Queer Connections: A Seminar on Fluidity and Male-Male Desire in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice

by Yuchen Zhang, MA in Comparative Literature 2021/22 This blogpost offers a glimpse into a seminar of the MA module 7ABA0016 Queer Connections: Male-Male Desire and the Classical Past. For more information about this module, please visit: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/abroad/module-options/queer-connections-male-male-desire-and-the-classical-past Gustav von Aschenbach is an established writer with an established public persona. Well into his fifties, he …

Can one woman in disguise unite a spiritually divided nation? Meet Tobbya, defiant founder of an Ethiopian Empire

This blog post is among the winners of the Department of Comparative Literatures’s 2020-2021 Blog Award for the module 6ABA0013 ‘Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in Global Cultural Studies’. Congratulations to Paige Harris for winning the award! Who was Afewark Gebre Iyasus? Born in 1868, Afewark was religiously educated before his introduction to the Ethiopian political sphere. He …

Modernity and the West : How Ideas Travel

This blog post is among the winners of the Department of Comparative Literatures’s 2020-2021 Blog Award for the module 6ABA0013 ‘Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in Global Cultural Studies’. Congratulations to Tyfene Jelstrup for winning the award! What good has western imperialism done for the world? I asked this question to an acquaintance after she suggested I …

Rethinking modernity and cultural authenticity

This blog post is among the winners of the Department of Comparative Literatures’s 2020-2021 Blog Award for the module 6ABA0013 ‘Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in Global Cultural Studies’. Congratulations to Tonje Beisland for winning the award! Who can claim ownership of modernity? Today, we see clearly the global impact of the technological, social and scientific progresses …

Seeking good faith: Afäwärq Gäbrä-Iyyäsus and his novel Ṭobbya or Ləbb Wälläd Tarik (1908) – a story born from the heart

This blog post is among the winners of the Department of Comparative Literatures’s 2020-2021 Blog Award for the module 6ABA0013 ‘Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in Global Cultural Studies’. Congratulations to Nina Hanna for winning the award! If writing that was used to teach English grammar had made up the foundational texts of English literature then no …