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Literature for Change is a timely and thought-provoking intervention that tackles the critical question of how the study of literary texts in languages other than English, and their production, circulation and reception, contributes to efforts to address today’s most pressing social challenges. Featuring ten case studies across diverse languages and cultures, the book explores the transformative real-world impact that literary research has made on society. Taking hermeneutic and aesthetic approaches, the case studies illustrate the contribution of literary studies to areas as disparate as the museums and heritage sector, the environmental and medical humanities and the digital world. The volume advocates for a plurality of approaches, including creative enquiry with a solid theoretical grounding, and of the connectivity of literary research with disciplines beyond Modern Languages and beyond the academy.
At a time when the field of Modern Languages is going through significant transformation, Literature for Change makes a compelling case for the value of the discipline, and reaffirms the relevance of literary texts and the power of stories to shape social, cultural and intellectual life.
This compelling volume shows why literature matters, why literature in other languages matters, and—above all—why research into literature in other languages matters. Ten case studies, from Arabic to German, from medieval to contemporary, reveal the multilayered, multilingual power of literature to change lives and societies—including in the troubled present.
—Neil Kenny, Senior Research Fellow and Professor of French, University of Oxford, UK
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Introduction: Making the Case for Literary Research Across Languages and Cultures
Charles Burdett, Joseph Ford, Godela Weiss-Sussex and Naomi Wells -
1 Modern medieval languages: reading in and out of time
Sarah Bowden -
2 Literary Research After the Decolonial Turn: Towards New Praxis
Emanuelle Santos -
3 The Geopolitics of Literary Studies in a Time of Crisis Reham Hosny
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4 Place and planet: literary research in an age of ‘global challenges’
Nicola Thomas -
5 Translating the Past: Literary Research, Public History and the Heritage of Wales
Carol Tully -
6 Towards sustainable practices in the ‘post-museum’? post-object lessons from contemporary world literature
Emma Bond -
7 What Literature Can Do for Health: A Spotlight on Eating Disorders in Men and Boys
Heike Bartel -
8 Reality, representation, resistance: a case study of an Arab cancer ethnodrama
Abir Hamdar -
9 Kalila wa Dimna and The Arts of Storytelling: Conversations with Medieval Arabic Literature in Contemporary London
Rachel Scott -
10 Fox Tales, Community Concerns: Why Collaborative Storytelling Matters
Anja Rekeszus