Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 4th Sept 2025, 04:20:05pm KST
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Session Overview | |
| Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom |
| Date: Monday, 28/July/2025 | |
| 5:00pm | ECARE Reception Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom Session Chair: Emanuelle Santos, University of Birmingham ICLA ECARE Committee ReceptionOpening Address Emanuelle Santos, Chair of ECARE Committee, University of Birmingham, UK Lucia Boldrinii, President of ICLA, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK Youngmin Kim, Congress Chair, 2025 ICLA Congress Seoul, South Korea Open Mike for NEXT.GEN Session Chairs |
| Date: Tuesday, 29/July/2025 | |
| 9:00am - 10:40am | Keynotes: Uchang Kim & David Damrosch Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom Session Chair: Hyungji Park, Yonsei University https://youtube.com/live/IfTVjPkFpG0?feature=share Uchang Kim, Korea University, Republic of Korea “Life Truth and Variation” Carlos Castaneda’s prose work, Teachings of Don Juan: Yaqui Way of Knowledge, is a full-time prose work that stands by itself, a story describing a certain kind of experience. It originated, however, as a report on an experience of fieldwork, by the author, who was working on a doctoral dissertation in anthropology required by UCLA. Fieldwork was necessary as a kind of proof that the dissertation is based on real-world experience. But what was a testimony for the connection between the real world and the dissertation? It was published in 1985 and soon became popular among the general readership. It is often attributed to the fact that academic learning lost its prestige. But even among the general public, what has direct appeal is rather what is rendered in stories, that ism in literature, narratives, and poetry. The work allows the reader to feel the sense of personal in literature, conveying the real sense of the real world. Human agency is there, hiding or manipulating poems and stories. What is more real than our contact with the real world but seeing river or swimming in it?--no statistic of factual depiction of swimming in it--what could be more real than this physical contact? It is so natural that people would like to go on travel. It is natural that our age has become an age of tourism. Life truth is directly felt in our physical contact, but we would subsidize it with abstract description. David Damrosch, Harvard University, USA “Language Wars: Scriptworlds in Conflict” Writing systems have always been prime markers of national and cultural identity, forming a “scriptworld” that is the centerpiece of a system of education and a bearer of cultural memory. Some countries treasure a national language written in a unique national script, while others have chosen a cosmopolitan writing system or have had one thrust upon them by imperial conquerors. This talk will consider the key role of writing systems in times of cultural conflict. I will begin with the consequences of the displacement of Norse runes by the Roman alphabet in medieval Iceland, and the contrasting case of the alphabet’s imposition in colonial New Spain by the conquistadors. I then turn to the shifting relations between scripts in Eastern Europe (in the rivalry of Cyrillic versus the Roman alphabet) and in Asia, as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam first adopt versions of the cosmopolitan Chinese script and then revise or reject it in the era of rising nationalism and colonial/anticolonial conflict in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In all of these cases, I will focus on the role of literature in negotiating these conflicts. Sometimes writers seek to heal these conflicts (Snorri Sturluson in Iceland), sometimes to exacerbate them (Milorad Pavić in Serbia), or employ multiple scripts (Ho Chi Minh) in the struggle for independence. Writers from Snorri Sturluson to Nguyen Du and Pak Tu-jin have meditated on what their culture has lost as well as gained in these language wars. |
| 11:00am - 12:30pm | Special Session I: UNESCO Memory of the World (MoW) Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom Session Chair: Youngmin Kim, Dongguk University 2025 ICLA CONGRESS SPECIAL SESSION1 - YouTube Special Session I: UNESCO Memory of the World (MoW) Memory of the World: A Cooperation between the ICLA and the UNESCO Documentary Heritage Programme
Part I: Podium Chair: Youngmin Kim Chair, Organizing Committee of the 2025 International AILC/ICLA Congress Speakers: 1) Jan Bos Chair, MoW International Advisory Committee (IAC). Title: What is the Memory of the World program and how does it relate to ICLA? Short description of talk: Vision, mission, short history and present activities of the Memory of the World program The Memory of the World International Register Memory of the World and ICLA: areas of common interest
2) Lucia Boldrini President, International Comparative Literature Association (AILC/ICLA, 2022-2025) Title: The Critical Eye of Comparative Literature Short description of talk: In my presentation I will consider not only the importance the ICLA’s partnership with the Memory of the World programme, but also how it can provide a necessarily critical eye, thanks to its long history of engaging in and with the criticism and self-criticism of the disciplines of comparative literature, world literature and translation, individually and in their combination, in their histories and their practices. This can bring nuance and complexity to apparently straightforward assumptions about the intrinsic value of activities such as literary comparison, or translation as bridge-building.
