Georgos “Will”:  It has been said that “language [literature] and culture are the frameworks through which humans experience, communicate, and understand reality” (Lev Vygotsky, 1968), but what if literature (which is a form of a society’s language) is erased from existence?  Who then, would pick up the pieces and restore the delicate fabric of reality?  And would there be a reality to speak of for humans to experience and understand?  I wholeheartedly agree with this professor’s assessment that we need to teach beyond the confines of our simple national literature as it will bring the next generation closer to understanding and experiencing another culture they would not have had access to before, thereby easing the friction from national boundaries that society inherently presses on the world we now live in.  There was a time when I was in the United States Navy and was stationed in Japan.  Had I been taught about some of their literature, and thereby culture, I would have been able to better interact with and understand the society in which I was experiencing.  I did not have a firm grasp, or any grasp for that matter, of Japan’s reality, and looking back on the experiences I did have there, I would have gained so much more had I been introduced to their culture via their historical and contemporary literature.  If we are to embark toward a future on a worldwide scale as one species, to grow and learn and become a human culture, we need to do no less than burst outside the familiar territory of national literature and venture into the depths of, how this particular professor voiced it, the “strange country.”
Dr G. : Will, an excellent quote from Vygotsky! Beautifully put. The notion of "past as a strange country" is telling too--in it is the sense of the text-as-country, that is, with its people, culture, language, and identity.