Critic.Reading.Writing with ATO QUAYSON

My name is Ato Quayson and I am a Professor of English and Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. Here are my reflections on the relevance of the humanities at the present time.  Even though I shall be delving from time to time into art, film, history, philosophy, etc, my main focus will mainly be on literature.  I propose to share with you many ideas deriving from how we read literature.  I am a comparatist at heart and much of what I will talk about, even if starting from the perspective of a particular text, will wade far and wide to bring in examples from other traditions of writing.  I have three main areas of interest: Literature, Cities, and Fashion and you will find me threading these into many of the episodes I will be sharing with you every week. They will cover various themes, including: Tragedy in World Literature; the City in Literature; Literature and Ethical Judgment, and Diaspora and Literature, among various others.