3) Lothar Jordan Chair, MoW Sub-Committee on Education and Research (SCEaR) Title: Memory of the World and Comparative Literature: How We Can Work Together.
Short description of talk: The Presentation introduces some fields of education and research that are interesting for both Comparative Literature and the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme (MoW) like the history of translators and translations, the reconstruction of Lost Memory, e.g. of dispersed libraries, the relation between oral literature and documentation, and some more.
4) E.V. Ramakrishnan Chair, AILC/ICLA Standing Research Committee on South Asian Literatures and Cultures Title: Translation as Palimpsest: From Textual Traces to Cultural Archives
Short description of talk: Oral cultures of memory conceive of 'texts' and 'archives' differently. While mediating between 'subcultures' and 'dominant cultures', interculturally or intra-culturally, translation often takes on the role of a legitimating agency, thereby misrepresenting the nature of cosmologies they (subcultures) are founded upon.
Part II: Signing Ceremony of an Agreement: MOU UNESCO Memory of the World Programme
Signees: UNESCO Memory of the World Jan Bos Chair, International Advisory Committee (IAC) Lothar Jordan Chair, Sub-Committee on Education and Research (SCEaR) Joie Springer Chair, Register Sub-Committee (RSC)
AILC/ICLA Lucia Boldrini AILC/ICLA President (2022-2025) Ipshita Chanda AILC/ICLA Secretary (2022-2025) Youngmin Kim Chair, Organizing Committee of the XXIV International AILC/ICLA Congress 2025 ICLA CONGRESS SPECIAL SESSION1 - YouTube As part of the 70th anniversary celebrations of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA), a special joint workshop and podium will be held under the theme “ICLA and the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme: Perspectives of Cooperation.” This event builds on the legacy of the Vienna 2016 workshop, reaffirming the shared commitment to safeguarding and promoting global documentary heritage through literary and scholarly collaboration. Key participants will include the ICLA President and Congress organizers, alongside representatives from the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, including the Chairs of the International Advisory Committee (IAC), the Sub-Committee on Education and Research (SCEaR), and the Register Sub-Committee (RSC). The podium will explore evolving fields of cooperation such as the preservation of translation heritage, research on lost and dispersed libraries, diasporic literary memory, and the role of literature in the International Memory of the World Register. A highlight of the event may include the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ICLA and UNESCO, marking a new chapter of institutional partnership. |
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ID: 1797
/ Special Session I: 1
Special Sessions Keywords: TBA What is the Memory of the World program and how does it relate to ICLA? UNESCO • Vision, mission, short history and present activities of the Memory of the World program • The Memory of the World International Register • Memory of the World and ICLA: areas of common interest Bibliography
TBA ID: 1798
/ Special Session I: 2
Special Sessions Keywords: Translations, Lost Memory, Metaphors of Memory, International Memory of the World Register The Critical Eye of Comparative Literature Goldsmiths, University of London In my presentation I will consider not only the importance the ICLA’s partnership with the Memory of the World programme, but also how it can provide a necessarily critical eye, thanks to its long history of engaging in and with the criticism and self-criticism of the disciplines of comparative literature, world literature and translation, individually and in their combination, in their histories and their practices. This can bring nuance and complexity to apparently straightforward assumptions about the intrinsic value of activities such as literary comparison, or translation as bridge-building. Bibliography
TBA ID: 1796
/ Special Session I: 3
Special Sessions Keywords: TBA Memory of the World and Comparative Literature: How We Can Work Together. UNESCO The Presentation introduces some fields of education and research that are interesting for both Comparative Literature and the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme (MoW) like the history of translators and translations, the reconstruction of Lost Memory,e.g. of dispersed libraries, the relation between oral literature and documentation, and some more. Bibliography
TBA ID: 1799
/ Special Session I: 4
Special Sessions Keywords: Oral cultures of memory, intercultural, intra-cultural Translation as Palimpsest: From Textual Traces to Cultural Archives Central University of Gujarat, India. Oral cultures of memory conceive of 'texts' and 'archives' differently. While mediating between 'subcultures' and 'dominant cultures', interculturally or intra-culturally, translation often takes on the role of a legitimating agency, thereby misrepresenting the nature of cosmologies they (subcultures) are founded upon. Bibliography
