Global Literatures and Cultures

WE ENGAGE IN RESEARCH INTO HOW TEXTS, LITERARY WORKS, ARTWORKS, PERFORMANCES AND MEDIA CIRCULATE GLOBALLY OR TRANSNATIONALLY, AND HOW THEY RECORD AND REPRESENT OTHER FORMS OF MOBILITY, THAT OF THE REFUGEE, THE MIGRANT, AND THE GLOBAL NOMAD.

Global Literatures and Cultures examines transnationalism, globalisation and the dissemination of cultural artefacts across national borders in a range of ‘modes of communication’.

What We Do

We are invested in thinking with and beyond the World Literature paradigm to ask how diasporic or transnational literature and cultural products complicate, supplement and expand the methods and meaning of World Literature scholarship. For us, the term global in our name is a capacious category that incorporates related terms like international, diaspora, transnational, refugee, nomad and migrant.

How We Work

We welcome all researchers whose work fits within this broad remit. We are keen to involve colleagues whose work focuses on any period, from antiquity to the contemporary, and any medium, including literature, visual cultures, film, media, popular culture, music and performance.

Our Focus areas

We have been exploring various models for theorising the cross-cultural, transnational and global circulation of texts, people and ideas since 2017, while also seeking to contribute to international scholarly debates within the related fields of diaspora and migration studies, World Literature studies, global cultures and transnational research.

Our centre takes as its objects of study various forms of cultural production that narrate, primarily, stories of mobility and dispersal and ask questions about the shifting meaning of those objects of study when they circulate beyond their original national boundaries. Globalisation, the circulation of peoples and the stories these people tell of their movement are key to understanding how societies are shaped and transformed.