an international, interdisciplinary network of researchers, theories, and resources
genreacrossborders.org
This academic network challenges the idea that literary genres are fixed and universal — revealing how meaning, form, and classification shift radically across cultural borders.
Social ConstructivismCultural RelativismStructuralismInterdisciplinarity
Theory Briefing
- Genre across Borders is an interdisciplinary network studying how literary genres travel, transform, and resist translation across cultures.
- The project challenges Western-centric genre frameworks, showing that categories like 'the novel' or 'lyric poetry' carry hidden cultural assumptions.
- By mapping genre globally, the network applies social construction theory to literature — genre is a power structure, not just a label.