Asian English

Contesting the idea that the study of Anglophone literature and literary studies is simply a foreign import in Asia, this collection addresses the genealogies of textual critique and institutionalized forms of teaching of English language and literature in Asia through the 19th and 20th centuries, along with an examination of how its present options and possible future directions relate to these historical contexts. It argues that the establishment of Anglophone literature in Asia did not simply 'happen': there were extra-literary and -academic forces at work, inserting and domesticating in Asian universities both the English language and Anglo-American literature, and their attendant cultural and political values. Offering new perspectives for ongoing conversations surrounding the globalization of Anglophone literature in literary and cultural studies, the book also  considers the practicalities of teaching both the language and its canon of classic texts, and that the historical formation and shape of English studies in Asia offers lessons that relate not only to the discipline but also may be applied to the humanities as a whole.

Myles Chilton is Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Nihon University, Japan. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago, and is the author of English Studies Beyond the 'Center': Teaching Literature and the Future of Global English (2016).

Steve Clark is Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Letters, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology at the University of Tokyo, Japan.

Yukari Yoshihara is an Associate Professor at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. She is an author and editor of English Studies in Asia (2007).