World literature is a discipline that draws together literatures and cultures of a wide variety of countries and regions, including Western and non-Western ones. It emphasizes literatures and cultures of the past (ancient Greece and Rome , for example) as well as the present. It understands “minority” or “third world” literatures as being just as worthy of study as European literatures; it recognizes the importance of the “classics” of both the West and East. The program requires study in a language other than English, thus emphasizing that literature and language are intimately related. Comparative courses and courses on individual authors, periods, and literatures are offered. Students who major or minor in World Literature learn to approach literature from a truly multi-cultural and multi-lingual standpoint. They also become conversant in the major schools of literary criticism and theory. |
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