"World Literature" examines and draws connections between literary texts originally produced in various parts of the world (Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, Latin America) from the early 20th century to the contemporary period. Throughout the semester, we will move across different Western and Eastern cultures, and across different literary genres (mostly fiction and poetry, but also movie adaptations and graphic novels). A particular sub-theme connecting the various works that we will read in this course examines how the development of World Literature reflects the global expansion of Western colonialism during the 20th century.

Do scientists and students of literature view the world in incompatible ways, as C. P. Snow provocatively claimed half a century ago when he coined the phrase "the two cultures"? Alternately, are there areas of significant overlap? If so, what are these? We will focus on how the relations between literature and science in general, and literature and the life sciences in particular, have been examined and expressed in fiction, nonfiction and poetry of the past 150 years.