GSC Talk: Ideology of World Literature by Prof. M.A.R. Habib

The Ideology of World Literature
This talk will argue that the notion of world literature is premised on the facts that globalization is (a) unidirectional, moving from West to East, (b) an intrinsic function of the movement of capital and its imperialistic expansion, (c) driven by Western narratives of subjectivity, and (d) underlain by an irreducibly Western concept of “world.” World literature implies “world” as viewed from Western vantage points. A Hegelian framework helps us to understand both this asymmetry and also world literature as comprising not a conversation between equals but as governed by hierarchies of power.

M.A.R. Habib is a scholar in the areas of literary criticism, theory, and philosophy, and Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University. He is currently Visiting Professor at the University of Sharjah.


Professor Habib's discussant will be Thorsten Botz-Bornstein.

The lecture will be hybrid. Venue: GUST, Room N1-004. A zoom link will be announced later HERE.