ABSTRACT
Literature education provides one of the most powerful platforms that would allow students to develop global awareness and sensitivities as they read the literature of their own country as well as those from diverse cultures around the world. However, the degree to which Literature’s cosmopolitan potential can be tapped in Singapore depends on how far the curriculum can expand from its colonial rootedness in the canons of the West. In the first part of this paper, I argue that the continued appreciation of literature predominantly from the West may be attributed to two dominant aims centred on cultivating the cultural imagination and on developing aesthetic appreciation skills that emerged at different historical junctures. I then propose a re-envisioning of literature education grounded on ethical engagement with multiple others in the global sphere.
