Crossing the Plenary Borders: Comparative Cultural Studies in the Looking Glass
Amina Bouali and Souheyla Benmansour Senior Lecturer of English Language (Mc ‘B') - Mohammed Benahmed, University of Oran 2-Algeria
Abstract
In the wake of 21st-century upsurge of interests in multiculturalism, the genuine pluralism of literature became visibly globetrotting. Thus, dissenting voices pressed for what Gayatri Spivak (2003) had called ‘a sea change’ in the epistemological perception of actual teaching methods and paraphernalia in comparative literature pedagogy. While other scholars dreamt, in Goethe’s words, of a ‘world literature’. This persistent appealing had ultimately hastened the enthusiastic rush towards the adoption of comparative cultural studies, which considered the activity of comparison not only as a natural mode of thinking inherent in the reading process of literature, but also an inspirational stimulus that impressed itself on -to borrow the paraphrased version of Rosenblatt- “how to respond to ‘Art’” in its multiplicity and its striking diversity. In line with this, the current presentation will shed light on the vast realm of comparative literature as a scholarly cultural practice. It first showcases the importance of integrating some sociocultural approaches in literature, like visual culture and film studies, deemed as a food-for-thought spur for the learners to urge them identify with the symbiotic relations of cultures across texts and media. It also explores how Cultural Literacy plays a pivotal role in the study of world literature inside academia by stimulating the students’ openness to the world cultures through a set of integrative and dialogic techniques of teaching, which target basically at raising their intercultural awareness of the texts and fostering knowledge related to the culture of the foreign language.