TBA |
| 4:30pm | Opening Ceremony Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom 2025 ICLA OPENING CEREMONY - YouTube70th AnniversaryThe 24th Congress of The International Comparative Literature Association
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| Date: Wednesday, 30/July/2025 | ||
| 1:30pm - 3:00pm | Special Session II: Roundtable on Living With Machines: Comparative Literature, AI, and the Ethics of Digital Imagination Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom Session Chair: Matthew Reynolds, University of Oxford 2025 ICLA SPECIAL SESSION 2 - YouTubeSpecial Session II: Roundtable on Living With Machines: Comparative Literature, AI, and the Ethics of Digital Imagination#5: Wednesday, 7.30, 13:30 am - 15:00 pm
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ID: 1805
/ Special Session II: 1
Special Sessions Keywords: 70th Anniversary, ICLA, National Associations of Comparative Literature, Roundtable, Lightning Talk Special Session II: Roundtable Celebrating 70th Anniversary of the ICLA 1Goldsmiths, UK; 2Picardie-Jules Verne University, France; 3EFLU, India; 4Princeton U; 5U of Sorbonne, France; 6Tsukuba U, Japan; 7U of Chicago, USA; 8UNICAMP, Brazil; 9Central U of Gujarat, India; 10Editor of Recherche littéraire, USA; 11Nanjing University, China; 12U of Birmingham, UK; 13Oxford U; 14Stockholm U Special Session II: Roundtable Celebrating 70th Anniversary of the ICLA: Connecting National Associations of Comparative Literature across Regions and Temporality Chairs: Lucia Boldrini, Goldsmiths, UK, President of the ICLA Anne Duprat, Picardie-Jules Verne University, France, Secretary of the ICLA Ipshita Chanda, EFLU, India, Secretary of the ICLA Speakers: Sandra L. Bermann, Princeton U, USA: President of the ICLA (2019-2022) Anne Tomiche, U of Sorbonne, France, Vice-President of the ICLA Hiraishi Noriko, Tssukuba U, Japan, Vice-President of the ICLA Haun Saussy, U of Chicago, USA, Vice-President of the ICLA Macio Seligmann-Silva, UNICAMP, Brazil, Vice-President of the ICLA E. V. Ramarkrishnan, Central U of Gujarat, India Marc Maufort, Editor of Recherche littéraire, USA He Chengzhou, Nanjing University, China, Emanuelle Santos, Chair of the ECARE/NEXT GEN, U of Birmingham, UK Matthew Reynolds, Chair of Research Committees, Oxford U, UK Stefan Helgesson, Chair of the Nominating Committee, Stockholm U, Sweden Q&A: Bibliography
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| 3:30pm - 5:00pm | Special Session III: Korean Literature, World Literature, and Glocal Publishing: Celebrating Han Kang's Nobel Prize Award Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom 2025 ICLA SPECIAL SESSION 3 - YouTube Special Session III: Korean Literature, World Literature, and Glocal Publishing: Celebrating Han Kang's Nobel Prize Award
Chair: KWAK Hyo Hwan, Ph.D. (Poet, Former President of Literature Translation Institute of Korea)
Speakers:
1. KWAK Hyo Hwan, Ph.D. (Poet, Former President of Literature Translation Institute of Korea) “From 'Globalization of Korean Literature' to 'Korean Literature as World Literature' - The Future of Korean Literature After Han Kang Wins Nobel Prize” Author Han Kang has been selected as the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is a sudden blessing that has come less than 10 years since The Vegetarian was published in the UK in 2015 and won the Booker International Prize the following year, drawing attention from the world of literature. As stated in the reason for selection by the Swedish Academy, Han Kang’s work “achieved powerful poetic prose that confronts historical trauma and reveals the fragility of human life,” the long and extensive world of Han Kang’s works was evaluated. In The Vegetarian, she captivatingly portrayed the violence of norms and customs that bind the family and society through the heroine who refuses to eat meat and tries to become a tree, and in The Boy Comes and We Don’t Say Goodbye, she excelled in dealing with the vulnerability of individuals who were sacrificed in the horrific tragedies caused by great power through the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement and the Jeju April 3 Incident, thereby achieving even deeper literary achievements. However, considering that the Nobel Prize in Literature is more of an award for merit that encompasses the author’s entire literary world and literary life rather than a prize for a work, this award cannot be anything but a surprising event. This Nobel Prize in Literature is not only an award for author Han Kang, but also an award for Korean literature and translation. The aspiration of Korean literature in the periphery to move to the center has been fulfilled by going beyond ‘introducing Korean literature overseas’ and ‘globalizing Korean literature’ to ‘Korean literature as world literature’ and ‘Korean literature read together by people around the world’. Now, Korean