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