ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that J. M. Coetzee’s fiction, in how it both dramatizes and prompts attention to the dynamics of language, lends itself well to the teaching of intercultural awareness. Using examples from In the Heart of the Country, Age of Iron, Disgrace, and The Childhood of Jesus, the chapter explores the ethical and pedagogical potency in moments of linguistic confusion in self–other encounters in these novels. Observing how the scene shift in Coetzee’s novelistic trajectory—from South Africa to the global migrant experience—parallels the larger theoretical reorientation in literary studies, the chapter considers how both postcolonial and transnational approaches to aesthetic education coincide with intercultural communications teaching aims.
