World Literature in 13 Parts: From Gilgamesh to García Márquez

Love and long­ing, hope and fear — these threads run through­out all lit­er­a­ture, whether we’re talk­ing about the great ancient epics, or con­tem­po­rary nov­els writ­ten in the East or the West. That’s the main premise of Invi­ta­tion to World Lit­er­a­ture, a mul­ti­me­dia pro­gram orga­nized by David Dam­rosch (Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty), and made with the back­ing of WGBH and Annen­berg Media.

The pro­gram fea­tures 13 half-hour videos, which move from The Epic of Gil­gamesh (cir­ca 2500 BCE) through Gar­cía Márquez’s One Hun­dred Years of Soli­tude (1967). And, col­lec­tive­ly, these videos high­light over 100+ writ­ers, schol­ars, artists, and per­form­ers with a per­son­al con­nec­tion to world lit­er­a­ture. Philip Glass, Francine Prose, Harold Ramis, Robert Thur­man, Kwame Antho­ny Appi­ah — they all make an appear­ance.

Each video is accom­pa­nied by read­ings and relat­ed mate­ri­als. You can get start­ed with Invi­ta­tion to World Lit­er­a­ture here, or find a trail­er intro­duc­ing the series here.

This course will be added to our list of Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties

Learn Lan­guages for Free

Homer’s Ili­ad and Odyssey: Free Trans­la­tions by Lit­er­ary Greats

The Sounds of Ancient Mesopotamia