies beyond its Eurocentric framework, what opportunities lie in teaching translated texts in “English(es)” in such a multilingual setting? What are the effects of such an interplay of mono- and multilingualism in view of a commitment to decolonizing the literary curriculum and pedagogical practice? What attention to language and linguistic difference might be available given the diverse linguistic and cultural literacies of students? Less interested in questions of translating texts, the article pursues how teaching literary texts in translation can foster listening to linguistic difference and encourage relational attunement when degrees of literacy and illiteracy are shared at varying levels of competence across students and teachers.

Against Global Literary Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Edmond
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Institutional Frameworks ◽  
The World

Abstract Literary studies has taken a global turn through such institutional frameworks as global romanticism, global modernism, global anglophone, global postcolonial, global settler studies, world literature, and comparative literature. Though promising an escape from parochialism, nationalism, and Eurocentrism, this turn often looks suspiciously like another version of Anglo-European imperialism. This essay argues that, rather than continue the expansionary line of recent decades, global literary studies must allow other perspectives to draw into question its concepts, practices, and theories, including those associated with the terms literature, discipline, and comparison. As a settler colonial (Pākehā) scholar in Aotearoa New Zealand, I attend particularly to Māori literary scholars from Apirana Ngata, Te Kapunga Matemoana (Koro) Dewes, and Hirini Melbourne to Alice Te Punga Somerville, Tina Makereti, and Arini Loader. Their work highlights the limitedness of global literary studies in its current disciplinary guise. Disciplines remain important when they bring recognition to something previously marginalized, as in the battle to have Māori literature recognized within Pākehā institutions. What institutionalized modes of global literary studies need, however, is not discipline but indiscipline: a recognition of the limits of dominant disciplinary objects, frameworks, and practices, and an openness to other ways of seeing the world.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: EAST AND WEST STUDIES

2021 ◽  
Vol 02 (09) ◽  
pp. 8-14
Author(s):  
Aziza Komilovna Akhmedova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Professional Ethics ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
World Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Aesthetic Ideal ◽  
The Ideal

The article analyzes the results of the research on the representation of the aesthetic ideal through the image of the ideal hero in two national literatures. For research purposes, attention was paid to highlighting the category of the ideal hero as an expression of the author's aesthetic views. In Sinclair Lewis’s “Arrowsmith” and Pirimkul Kodirov's “The Three Roots”, the protagonists artistically reflect the authors' views on truth, virtue, and beauty. In these novels, professional ethics is described as a high noble value. The scientific novelty of the research work includes the following: in the evolution of western and eastern poetic thought, in the context of the novel genre, the skill, common and distinctive aspects of the creation of an ideal hero were revealed by synthesis of effective methods in world science with literary criteria in the history of eastern and western literary studies, in the example of Sinclair Lewis and Pirimkul Kodirov.

‘Behoed ons arme volk voor de vulkaan-poëten’

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 382-422
Author(s):  
Judith Bosnak ◽  
Rick Honings
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Content Type ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Dutch East Indies ◽  
Literary Reception

Abstract ‘Save our poor people from the vulcano poets’. The literary reception of the Krakatoa disaster of 1883 in the Netherlands and Indonesi On August 27, 1883, the volcano Krakatau in the Dutch East Indies erupted and collapsed, causing the deaths of tens of thousands, mainly as a result of devastating tsunamis. The Krakatau eruption was one of the first disasters to take place beyond the Dutch boundaries that received so much attention in the Netherlands. Because the Indies were a Dutch colony, a response of the motherland was rather logical. In many places, charity activities were organized to raise money for the victims. This article focuses on the Dutch and Indonesian literary reactions on the Krakatau disaster. For this purpose, two scholars work together: one specialized in Dutch Literary Studies and the other one in Indonesian Languages and Cultures. In the first part of the article several Dutch charity publications are analysed; the second part focuses on Indonesian sources (in Javanese and Malay). How and to what extend did the reactions in the Netherlands and Indonesia differ?

