Welcome

The Institute for World Literature (IWL) has been created to explore the study of literature in a globalizing world. As we enter the twenty-first century, our understanding of “world literature” has expanded beyond the classic canon of European masterpieces and entered a far-reaching inquiry into the variety of the world’s literary cultures and their distinctive reflections and refractions of the political, economic, and religious forces sweeping the globe. Past guest lecturers and keynote speakers include Herta Müller, Orhan Pamuk, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Yoko Tawada, Dubravka Ugresic. Gisèle Sapiro among others,  Our seminars are taught by a wide range of scholars working across disciplines. Past seminar leaders include Susan Bassnett, Ursula Heise, Franco Moretti, Bruce Robbins, Gisèle Sapiro, Lawrence Venuti, Rebecca Walkowitz, and many more. Read more.

A Conversation with Orhan Pamuk (2020)

A Reading and Conversation with Herta Müller (2022)

David Damrosch, “Born Global" (2022)

Yoko Tawada, “A Dream of Multilingual Poetry” (2018)