UCL FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

3rd Graduate Student Conference in Comparative Literature

Comparative Literature in a Fast-Changing Global World
New Academic Building, LG02
Goldsmiths, University of London

Friday 8 June 2012
9.00 am – 6.30 pm

LINKS conferences foster a space to discuss and re-think intercultural ‘links’, and to approach literary and non-literary texts from a comparative perspective.

For the third time, students and staff in comparative literature departments across London have joined forces, providing MA students in comparative literature with a unique opportunity to exchange ideas, and develop their networking, presentation and discussion skills.

Round Table
Friday, 8 June, 2 pm – 4 pm
New Academic Building, LG02

Dr Florian Mussgnug (University College London)
Dr Carole Sweeney (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Dr Kiera Vaclavik (Queen Mary, University of London)
Dr Lucia Boldrini (Goldsmiths, Chair)

Globalization brings with it large-scale movements of people (whether by forced displacement or by choice), increased, sometimes forced, multilingualism, and ever faster forms of communication.

What impact does this have on our ideas about literature and literary communication, on our understanding of linguistic, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries?

Does “comparative literature” still have a place, or should it be replaced by “world literature”, or by other categories and groupings?

Is literary translation, its role and practices, changing too? What is the impact of the new media, with their privileging of bite-size texts, on literature and on the ways we write and read?

This round table, organized within the context of LINKS, brings together scholars of literature and culture working at the University of London in order to reflect on the challenges of comparative literature in the global world: the challenges it faces, the challenges it poses.

Call for Papers

MA students in Comparative Literature from anywhere in London and beyond are warmly invited to send us proposals for twenty-minute papers on any aspect of comparative literary study. Subjects may include, but are not limited to:

• Cultural Identities / Self and Other / Literatures in the Global World
• Gender, Corporeality, and Writing / Literary Criticism and Theory
• Forms and Genres / Themes, Myths, and Archetypes 
• Literature and Other Arts / Reception Studies and Translation

Proposed titles and abstracts (max. 300 words) should be sent to Dr Lucia Boldrini (l.boldrini@gold.ac.uk) by Thursday 10 May 2012.

For more information, please contact Dr Lucia Boldrini, l.boldrini@gold.ac.uk.