Reves Center for International Studies Events

Location

Prof. Geraldine Heng (U. Texas) will give the 2021 Fauvel Lecture on "Teaching Early Global Literatures: Worlding the World, Traveling the World."

Sometime around the year 1000 of the Common Era, archaeologists tell us that an expedition of people from Greenland and Iceland took advantage of climate change, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to North America.  There, they proceeded to build a settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, erected a complex of houses, smelted iron for tools and weapons, repaired ships, slept, socialized, threw away their trash, wove cloth, and did single-needle knitting.  The presence of what might have been a child’s toy hints that a new generation may even have been born there.  Beyond that, the archaeological record is silent.  What these northern Europeans saw in the Americas, why they wanted to be there, what happened in their encounters with native peoples: for cultural details of that kind, we must turn to two literary-historical accounts in Old Norse known as the Vinland Sagas.  From North America to Africa, from Islamic civilizations to the Eurasian steppe, from the Mediterranean to South, Southeast, and East Asia, this talk will offer ideas, texts, and guidelines for those who want to explore the worlds of early globalism.

Zoom link: https://cwm.zoom.us/s/6281668144
Meeting ID: 628 166 8144

Contact

Giulia Pacini

This Event Appears On

• W&M Featured Events
• Arts & Sciences Events
• Global Studies Events
• Modern Languages & Literatures Events
• French & Francophone Studies Events
• Reves Center for International Studies Events
• European Studies Events