Why comparing?
The school is prompted by the intellectual urgency of comparison in the humanities today. With the emergence of new investigative frameworks (e.g. global history, world literature, the ethnological turn in disciplines like music, the emergence of transcultural objects and approaches), comparison has become a vital focus for critical debate, both within and between disciplines: what we witness is an accrued inventiveness of comparative method (with a commitment to experiment, to the development of dedicated approaches to complex objects and problems) and a new intensity of theoretical speculation as to the scope of comparison to precipitate change in our understanding both of objects and of disciplines (whether established and emergent, e.g. cultural studies, visual studies). The emergence of new critical approaches to comparison within the humanities prompts us, first, to reappraise the place of comparison within disciplinary histories and, second, to see how comparative projects and practices today impinge on critical debate with regard both to questions of method and substantive claims to discovery. Benefits to PhD students and early career researchers of this summer school will consist in the opportunity to scrutinize the roles comparison plays in a range of disciplines and in being exposed to work which has given rise to new ways of devising and pursuing research questions. By bringing together researchers in a wide range of disciplines, the school asks the question: to what extent is comparison itself best understood comparatively?
The programme can be viewed on http://www.ucc.ie/french/comparing/compprogramme.pdf

<<Previous ItemNext Item>>

« Back to 2011 Press Releases