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

Syllabus

Race in the European Middle Ages

This course explores the changing patterns, meanings, and uses of racializing discourses in medieval Europe from the 10th through 15th centuries.

Geraldine Heng
Essay

Representations of Muslims in El Poema de Mio Cid

El Poema de Mio Cid, when taught contrapuntally with La Chanson de Roland and The Epic of Sunjata, reveals complex and layered representations of Muslims in the medieval Iberian Peninsula.

‍

Adam Miyashiro
Video

Chaucer, Virgil, and erasure poetry

Teaching Chaucer's House of Fame alongside contemporary Nisga'a poet Jordan Abel's The Place of Scraps allows students to consider the issues of source, adaptation, colonization, and race in our literary lineage.

Seeta Chaganti

Selected annotated bibliography