Why literature students should practise life writing

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kylie Cardell ◽  
Kate Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Creative Writing ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Creative Space ◽  
Writing Practice

This article considers our experiences teaching a hybrid literature/creative writing subject called “Life Writing.” We consider the value of literature students engaging in creative writing practice—in this instance, the nonfiction subgenre of life writing—as part of their critical literary studies. We argue that in practicing life writing, our literature students are exposed to and gain wider perspective on the practical, critical, creative, and ethical issues that arise from working with literary texts. Such an approach is not with risk. As we discuss in this article, life writing texts can often narrate difficult or traumatic material. However, we want to show how life writing, with its particular focus on actual lives and lived experience, creates a particularly conducive ethical, intellectual, and creative space for learning about and practicing writing.

Cultural Images of Labor Conflict and Coordination Literature and the Evolution of Industrial Relations Systems

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Cathie Jo Martin ◽  
Dennie Oude Nijhuis ◽  
Erik Olsson
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Industrial Systems ◽  
Cultural Images ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
Cultural Constructions ◽  
Cross National

Abstract Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have different historical patterns of industrialization, but developed similar patterns of industrial coordination and cooperation. Theories accounting for industrial relations systems (economic structure, power resources, and party/electoral systems) have difficulty accounting for the similarities among these cases. Therefore, we explore the historical depictions of labor appearing in literature to evaluate whether cross-national distinctions in cultural conceptions of labor have some correspondence to distinctions between coordinated and liberal industrial relations systems. We hypothesize that historical literary depictions of labor are associated with the evolution of industrial systems, and apply computational text analyses to large corpora of literary texts. We find that countries (Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands) with coordinated, corporatist industrial relations in the 20th century share similar cultural constructions about labor relations dating back to at least 1770. Literary depictions found in modern coordinated/corporatist countries are significantly different from those found in Britain, a country with liberal/pluralist industrial relations systems. The research has significance for our understanding of the role of culture in the evolution of modern political economies.

5. The futures of comparative literature

2018 ◽  
pp. 113-122
Author(s):  
Ben Hutchinson
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Aesthetic Education ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Life Of The Mind ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Comparative literature is both central and marginal to literary studies: central because it draws on almost every discipline in the Humanities; marginal because it is not tied to any single tradition, risking being ignored by all of them. For all its past struggles and present debates, comparative literature has an increasingly central role to play in the Humanities’ future. ‘The futures of comparative literature’ explains that in this age of specialists, generalists continue to play a vital role in shaping and supporting the life of the mind. International, interdisciplinary forms of knowledge remain the very essence of modernity. Now more than ever, the aesthetic education of comparative literature is indispensable.

Talen Leren in Europa

2001 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 97-109
Author(s):  
Peter Broeder
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
European Language ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
European Citizenship ◽  
Multilingual Classroom

From 1989 until 1997 the project Language Learning/or European Citizenship was carried out under the auspices of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. In this project two instruments were developed. The first instrument is the European Framework of Reference. This is a kind of language scale through which knowledge and qualifications in different languages can be compared. The second instrument is the European Language Portfolio. This is a kind of language passport through which languages users can report and document their proficiency in, and use of different languages. This contribution gives a description of these instruments. In addition, there is a summary of the results of a pilot project in the Netherlands which focused on the multilingual classroom at the end of primary school.

scholarly journals Antjie Krog’s Mede-wete/Synapse as a challenge to new ways of comparative reading

Literator ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Viljoen
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
American Association ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The State ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
English Version ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Literary Systems

This article reads Antjie Krog’s volume of poetry Mede-wete and its English version Synapse (both published in 2014) against the background of Rebecca Walkowitz’s proposal that the future of comparative literature will entail what she calls ‘foreign reading’. In her contribution to the American Association of Comparative Literature’s 2015 report on the state of the discipline of comparative literature (http://stateofthediscipline.acla.org) Walkowitz argues that literary texts increasingly enter the world in different languages and that this requires readings that move away from the idea that literary texts ‘belong’ to a single language, that explore the diverse ways in which they are read in different languages and that acknowledges that literary texts exist in the space created by a language’s relationship to other languages. This article takes Walkowitz’s observations as the vantage point for a discussion of the ways in which Krog’s volume (1) foreignises the Afrikaans language in order to become part of an interconnected whole; (2) urges readers, critics and literary practitioners to move beyond the confines of language-based literary systems; and (3) forces them to engage in a variety of different readings, including partial readings and collaborative readings, in order to become embedded in a larger community

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