Host: Journal of Foreign Languages and Cultures Editorial Office

          Foreign Studies College of Hunan Normal University

Comparative Literature has for a very long time been trapped in its Eurocentric disciplinary limitations. The study of non-Western languages and literatures were (and still largely are) consigned to departments of Oriental/Area Studies in the "West." Thus, the languages of Near-, Middle- and Far-East are grouped in clusters formed around imagined geographies, through the presumed centrality and mediation of European traditions. We are now living in a world in which the old global structural apparatus is being transformed into a much more multipolar and multidimensional one, and the connectedness of different nations and peoples has become prominent in our lives as well as in our minds. The world is changing, and so must the paradigms of literary studies.

For a new paradigm of Comparative Literature the methodologies of the discipline must be reconsidered, accommodating languages and literary histories that have been only juxtaposed and compared indirectly in the landscape of literary studies. What is there beyond Eurocentrism? How can comparative literary studies be theorized and practiced in a new paradigm that is not only de-centered but also dismantles the imagined geography that has dominated literary studies for too long? How could comparative literature be practiced without the mediation of a sort of lingua franca? What methodological and pedagogical issues must be considered in developing a new paradigm that engages Asian languages and cultures? And finally, how would this change of paradigm influence our readings in ways that can revisit literary historiographies written with the impact of European modernity at their core, to revive the study of classical texts from innovative, and even radical, perspectives?

Taking the launch of the Comparative Literature Special Issue of Journal of Foreign Languages and Cultures (Guest Editors: Zhang Longxi, Omid Azadibougar) as an opportunity, and in response to these and other questions, this conference brings leading scholars from diverse geographies together to discuss a new and global Comparative Literature.

Zoom Conference No.: 404 324 0966

Password: 110398

Live: http://live.bilibili.com/23288623

We welcome you to join us.