literature has opened a path for communication without time difference by being simultaneous with world literature, and has reached a turning point where it has transitioned from being a receiver of world literature to a sender. The power of translation, which has enabled readers around the world to read Korean literature without language and cultural barriers, has played an absolute role in this. And the Korean Literature Translation Institute and Daesan Cultural Foundation have made a great contribution to supporting this for a long time and systematically. Now, after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, it is time to calmly look at the process and meaning of receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature and what Korean literature should do. This is because the Nobel Prize in Literature is an important gateway that Korean literature must pass through, not a goal. Therefore, in this lecture, we will examine the process of Korean literature advancing to world literature, the role and achievements of translation at its core, Korean literary works that have attracted attention in the world literary community, and what Korean literature needs to prepare as world literature.
2. KIM Chunsik (Dongguk U) “Nobel Prize in Literature, and After” This essay critically reflects on the global significance of Korean literature in the wake of Han Kang’s Nobel Prize in Literature. Drawing on the author’s personal experiences as a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley (2004) and a participant in an academic conference in India (2009), the paper explores the tension between center and periphery as a persistent framework in literary and cultural discourse. These episodes underscore how Korean literature has historically occupied a marginal position in global literary hierarchies, yet how such marginality also fosters critical reflections on identity, representation, and power. The essay highlights the Swedish Academy’s appraisal of Human Acts as revealing “historical trauma and the fragility of human life,” arguing that this speaks not only to Han Kang’s literary sensibility but also to the core concerns of contemporary Korean literature. Using the concept of the “politics of mourning,” as theorized by Judith Butler, the author contends that Korean literature engages in an ethical task: to retrieve the voices of the dead and reframe trauma as a shared human condition. Literature thereby becomes a medium that bridges the abyss between human dignity and violence, past suffering and present vulnerability. Ultimately, the author rejects the triumphalist view that Han Kang’s award marks Korean literature’s arrival at the “center” of world literature. Instead, it affirms a longer, ethical trajectory in which Korean literature, shaped by historical wounds and peripheral positions, has always already been global. The essay argues that the true value of Korean literature lies not in global market expansion, but in its sustained engagement with planetary concerns violence, mourning, and coexistence through ethical and imaginative inquiry
3. CHO Hyung-yup (Korea U) “Significance of Han Kang's Nobel Prize in Literature and Her Status in World Literature History”
1. The significance of Han Kang's Nobel Prize in Literature Han Kang's Nobel Prize in Literature can be seen as a great feat for the Republic of Korea, achieved through the combination of four factors: Han Kang's creative ability, the power of Korean literature that made it possible, the translator's ability, and institutional support from the government and the private sector. 2. Han Kang's literary achievements Han Kang's literary achievements are summarized in the expression “powerful poetic prose that confronts historical trauma and reveals the fragility of human life” that the Swedish Academy announced as the reason for her selection when it announced her winning the Nobel Prize in Literature on October 10, 2024. If I were to interpret this reason for her selection in my own way, I would say that “confronting historical trauma” is a “realistic thematic consciousness,” “revealing the fragility of human life” is a “modernist formal experiment,” and “powerful poetic prose” is an “organic style experiment.” So I think that author Han Kang's creative ability is obtained by successfully fusing these three things that are difficult to coexist. In other words, author Han Kang's literary achievements were obtained by independently fusing realistic thematic consciousness such as feminism, ecology, and historical trauma with modernistic formal experiments such as fantasy, aesthetics, composition, and point of view. In fact, realism and modernism are heterogeneous and conflicting literary trends that are difficult to coexist with. I think that the stylistic experiment called 'poetic prose' played a decisive role in fusing these two poles. 