or On the Survival of a Discipline Today
I will speak to you a bit about comparative literature. It will be a banal topic. I will not try to give you a definition of comparative literature, or the regulations of comparative literature. The demand to give definitions and propose recipes, eventually, is a trap set by others – the representatives of other disciplines. I will also not try to enter debates on the crisis of comparative literature and literary studies, because the diagnoses of the crisis are very different. I will try to speak to you about what can the function of comparative literature be today. I will offer but a few options. I will do this starting from what I have heard at AILC (International Association of Comparative Literature).
Note: The text was read at the conference “Comparative Literature: Theory, Methodology, Hermenautics” – Skopje, 1 December 2000.