Spring Forward with Harvard Online
Business & Management • 4 min read
Individual Course
Modern Masterpieces of World Literature
Course Length
8 weeks
3-6 hours per week
Featuring faculty from:
Harvard Faculty of Arts & Sciences
Enroll as Individual
Certificate Price:
$ 209
On demand
Enroll on edXEnroll as Individual
Certificate Price:
$ 209
On demand
Enroll on edXJoin Harvard faculty, David Damrosch and Martin Puchner, in this online course to examine how great modern writers capture the intricacies of our globalized world.
Based on the second half of the Masterpieces of World Literature edX MOOC, this short literature course examines how writers reach beyond national and linguistic boundaries as worldly readers and travelers, and how their modern fictions rise to the status of world literature.
These masterpieces of modern world literature take part in a tradition of weaving small stories into ambitious projects—one that reaches back to medieval tales and extends forward to contemporary novels. Throughout the course, you will learn how these writers use their fictions to engage directly with the political and social concerns of their present and of a globalized modernity, relating experiences of exploration, migration, international conflict, and cultural exchange.
Self-Guided
edX
- Learning Outcome
How literary works are transformed by cultural transmission
- Learning Outcome
How to critically analyze literary works
- Learning Outcome
Historical and political context in China, Argentina, Turkey, and more
- Learn from Harvard faculty
- Do it on your own time
- Get a certificate, add it to your resume
- Be part of the Harvard Community
Ways to take this course
Audit or Pursue a Verified Certificate
A Verified Certificate costs $209 and provides unlimited access to full course materials, activities, tests, and forums. At the end of the course, learners who earn a passing grade can receive a certificate.
Alternatively, learners can Audit the course for free and have access to select course material, activities, tests, and forums. Please note that this track does not offer a certificate for learners who earn a passing grade.
Faculty
Your Instructor
Martin Puchner
Byron and Anita Wien Professor of Drama and of English and Comparative Literature, Harvard University
Martin Puchner is the Byron and Anita Wien Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. His prize-winning books range from philosophy and the arts to technology and include the Norton Anthology of World Literature, which has brought 4000 years of literature to students across the globe; The Written World, a Wall Street Journal bestseller that has been translated into twenty-five languages; and Literature for a Changing Planet, which draws lessons from world literature for addressing climate change. His most recent book, Culture: The Story of Us, from Cave Art to K-Pop is a global history of the arts and humanities. His personalized chatbots let users converse with Socrates, the Buddha and many others. He is a member of the European Academy and has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Cullman Fellowship, the Berlin Prize, the Humboldt Prize and the Massachusetts Book Award. He writes on culture and the arts on his Substack: https://martinpuchner.substack.com.
Your Instructor
David Damrosch
Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature at Harvard University
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- Spring Forward with Harvard Online