The keynote speaker for our 2011 session was Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor at Columbia University, where she a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. World renowned for her studies in feminism, Marxism, deconstruction and postcoloniality and globalization, Spivak engaged our participants in a dynamic three-lecture series followed by lively conversations, spanning world literature issues ranging from gender and post-colonialism to the civic function of literature.
Alfred Hornung, our second distinguished guest lecturer in Beijing, is Professor of English and American Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University and director of the Center for Intercultural Studies in Mainz. Hornung introduced our participants to a transcultural and transnational perspective on the literature of the American South, emphasizing the worldliness of this regional literary tradition.