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Teaching European Studies in Australia: Fostering Cultural and Historical Literacy through the Narrative Imagination

One of the main problems we face in teaching European Studies in the Australian university context is the lack of cultural and historical literacy about Europe among the current cohort of students. Drawing on Martha Nussbaum’s concept of the ‘narrative imagination’, this paper suggests that novels, films and other literary material can help our students penetrate unfamiliar cultural and historical environments. This is because narrative provides the context to help students understand complex dynamics at play in unfamiliar situations, and makes this context meaningful by putting it into humanistic, not scientific terms. It is above all an epistemology based on the use of ‘empathy’ as a device to deepen historical and cultural understanding. While there are certainly caveats to using literary texts in an academic environment of historical or social inquiry, as long we are cognizant of the truth-value of the literary epistemological framework, that is, we understand that they do not aim to establish veritable fact, but instead provoke an emotional response from us, such texts remain useful pedagogical tools for fostering cultural and historical literacy amongst our students.