ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we propose a shift from reading world literature as a set of texts that belong to different national literatures which are translated and then circulated internationally to focusing on translingual, “born translated” (Walkowitz 2015) texts that destabilize the notion of national literature because of their transcultural and translingual components. These texts cannot be aligned with one single nation because they highlight the multiplicity within national and disciplinary boundaries and the heteroglossic nature of national languages. They respond to and recognize the increasing number of cosmopolitan and hybrid identities. Although mostly written in English, the texts we used are not concerned with politically defined language borders. To read them, we need a transterritorial (more than one country/outside national paradigms/more than one language/more than one culture) pedagogical approach. This transterritorial method of reading, resulting in a transterritorial literacy, combines the transnational, transcultural, and translingual, and it revises the notion of cosmopolitanism, making it more inclusive. It sees reading as “deliberative inquiry” (Horner et al. 2011, 304), encouraging students to nuance their understanding of national language and literature by engaging in translingual theory, and it uses literature as a space to think about political and social issues in innovative ways.
