Heuristic and transformational: I wish I could be there once again!
In 2016 when I attended IWL, Harvard was not on my mind. At other times, it had been, but beyond my reach both in reality and imagination. Such a hard place to think of! But what was on my mind was the world literature that eventually laid a rapport between Harvard and me. I learned that the University of California, Merced (UCM), where I was then pursuing my graduate study in Interdisciplinary Humanities, was an affiliate of IWL.
From then on, everything happened quickly. And one fine morning I found myself at Boston Logan Airport. I rode a taxicab taking me straight to the Boston University Dormitory where they arranged my stay during the Summer Session of the IWL. Next morning on June 20, 2016, I hastened to be at IWL from where someone led me to Dana-Palmar House Meeting Room at 9.00 am to complete my registration. Like other fellow participants, I received the course pack containing materials for a couple of seminars I was enrolled in: Theory and Practice of Translation in Postcolonial Contexts offered by Professor Paul Bandia and Transnational and Crosstemporal: World Literature across Space and Time by Professor Paul Giles. The professors and their seminars enriched my knowledge of translation and transnationalism across time and space considerably. In addition, Professor David Damrosch’s inaugural lecture What Isn’t World Literature? Problems of Language, Context, and Politics and Professor Homi Bhabha’s keynote lecture The Internal Emigrant: or, Who Is at Home in the Humanities? located a myriad of contingencies surrounding world literature in theory and practice. Dr. Sonja Schillings, my colloquium leader, brought about a cosmopolitan milieu encouraging us to come up with our distinct perspectives on world literature. In fact, the session being replete with so many activities and engagements, I did not even know how time flew. But what I can exactly remember is why I was drawn so passionately to the IWL session.
Interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge have been a staple predilection since my college days, through my undergrad, to date when I was pursuing my graduate research in Interdisciplinary Humanities at UCM. Seen from this perspective, it was not unusual that I would be drawn to World Literature which itself was, by nature and purpose, interdisciplinary drawing on specific genres, historical periods, political movements, genders, races, and nationalities. My intent was to have a grasp on the world literature that promotes interdisciplinarity by drawing on sundry opinions, experiences, truths, lies, imaginations, dreams, realities and pieces of information. And with its diversity and inclusivity in relation to the aforesaid concerns, the session did not disappoint me at all; rather, my takeaways are manifold.
To commence with, IWL 2016 was phenomenal inasmuch as its scopes and concerns surrounding world literature were so vast and varied. It included poetics, politics, history, memory, translation, migration, media, globalization, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, postcolonialism, monolingualism, multilingualism, sociology, anthropology, history, memory, poetic oceans, to world-system, planetarity, and digital humanities, to mention just a few. The list is in no way exhaustive. With this huge array of disciplines, discourses, genres, issues, and concerns in view, I found myself all but disarrayed and simply wondered:
- How can I accommodate this extraordinary phenomenon?
- Is there any grand theory or methodology with which I can describe this spectacle?
- Is it a “liminal space”, a “third space”, a “contact zone” or, by my extension, a “meet scape”?
Understandably, these queries led me to examine some approaches put forth by some theorists and critics of world literature and eventually helped me find a workable one for my own purpose on the way. What could be more illuminating than this gesture rendering me more inquisitive about world literature than ever before? Nothing!
Moreover, my experience with IWL session was both heuristic and transformational. It also helped me to look at my research and pedagogy in a new light. While pursuing my graduate research in Interdisciplinary Humanities at UCM, I was truly looking for a global forum facilitating me with massive interdisciplinary interactions. Fortunately, I found my intervention fitting within the interdisciplinarity of IWL. As expected, through the Institute’s program, I planned to further explore the issues I had confronted during my graduate years by integrating my interdisciplinary study of culture within the field of World Literature. In terms of career, my goals are to teach literature, conduct research projects, and publish outcomes of them. To achieve my aims means to become a specialist with high qualifications. As the situation demands, to be a worthy teacher of world literature at university level I need advanced trainings and credentials. This is why I consider my participation in the Institute’s program as a massive professional steppingstone in my career.
In sum, my experience of participating in the 6th Summer Session of the IWL is the best and brightest one I have ever had in my life. I wish I could be there once again!
Zakir Hossain Majumder
2016 IWL alumnus, Harvard
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Notre Dame University Bangladesh