Literary Studies: Literature in Society. Europe and Beyond

Novels, poetry, theatre and new literary media from both 'high’ and ‘popular’ culture reflect social issues but also shape them. Your studies thus take a thematic approach to the study of literature, exploring literature from the point of view of political and social issues like identity, migration, memory, and the metropolis.

A transnational perspective

Studying the impact of literature on society involves a series of questions: how does literature affect (or sometimes threaten) ways of life and moral standards? How do literary strategies such as story-telling shape the fields of politics and law? How does literature help shape individual and collective identity and memory? Conversely, society also shapes literature.

This involves questions about the embeddedness of literature in culture and society; about the cultural capital of individual texts, genres and oeuvres: why are certain works and authors classified as classics and others as popular or ‘cult’? Much modern literature in Western Europe stands at the crossroads of European and non-European cultures. A transnational perspective is thus an important part of this Master.

Leiden University is considered a leading centre of expertise in western and non-western languages and cultures.