First session of the 2016-2017 edition of the Bodmer Lab Research Seminar
Thursday 13th of october 2016 at 18h15 | Uni Bastions, room B111
Prof. Michael F. Suarez, S.J.
Director of Rare Book School, University of Virginia
Why World Literature Requires Global Book History: Understanding Local Histories of Production and Reception
In this illustrated lecture, Michael F. Suarez, S.J. will examine editions of global classics (such as Gulliver’s Travels and Alice in Wonderland) from around the world to think about bibliography and book history as instruments of cross-cultural, historical interpretation. The record of local adaptation and appropriation—manifest in the details of books— enables us to consider transformations in the transmission of literature from one cultural context to another. Thus, by considering the relationship between transmission and reception in the local production of world literature, we may come to a more capacious understanding of how cultural identities are established and reinforced through the translation and rethinking of antecedent meanings in the making of books from around the globe.