3. Han Kang's status in Korean and world literary history So I think that the core characteristic of Han Kang's literature is that he exquisitely fused these three items by putting ‘realistic thematic consciousness’ and ‘modernistic formal experiments’ in a crucible and using the catalyst called ‘organic stylistic experiments.’ Another important point here is that the methodology of stylistic experimentation based on ‘physical sensibility and organic imagination’ is partly an inheritance of the tradition of romanticism and symbolism accepted from Western literature, but also partly an inheritance of our country’s ‘traditional aesthetics’, ‘Korean aesthetics’ and ‘shamanistic native culture’. In the end, Han Kang can be evaluated as having creatively developed a dimension by accepting the three contradictory and conflicting literary lineages of modern Korean literature, realism, modernism, romanticism, and symbolism, which were influenced by world literature, while absorbing Korea’s traditional aesthetics and native culture and creatively fusing them. Therefore, I think that the status of Han Kang’s works in the history of Korean literature and world literature is that he returns the newly developed high-level achievements to Korean literature and world literature, which provided him with literary nutrients.
Discussants:
CHO Hyungrae (Dongguk U) JEONG Gi-Seok (Dongguk U) KIM Eun-seok (Dongguk U)
Han Kang’s Nobel Triumph: Korean Literature’s Global Leap and the Rise of Glocal Publishing
Equally pivotal is the role of glocal publishing in Han Kang’s ascent. The shift from supply-driven to demand-driven translation and publishing, especially through third-generation translators like Deborah Smith and Anton Hur, has enabled Korean literature to thrive abroad. The roundtable highlighted how strategic translation, cultural compatibility, and institutional support—such as from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea and Daesan Foundation—have created a sustainable ecosystem for Korean literature’s global dissemination. Yet, challenges remain: the need for deeper literary infrastructure, improved domestic readership, and balanced translation practices that preserve Korean literary identity while appealing to global audiences. Han Kang’s Nobel win is not just a personal achievement but a milestone in Korea’s literary globalization, urging continued investment in both local depth and international reach. | |
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ID: 1825
/ Special Session III: 1
Special Sessions Keywords: Nobel Prize in literature, Korean literature, world literature After the Nobel Prize in Literature: Korean Literature and World Literature Dongguk University Let me begin with a reflection that might seem like a passing thought—based on a very personal experience. In 2004, I was a visiting scholar at the Center for Korean Studies at UC Berkeley, not far from San Francisco, sharing a small research space with other international scholars. Thanks to the generosity of Professor Claire Yu, who was then the director of the Korean Studies Center, I occasionally had the opportunity to teach Korean literature to students. Most of them were majoring in East Asian comparative cultures and had completed an intermediate level of Korean. Although they could understand some Korean, they knew almost nothing about Korean literature. Teaching Korean fiction to such students in the original language was both unfamiliar and somewhat uncomfortable for me. From the students’ perspective, they were listening to a “native lecture” on Korean literature. But from my own position—as a scholar of Korean literature attending lectures in English on literary theory and comparative literature in the United States—it all felt somewhat discordant and ironic. Frankly, I had to constantly hear people ask, “Why would a person with a Ph.D. in Korean literature come all the way to America?” And since my English was poor, I was always inwardly intimidated, often feeling a sense of defeat, like a young person from a colonial periphery. In 2004, although the Korean Wave (Hallyu) had just begun to spread among Asian Americans in the U.S., for most white Americans, Korea was still an unknown and “strange” country. I was just a nameless foreigner from such a place. Bibliography
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| Date: Thursday, 31/July/2025 | |
| 9:00am - 10:40am | Keynotes: Zhenzhao Nie & Wen-chin Ouyang Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom Session Chair: Byung-Yong Son, Kyungnam University Nie Zhenzhao, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies/Zhejiang University, People’s Republic of China “Oral Literature and the Cognitive Principles of Brain Text” Both oral literature and written literature exist by virtue of an underlying text. When classified according to the medium in which a text is embodied, texts can be divided into three categories: brain text, written text, and electronic text. Brain text refers to the memories preserved within the human brain; written text denotes characters or symbols recorded on material substrates; and electronic text comprises