Symposium | Keywords: Literature and Politics

What is the relationship between literature and politics, and how does it shape the wider field of literary studies today? What are some of the most important historical permutations of this fraught relationship, and how do they continue to inform the vocabulary and critical methods in use today? How is the tension between literature and politics being reconfigured under the specific pressures of our own present, and what new interdisciplinary avenues might scholarship on literature and politics pursue in the future?

“Keywords: Literature and Politics” addresses these questions via a series of talks on four political keywords of topical concern in our contemporary political landscape: “Discipline,” “Human Rights,” “Indigeneity,” and “Vulnerability.” This two-day symposium brings together scholars in dialogue to address a political keyword from distinct theoretical perspectives and historical angles. It is co-organized by the editors of the Literature and Politics series from Oxford University Press: Janice Ho, who is Associate Professor of English at the University of British Columbia; Benjamin Kohlmann, who is Professor of English at Universität Regensburg; and Matthew Taunton, who is Professor of English at the University of East Anglia.

“Keywords: Literature and Politics” is hosted by the UBC Department of English Language & Literatures, and co-sponsored by UBC Public Humanities Hub, UBC Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice, UBC Faculty of Arts, Universität Regensburg, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).