A priority of the Center is to facilitate a rethinking of the grounds for the teaching of literature in higher education, through interdisciplinary alignment with other study programs (e.g. cultural studies, media studies, language studies, history, social science, health science). The Center aims to improve literary studies’ ability to account for its main insights, theories, and methodologies as valuable tools that make students more employable and attractive to a wide variety of businesses and job types, not merely the educational system or academia.
Members of the Center teach in the English, Danish, and American Studies programs, as well as in medical education and the Negot program (Business, Language, and Culture).
We are particularly interested in developing new approaches to the teaching of literary history. In 2017 and 2018, Peter Simonsen initiated a comprehensive reform of the teaching of literature in the English program at both the BA and MA levels, assisted by Emily Hogg and Anita Wohlmann. The reform shifted emphasis from tradition and national literary history conceived in terms of chronology to themes of contemporary relevance, applicability, and the “uses” of literature beyond its own disciplinary boundaries.
In the anthology Læsninger på tværs (Criss-Cross Readings), edited by Camilla Schwartz, Lars Handesten, and Jon Helt Haarder, canonical works are paired with contemporary texts in thematic chapters on topics such as anxiety, love, ghettoes, and gardening to foster connections across time. The anthology aims to convey insights from the Center into Danish literature education.
In 2023, the elective "Uses of World Literature" was taught by Peter Simonsen, Emily Hogg, Jon Helt Haarder, and colleagues from Danish Studies, American Studies, and Comparative Literature. Open to students across the humanities at SDU, the course explores how world literature can be used to address contemporary global challenges, drawing on research from the Center for Uses of Literature.