Gary Harrison, University of New Mexico professor of English and Presidential Teaching Fellow, and his emeritus colleagues Paul Davis, David M. Johnson and John Crawford co-edited a new compact edition of their two-volume anthology, “The Bedford Anthology of World Literature/ Compact Edition.”
The anthology was released late last month and, like its six-volume predecessor, will be used at colleges and universities across the U.S. in introductory courses on world literature, a growing new field.
“"The Bedford Anthology of World Literature/Compact Edition’ brings into a two-volume anthology a selection of texts that structure the teaching of world literature as a conversation among key and influential works from a variety of the world’s literary traditions including China, Japan, India, the Arabic world, Africa, Europe, and the Americas from the ancient world to the present,” Harrison said.
To help students develop historical awareness of the transformations within and across those traditions and to help them experience the rewards, while recognizing the problems and limits of reading across time and place, across cultures and languages, the anthology contains extensive historical, cultural, biographical and critical introductions and headnotes, as well as extensive footnotes and supplemental materials, including illustrations and maps.
This anthology grew from the editors’ teaching of UNM’s world literature courses, English 292 and 293, since the late 1980s. Although it offers fewer selections than its six-volume predecessor, the compact edition adds some new material, updates translations of many works, and offers newly revised introductions and headnotes, Harrison said.
For more information, visit the Bedford/St. Martin website.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales (505) 277-5920 or cgonzal@unm.edu