Category Archives: world literature

Iraq in Poetry: Brian Turner

April 4, 2012 Teaching his poetry was easy. There was never any doubt in my mind that it belonged in the course – along with Whitman on the Civil War; John Hersey on Hiroshima; Ha Jin on Korea; Michael Herr … Continue reading

Posted in Arabic, Classics, collaboration, Contemporary novel, contemporary poetry, Cuneiform, Educational institutions, epic, Handwritten script, Islam, lyric, Media, Mesopotamia, Middle East, Near Eastern poetry, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Moving Modernisms: Oxford 2012

March 28, 2012 I missed a whole day of the conference (had to teach, there was no getting around it).   What did Paul Saint Amour say about slowness; Maud Ellmann about bi-location; Enda Duffy about high energy modernism; Ato Quayson … Continue reading

Posted in Africa, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Educational institutions, film medium, globe, Media, Modernist poetry, print medium, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Sudan: George Clooney, Dave Eggers, Valentino Achak Deng

March 21, 2012 Last Friday George Clooney was arrested protesting the new humanitarian violations in Sudan. The Satellite Sentinel Project, which he co-founded with John Prendergast in October 2010, collects digital images analyzed by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and used … Continue reading

Posted in Africa, collaboration, Contemporary novel, Ethnicity, film medium, Global South, Islam, Media, print medium, world literature, YouTube videos | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The Global South: Miami 2012

March 7, 2012 From where we were sitting, we could see the different kinds of palm trees.   Brian Breed, David Borman, Carolina Villalba, Izabella Zieba — fourth year, third year, and second year students in the English Department.  There … Continue reading

Posted in collaboration, Comparative literature, contemporary poetry, Global South, Islam, Israeli literature, Latin America, Middle East, Near Eastern poetry, Palestinian film, Palestinian literature, peripheral networks, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 42 Comments

World, Globe, Planet: UCLA

February 29, 2012 I’ve always loved the big white buildings of Berkeley, but the brick buildings of UCLA (russet and ochre, so different from the plain red of the east coast) must be more habitable?  Royce Hall, with its twin … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, Afro-Asian alliances, collaboration, Comparative literature, Global South, globe, peripheral networks, planet, public universities, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 42 Comments

Yusef Komunyakaa and Chad Gracia, Gilgamesh

February 22, 2012 I’ve never given a talk at UCLA.  Caltech, yes, in nearby Pasadena; also the Huntington Library.   But never at the famed Royce Hall, 405 Hilgard Avenue. So I’m a bit anxious about tomorrow: a graduate student … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, Classics, collaboration, Comparative literature, contemporary poetry, Cuneiform, Dance, epic, Handwritten script, Mesopotamia, Near Eastern poetry, Remediation, Theater, Translation, Visual arts, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 67 Comments

Agha Shahid Ali’s “Call me Ishmael Tonight”

January 4, 2012 This was his last book of poems, published posthumously.   Agha Shahid Agha had died of brain cancer on December 8, 2001. How important was Moby-Dick to the Kashmiri poet?  Probably less than what Melvilleans would like to … Continue reading

Posted in Islam, lyric, Near Eastern poetry, Nineteenth-century literature, Remediation, Translation, Twentieth century literature, world literature, World religions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 62 Comments

Frank Stella re-mediates Moby-Dick

December 28, 2011 The numbers speak for themselves.   Begun in 1985, the Moby-Dick series is still ongoing, with one or more artworks corresponding to each of the 135 chapter titles, over 300 of them at this point.  They are mostly … Continue reading

Posted in abstract expressionism, Chinese art, epic, Japanese art, Near Eastern poetry, Nineteenth-century literature, print medium, Remediation, twentieth century art, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 168 Comments

Melville in the Dominican Republic

December 14, 2011 As far I know, he never set foot there.   But then a physical journey is not always necessary. Junot Diaz is not shy about naming names — The Brief Wondrous Life of  Oscar Wao is almost … Continue reading

Posted in epic, Global South, Nineteenth-century literature, Spanglish, Translation, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Margaret Fuller, H.D., Joanne Kyger

December 7, 2011 Why is it that all of them reach back to ancient Greece, and not always out of any reverence for the classics?   Of the three, Margaret Fuller is the most law-abiding: in Woman in the Nineteenth Century, … Continue reading

Posted in ancient Greece, Classics, Egypt, epic, Gender, Global South, Translation, Uncategorized, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments