Teaching World Literatures

Summary

Abstract: In his article “Teaching World Literatures” John D. Pizer argues that “world literature” is a notoriously vague term. It not only lacks disciplinary specificity because it suggests all literature at all times from all places, but also oscillates between signifying a pedagogical domain on the one hand and articulating a heuristic concept indicating how literature circulates in the world on the other. Pizer suggests that contemporary world literature instructors share the goal of teaching their students to comprehend both what is universal in world literature, what is culturally specific, what is familiar, and what is alienating in the texts they read. He outlines a means for achieving this goal by using a meta-theoretical approach of contextual dialectics. Further, Pizer discusses his strategy of teaching otherness by reducing and enhancing student familiarity with syllabus texts by drawing on the Russian Formalist concept of ostranenie.

When a student at university enrolls in an introductory class to almost any subject—be it physics, biology, psychology, history of English literature, etc.—he/she can expect in the initial part of the course to learn how the discipline is defined, what its boundaries are, and what content and techniques are included and/or excluded from its purview.