Dr. Melek Ortabasi (World Literature) was one of six scholars invited by the University of Washington’s Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema, and Media to participate in a two-day symposium entitled “Teaching World Literature: Debates, Models, Pedagogies.” The symposium, which took place October 21-22, 2016, brought noted leaders in the field of World Literature to the University of Washington, where the department is developing a new undergraduate major.

As the Director of SFU’s World Literature Program, Dr. Ortabasi offered expertise in program development and teaching strategies. In an effort to rethink undergraduate curriculum, she and Chad Allen (University of Washington), David Damrosch (Harvard), John Burt Foster (George Mason), David Palumbo-Liu (Stanford), Nirvana Tanoukhi (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Rebecca Walkowitz (Rutgers) presented on their work in developing curricula, teaching, and research in World Literature.

Dr. Ortabasi presented two talks, entitled “Collaboration and the Art of Doing More With Less,” which highlighted creative ways of bringing students a rich World Literature curriculum, and “Trees, Waves, and Rhizomes Under the Microscope,” which emphasized her pedagogical interest in translation theory and practice.

Dr. Ortabasi is also a University of Washington alumna (Ph.D., Comparative Literature, 2001), and she reports that the symposium was a great opportunity to meet new colleagues and old friends at her alma mater.