World Literature

World map with book covers for countries

Fiction, poetry and drama across cultures, languages, territories and histories

Module details

  • Offered to 1st years
  • Tuesdays 16.00-18.00
  • 8 weeks (autumn term only)
  • Planned delivery: On-campus (South Kensington)
  • Non-credit only
How to enrol

This module introduces you to short works of fiction and poetry from six continents: Africa, North and South America, Asia (South Asia and China), Australia/Oceania, and Europe. The course explores the ways in which we experience the literature of our time. Fiction, poetry and drama from a variety of different cultures are studied as we chart the intertextual connections of texts across languages, territories and histories. We will consider how texts circulate in print, in electronic forms and through audiovisual adaptations and develop a broad awareness of how contemporary literature moves across cultural and linguistic boundaries.

Banner image credit: Literature of the World by Backforward24

Information blocks

By the end of this module you will be able to:

  • Demonstrate a basic familiarity with specific themes and debates related to the study of ‘world literature’.
  • Interpret a range of texts within their cultural, intercultural and historical contexts.
  • Integrate cross cultural themes and literary techniques related to specific texts, through private study.
  • Engage with different critical approaches to specific texts, demonstrated through class discussion.
  • Present individual and group work to your peers and respond to constructive feedback from facilitator and other learners
  • Acquire a broad understanding of research methods, demonstrated by writing a world literature analytical essay.

Globe on bookshelf

This module examines modern world literature and covers several interrelated themes and contexts, including:

  1. Globalization and classic texts of world literature: the worldwide dissemination of literary works and what makes them endure with readers.
  2. Ways of mediating love, loss, memory, and desire across cultural and linguistic boundaries.
  3. Literature in translation – how prizes and the cultures of prestige have influenced what is translated, published, sold, and read globally.
  4. Gender, geography, and genre – exploring identity, protagonicity, and literary voice across multiple territories and narrative forms, from poetry to the graphic novel.    
  5. Literature, culture, and politics: how world literature responds to conflict and upheaval, from migration to the meanings of modernity in diverse national traditions, from the United States and Nigeria to China to Iran.
  • Class presentation (20%)
  • Essay (80%)
  • ECTS value: 0
  • Requirements: You must be prepared to attend all classes and to spend about an hour a week preparing for each session
  • This module is designed as an undergraduate Level 4 course. See Imperial Horizons level descriptors [pdf]‌