News and Announcements

The search committee seeks a candidate able to teach Swahili courses at all levels (first, second, third year) and participate in a full range of activities to grow the Kiswahili program on the University of Georgia Athens campus.

For more information on the position and application, click here.

Dr. O'Neiil's new book 'Famine Irish and the American Racial State' is now available. This interdisciplinary, transnational work uses an array of cultural artifacts, including novels, plays, songs, cartoons, government reports, laws, sermons, memoirs, and how-to manuals, to make its case. It challenges the claim that the Irish "became white" in the United States, showing that the claim fails to take into full account the legal position of the Irish in the nineteenth-century US state – a state that deemed the Irish "white" upon arrival.

Click here for more information from the publisher.

Dr. Haun Saussy, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago, and former president of the American Comparative Literature Association, presented new research at the University of Georgia on September 15. The event was organized by Dr. Yuanfei Wang from Comparative Literature and was supported through the Willson Center's Distinguished Lecture Series support. Entitled “The Only Game in Town: Early Buddhist Translations Into Chinese,” Saussy's talk examined the earliest translations of Buddhist doctrine into Chinese, apparently by teams of translators working with secondhand sources. These texts show attention to the contexts of reception— in other words the cultural situation into which Buddhist ideas would be integrated.

Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School Students studying Mandarin III Honors and AP Mandarin class traveled to the University of Georgia on Monday, October 3, to visit Chinese classes in the Comparative Literature Department. With help from Dr. Yi, the director of Chinese Language and Literature, each student had a chance to visit 2 classes, one intermediate class and one advanced class, before meeting with the head of the department, Dr. Moshi, and gaining experience about the univeristy.

On September 15 the Comparative Literature Department hosted its first Symposium on Literature and Exile, which featured two panels and a reading. The Symposium was sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.

The first panel featured three UGA faculty: Charles Byrd (Germanic and Slavic) discussed the theme of exile in Vladimir Nabokov's The Gift and Lolita; LeAnne Howe (English) the dispossession of contemporary Native Americans; and Esra Santesso (English) the work of contemporary Muslim writers in Britain. The Second Panel features two expatriate Israeli novelists, Maya Arad and Ruby Namdar, as well as translator/editor Hanan Elstein. The three discussed their work and examined the current condition of Hebrew literature in the Diaspora.
Maya Arad and Ruby Namdar read from their work at Congregation Children of Israel, which was followed by an animated conversation on Israeli politics and literature.

The inaugural Spring Jamboree in 2015, which showcased a wide variety of academics, culture, dance and music from across Asia and Africa. Presented by students from across campus, it represented both individuals studying in the Comparative Literature Department (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Yoruba, Swahil, among others) and affiliated student groups. Building on the success of the event, which packed Joe Brown Plaza for several hours, the second celebration of culture took place on March 30 and expanded upon the framework of the first edition. For images of the event, contact Dainess Maganda or Karim Traore.

Congratulations to Dr. Ruhumbika. At this year's South-Eastern African Languages and Literatures Forum, hosted by the University of Georgia, Dr. Ruhumbika received a lifetime achievement award for his contributions in the field of African Languages and Literature in the United States and beyond. Dr. Ruhumbika also provide the conference's keynote address.