Roundtable: World Literature and its Futures

Friday 28th May. Starting time:  14.00 (local time), zoom.

Please contact organizers for zoom link and passcode:
Christina Kullberg christina.kullberg@moderna.uu.se or
David Watson david.watson@engelska.uu.se  
Participants:
Baidik Bhattacharya (CSDS), Debjani Ganguly (University of Virginia), Ashleigh Harris (Uppsala University), Stefan Helgesson (Stockholm University), Caren Irr (Brandeis University), Jobst Welge (Leipzig University), Heather Yeung (University of Dundee)
 
Moderators:
Christina Kullberg (Uppsala University) and David Watson (Uppsala University)
 
 
In its current configuration, world literature is often understood in terms of the study and circulation of literature in a cosmopolitan, globalizing world. This online roundtable discussion explores the limits and futures of this disciplinary imaginary. What are the prospects of world literature at a moment when globalizing processes are at a critical conjuncture? Was world literature ever the cultural expression of an increasingly interconnected world? In charting and exploring the course of world literature in the midst of turbulent and disruptive times, roundtable participants will connect debates within world literary studies to topics that include deglobalization and the rise of authoritarianism; the crises of neoliberalism; pandemics and new biosecurity regimes; climate change and decarbonization; populist movements and the legitimacy crisis facing transnational institutions; the rise of platform and woke capitalism; and increasing inequalities between the Global North and South.

The roundtable discussion is part of the joint faculty MA/PhD course “World Literatures: Theories, Geographies, Movements” at Uppsala University, and has been co-organized by the LILAe  network  and the research program “Vernacular and Cosmopolitan Dynamics of World Literatures” (http://www.worldlit.se ).
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written by Alice Duhan
20 May, 2021