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WORLD LITERATURE IN AARHUS

An open series of lectures on world literature starts next week and will offer a total of six tandem lectures, during which internationally recognised researchers from universities abroad will collaborate with researchers from Aarhus University in an effort to put world literature into perspective.

You can look forward to being inspired by world literature when a lecture series on this very topic starts next week. Under the heading, Global Footprints – Local Contexts: Sites and Places in World Literature, a handful of lectures will be held in the autumn, all focusing on the relationship between the local and the global in a literary context.

The lecture series, which is part of a Master's degree course, is open to everyone and will include keynote speakers who are internationally recognised in their fields.

“The course itself will be based on Australian literature. We will read a number of novels that focus on the issue of ‘What does it mean to have an identity?’ What does it mean to be Australian? In other words, the course will deal with non-European literature concerned with the same considerations that we see in, for example, Danish literature – namely the issue of how we define our national sense of identity in relation to the big world. And it is exactly the relationship between a local literature and the globalised world of which it is a part that the lecture series focuses on,” says Professor Svend Erik Larsen from Comparative Literature, lecturer and initiator of the lecture series.

A wide angle on world literature

The guest lectures will cover a broad range of topics. In addition to listening to one of the world’s leading Shakespeare researchers, Professor John Drakakis, you can also learn more about the increasing importance of translation.

“Most people usually see translation as a technical matter, but translation from one language to another is of significant importance. It is not only crucial to the study of literature – a subject area which is, after all, related to language – but it also has far-reaching cultural significance. Steen Bille from French Studies and Susan Bassnett from the University of Warwick will provide us with a better understanding of why the topic of translation is crucial to the study of literature in a globalised world,” says Svend Erik Larsen.

The lecture series will start off with something completely different, however, when David Damrosch from Harvard University will cross literary swords with Dan Ringgaard from Scandinavian Studies on the notion of ‘place’.  The location is Kasernen. Here, you will learn more about different perceptions of place and the significance of place in literature.

The literary tandem lectures

Sites and places in world literature (12 Sep 2013)
Professor David Damrosch vs. Associate Professor Dan Ringgaard

After Postcolonialism?” (3 Oct 2013)
Professor Theo D'haen vs. Associate Professor Tabish Khair

"Literary History: Between Global Influence and Local Contextualization(31 Oct 2013)
Professor César Dominguez vs. Associate Professor Hans Lauge Hansen

Conflicting Cosmologies in the Renaissance(14 Nov 2013)
Professor John Drakakis vs. Assistant Professor Joseph Sterrett

Portuguese Literature as World Literature (21 Nov 2013)
Professor Helena Buescu vs. Associate Professor Vinicius Mariano de Carvalho

Translations: Opening or Closing the World in World Literature? (12 Dec 2013)
Professor Susan Bassnett vs. Associate Professor Steen Bille

 All the lectures are in English.