Global Studies and Humanistic Curriculum
Touchstone Passages:
As in scholarship, so in teaching. Anthologies have been growing larger and larger, as teachers and publishers have sought to encompass our ever-expanding canon. When we are presenting a single national tradition, there is still a logic to giving some sense of most of the currently acknowledged major authors, particularly as time and space generally allow the inclusion of a range of less well-known figures as well. The task becomes impossible with any truly global vision of world literature, and other approaches are plainly needed. At a minimum, it takes three points to define a plane surface, and perhaps three works, interestingly juxtaposed and studied with care, can define a literary field. Antigone, Shakuntala, and Twelfth Night can together open up a world of dramatic possibility. (David Damrosch, What is World Literature?, 299)
Questions to Address:
1) What practical changes in humanities curricula ought we to make in light of insights from the field of Global Studies? What can be implemented within existing structures, and what will require structural change?
2) What would characterize a Global Studies-inflected humanities pedagogy? How might goals, methods, readings, syllabus structures, and assignments change in response to a more global orientation?
Responses
Molly Martin: Shapes of Time, Shapes of Curriculum
Mahnaz Yousefzadeh: A Genealogical Approach to Pedagogy