World Literature is a relatively new field that has received increased attention throughout the past two decades, both as an object of theory and as a pedagogical practice. By bringing together texts from a variety of national literatures and milieus, World Literature claims to expand the literary canon and include hitherto overlooked works. But do current practices of World Literature in fact expand the literary canon, or do they reinforce old binaries and frameworks? Drawing on a project that focuses on twentieth century Turkish and Spanish literature, in this talk Professor Çandar will discuss whether and how we might be able to use World Literature to produce new frameworks within literary studies, frameworks that go beyond linguistic and geographical proximity, or colonial/postcolonial relations.

Başak Çandar is Assistant Professor of World Literature at Appalachian State University, NC and currently a postdoctoral fellow at Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin, Germany. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on representations of state violence in twentieth century Turkish and peninsular Spanish novels from the second half of the twentieth century.

Prof. Anthony Alessandrini (English, Kingsborough and the Graduate Center, CUNY) will be the discussant.

This event is co-sponsored with the Middle East & Middle Eastern American Center and is free and open to the public.