ECLS Research seminar
We run a series of seminars intended to provide a forum for discussion of literary research projects underway both within and outside of the department. The programme timetable and schedule changes annually.
Research Seminar
Practicing World Literature on the Periphery of Capitalism
Alfredo Cesar Melo will discuss the predicaments of practicing world literature (as a field of study) on the semi-periphery of capitalism. How would it be possible to theorize about world literature with limited access to the metropolitan archive? My claim is that on the semi-periphery much of world literature (unit of analysis) has been done under the guise of area studies (unit of observation). The work of Roberto Schwarz would be a great example of this way of studying world literature. I will discuss some limits of this Schwarzian model.
Essaying Solidarity: Comrade Roy and the Politics of Representation
Rashmi Varma will explore the figure of the writer-activist as a specific figure for our times. In her essay ‘Walking with the Comrades’ Arundhati Roy transforms the genre of the essay by hitching it to a more expansive postcolonial and internationalist tradition that breaks through the conventions of the properly English essay. Roy’s generic restlessness speaks to her alignment with grass-roots movements for social justice. I hope to conclude by pointing to the urgency of reformulating solidarity beyond the politics of representation. This will be an informal, work-in-progress type of talk.