<![CDATA[This paper examines the possible relationships between Comparative Literature and International Studies by proposing literature as a significant site of international cultural relations. While Comparative Literature traditionally investigates literary texts across national, linguistic, and cultural boundaries, International Studies primarily examines political, economic, social, and institutional relations across nations. The paper argues that these fields intersect when literature is approached as a medium through which nations and cultures represent, encounter, negotiate, and contest one another. Drawing on comparative literature, world literature, postcolonial theory, imagology, cultural diplomacy, and soft power, the discussion demonstrates how literary representation contributes to the construction of national images, cultural identities, and perceptions of the Other. Indonesian–English comparisons, particularly The Translator and Rahasia Dua Hati and White Teeth and Vanilla Velvet, illustrate how literary texts can reveal asymmetries of cultural power, postcolonial responses, and processes of intercultural communication. Comparative Literature thus offers International Studies access to the imaginative, symbolic, and representational dimensions of international relations.]]>
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