Department of English

Global and transnational phenomena in cultural life are the object of study of an increasingly diverse range of disciplinary formations, theoretical tools and methods. Yet these modes and sites of inquiry themselves often work in isolation from one another: anglophone studies in one location, sinophone studies in another; world systems theory here and imperial and postcolonial studies over there. In Global and Transnational Cultural Formations we will bring these fields together for a shared investigation of their distinctions and commonalities. Theoretical, methodological and disciplinary formations to be studied include those mentioned above, as well as Caribbean studies, Francophonie, Russophone studies, Atlantic studies, Cold War, diaspora, cosmopolitanism, and others, as well as writings by Fernand Braudel, Pascale Casanova, Paul Gilroy, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Franco Moretti, Immanuel Wallerstein, and others. This experimental, interdisciplinary seminar will devote the first two hours of each three-hour class to discussion of readings in the study of modernism. The third hour will be devoted to a presentation and discussion of a work in progress a project either of a member of the course, or of a guest. Seminar discussions and visitors will include Rita Barnard (English), James English (English), David Kazanjian (English), Lydie Moudileno (French), Deborah Thomas (Anthropology), David Wallace (English), Xiaojue Wang (Asian Lit. and Cultures, Rutgers) and other members of faculty from Penn and neighboring institutions. Students are encouraged to bring work in progress, either on the basis of past seminars or independent projects, to form the basis for their projects in this seminar.