CFP: Redefining Comparative Literature (2/10/07; 3/16/07-3/17/07)

[Joe Culpepper]

The Centre for Comparative Literature at the
University of Toronto invites abstracts for its 18th
annual graduate student conference:

"Navigating Interdisciplinarity, Cultivating New
Spaces of Comparison"

Date: March 16–17, 2007
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Keynote Speaker: Haun Saussy, Professor of Comparative
Literature at Yale University

Recently, the field of Comparative Literature has been
experiencing a period of self-reflection. "Trans, Pan,
Intra: Cultures in Contact" is the title for the
American Comparative Literature Association's 2007
conference. Comparative Literature in the Age of
Globalism is the latest publication of scholarly
critiques of a discipline dedicated to methods of
comparison. As a contribution to the current
discussion of global intellectual exchange, the Centre
for Comparative Literature at the University of
Toronto is requesting papers that engage
interdisciplinary approaches to literature and
culture.

The Centre's 18th annual international graduate
student colloquium will focus on the ways
methodologies from the Humanities, the Social and the
Natural Sciences can be brought to bear on the study
of literature or culture, thus redefining its object
and scope. Papers are encouraged to address one or
more of the following questions with any combination
of theoretical and practical texts that mark the
intersection (the nebulous in-between space) of at
least two disciplines:

— The Text and the City (Literary Studies,
Architecture, Sociology, Urban Planning)

— Photography and Life Writing (Visual Studies,
History, National Literatures)

— Adaptation Theory (Cinema Studies, Drama, Literary
Studies, and more)

— Technology and the Book (Media Studies, Book History
and Print Culture, History and Philosophy of Science
and Technology, English, etc.)

Questions:

What can be gained by uniting normally separate fields
of study? How does one decide which points of
disciplinary intersection will yield the richest, most
creative results?

What are the dangers of too much interdisciplinarity?
At what point do comparative projects attempt to pull
in so many theories, fields, languages, or literatures
that they sacrifice intellectual focus or cohesion?

Are there rules for interdisciplinary approaches? What
should the guidelines and basic requirements be to
ensure that projects which draw upon multiple
disciplines do so in an academically rigorous manner?

Does Comparative Literature need to involve literature
at all? Can pieces of music, paintings, films, etc.
serve as texts? Does replacing a language requirement
with fluency in another discipline bring about a
crisis that has the potential to redefine Comparative
Literature?

If decentralisation, decolonisation, and globalization
have brought about a change in the Eurocentric
territorialisation of knowledge, does Comparative
Literature need to renegotiate a space for itself?

** Other topics and questions along similar lines of
inquiry are also welcome. **

Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent to
ronald.ng at utoronto.ca by February 10, 2007. Graduate
students from various disciplines are encouraged to
apply. Please observe the following procedures to
enable blind peer review: 1) attach a short
biographical note on a separate page, 2) do not
include your name on the same page as your abstract,
and 3) type "abstract" in the subject line of your
email. Also, please indicate at the end of your
abstract if you will require any special resources
(projectors, multimedia players, etc.). All
presentations should be timed and must not exceed 20
minutes in length. For more information on the Centre
for Comparative Literature, please visit:
www.chass.utoronto.ca/complit/.