[Bilimsel Haber] CfP: Age of Comparison? (New York University, March 27-29, 2008)

[Onur Inal]

- CALL FOR PAPERS -

Age of Comparison?

NYU Graduate Student Conference

Hosted by the departments of

Comparative Literature,

East Asian Studies,

Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, and

The Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies

March 27-29, 2008

The common ground of literary and area studies lies in our joint focus
on questions of comparison. At the root of our academic activity is the
characterization of similarity and difference, be it cultural,
political, linguistic or aesthetic. Issues of comparability are visible
in shared anxieties regarding the origins and directions of our
disciplines. In our overlapping pursuit of self-definition we depend on
each other for collaboration and provocation.

In analyzing texts and cultures, our approaches can be seen as 

complementary or discordant. What is lost when Area Studies leaves 

literary and theoretical work to Comparative Literature? Conversely, is
the political urgency and historical rigor of Area Studies lost in 

Comparative Literature? With our conference we aim to foster productive 

dialogue among disciplines by together exploring problems of comparison 

and comparability, both philosophical and methodological. In theory and
practice, we are all led to compare, to define ourselves in terms of the
Other (or to strive against such definition). What motivates and
conditions this desire? How does it play out in our work?

To these ends, papers should address the following or related questions
and themes:

* How has comparison figured in texts at different times and in
different places?

* Does comparative thinking threaten an understanding of the particular?

* How has translation helped us to think comparison?

* Comparison and universal genre: do cross-cultural deep literary
structures exist?

* Comparison as a political activity

* Comparison and nationality: between communication and conflict

* Gender as a comparative issue

* Is there a way to think comparatively without a conception of the
"normal"?

* Area Studies: Do we compare?

* What does it mean when literary scholars borrow tools from the natural
and social sciences?

* What role does comparison play in postcolonial literature? In "minor"
literature?

* How do critical judgments play into comparative thinking?

* How do models of cosmopolitanism and creolization affect the practice
and theory of comparison?

Submissions should be sent to NYU.comparison at gmail.com by January 10th,
2008.

website:  <http://www.ageofcomparison.net/>
http://www.ageofcomparison.net/

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