Heng, Geraldine. "Teaching early global literatures." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/teaching-early-global-literatures. [Date accessed].

Teaching early global literatures

History does not begin when Europe arrives

Download the transcript
Geraldine Heng
University of Texas, Austin

History is understood through narrative. The stories that are written, repeated, and taught give shape to the past. By decentering European narratives in our teaching, we can expand the scope of historical understanding that our students carry with them into the world. Studying early global literatures shakes the preconceived notions about the past that students bring into the classroom, especially when they are introduced to early global civilizations that were far more complex and modern than Europe.

Further learning

Activity

Collaborative student research

A multidisciplinary and student-centered approach for early modern professors, inspired by Geraldine Heng’s Teaching Early Global Literatures and Cultures.

Geraldine Heng
Video

Premodern race as a critical canon

Heng offers insight on approaches to teaching the traditional, canonized literature of premodern Europe through the lens of premodern critical race studies.

Geraldine Heng

Recommended

Activity

The epic assignment

Dennis Britton's epic assignment asks students to collaboratively write an epic poem, considering the possibilities and limitations of the epic genre for defining who we are—or want to be—in our present moment. 

Dennis Britton
Reading list

Reading the medieval epic

A reading list to expand students' understanding of the medieval epic by incorporating texts that decenter Europe.

Adam Miyashiro
Video

Blackness and Shakespeare's sonnets

Shakespeare’s works at large, and early modern literature more broadly, all deal with constructions of race. Shakespeare’s sonnets are especially fruitful for considering how the languages of fairness and darkness are used in nuanced ways to develop particular understandings of race.

Kim F. Hall