"La litterature mondiale" et l'enseignement de Naguib Mahfouz aux Etats Unis

The entry of Naguib Mahfouz in the canon of "World Literature," following his success with the Nobel prize, is conditioned by his integration into the categories of Western literary history. More than the specialized critical journals and the doctoral theses, pedagogy translates into concrete manner the symbolic content of a work. In schools and universities, it is the "best" authors and their "masterpieces" that are taught, and this is how they circulate to the public at large. Pedagogy, reflecting intellectual and cultural currents professors and students bathe into, is the scene where culture gets played. The work of Naguib Mahfouz is integrated in this pedagogical context.