Great success of New Comparativisms: Worlds and World-Making symposium

The symposium explored new directions in comparative thinking through the ideas of worlds, worldliness and world-making

5-6 April 2018

The symposium adopted a transhistorical perspective, focusing on four key moments: classical antiquity (which instantiates comparative traditions of reading, translation, rhetoric and critical exegesis); the medieval and early-modern era (which sees the emergence of written vernaculars, printing and European publishing markets); the Romantic period (and the launching of Goethe's idea of Weltliteratur in 1827); and post-1945 (with the modern institution of comparative literature studies) to the present day.

From then to now, it considered how literary and cultural texts and practices migrate - and connect - across borders, to create and contest new worlds.

This symposium was developed from a Melbourne-Manchester collaboration in world literatures and cultures.

Presenters included:

Associate Professor Pascal Bataillard
Dr Tess Do
Professor Véronique Duché
Dr Thomas H. Ford
Professor Paul Giles
Dr Steven Hampton
Dr Joe Hughes
Associate Professor Parshia Lee-Stecum
Dr Claire Maree
Associate Professor Laurence Petit
Professor Alessandro Schiesaro
Dr Miranda Stanyon
Professor Heidi Thomson
Associate Professor Clara Tuite
Dr Ika Willis

Download the symposium programme

Image: Henry Firth, The Romance of Navigation and Maritime Discovery (London: 1893).