binary codes stored via digital devices. Among these three forms, brain text is the primordial source, with written symbols representing its symbolic manifestation and electronic text its digital form. For a long time, scholarship has maintained that before the advent of written symbols, oral literature was not text-mediated but transmitted solely by word of mouth, thereby rendering oral literature a literature devoid of text. However, this traditional dichotomy between oral and written literature obscures the underlying cognitive basis common to all literary forms, for it fails to distinguish between the method of oral transmission and the literary substance itself. In reality, it is not oral literature that is passed on by word of mouth but the brain text preserved in the human mind. Prior to the emergence of written symbols, the earliest literary forms, such as poetry and narrative, were stored in the brain in the form of neural-cognitive structures, thereby constituting brain text. Brain text is a biological text and it embodies the perceptions and cognitions of phenomena as preserved in memory, comprising image-based concepts derived from sensory experiences alongside abstract concepts expressed through linguistic symbols. Thus, oral literature exists through the mediation of brain text. Once written symbols appeared, the recorded versions of oral literature essentially captured the underlying brain text. Without brain text, there would be no literary content to transmit orally, and consequently, oral literature would not exist. Wen-chin Ouyang, SOAS, University of London, UK “Shadow Theatre, Ways of Seeing and Comparative Literature: Towards Multilingualism as Method” Light, darkness and shadow are integral to seeing, imagination and works of art. Science, such as optics, and technology, such as spectacles, camera, and film projector, are today indispensable in how we visualise the world in our representation of it and, more importantly, how we receive and comprehend a work of art. Shadow Theatre, as story, performance and entanglement of literature and technology, offers multiple avenues for theorizing and practicing comparative literature without being bugged down by the modern temporary frame and the West influencing the East paradigm or abandoning the role cultural encounters play in intercultural exchanges. The evolution of Shadow Theatre has been informed by its travels around the world across regions, languages, storytelling traditions, and cultures as well as developments in science and technology. It is multilingual in three ways. It speaks the languages of the parts of the world it has sojourned, it combines word, image, sound and performance in its expression, and it entangles science and technology in works of art. It points to multilingualism as method for networking languages, storytelling traditions, literature, science and technology, and the world. |
| 11:00am - 12:30pm | Special Session IV: Roundtable Celebrating 70th Anniversary of the ICLA Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom “Bridging Seventy Years of Comparative Literary Dialogue: Past, Present, and Future of the ICLA.” Chairs: Lucia Boldrini, Goldsmiths, UK, President of the ICLA (2022-2025) Speakers: Sandra L. Bermann, Princeton U, USA: President of the ICLA (2019-2022) Q&A: To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA), we are honored to host a special celebratory event under the theme “Bridging Seventy Years of Comparative Literary Dialogue: Past, Present, and Future.” This event will feature key members of the Executive Council, including the President, Vice-Presidents, Secretaries, and Research Committee Chairs. Approximately fifteen distinguished representatives from around the world will gather to reflect on their scholarly contributions and leadership within ICLA, celebrating the Association’s enduring legacy and global impact. Each invited speaker will deliver a five-minute lightning talk, offering a concise yet meaningful overview of their specialized area of research in comparative literature. These presentations will also highlight their long-standing engagement with ICLA and how their academic journey has aligned with the Association’s collective mission to foster cross-cultural literary dialogue and international scholarly collaboration. This event not only honors ICLA’s rich history but also looks ahead to its evolving role in shaping the future of comparative literary studies. |
| 3:30pm - 4:20pm | Keynote: Sandra Bermann Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom Session Chair: JIHEE HAN, Gyeongsang National University Sandra Bermann, Princeton University, USA “Translation, Language, and Literary ‘Reciprocity’: Toward a Pluralist Comparative Literature” This talk considers new developments in translation theory, particularly those dealing with multilingualism, translanguaging, and machine translation (with a focus on AI). It does so while bearing in mind the importance of decolonial frameworks. Looking to a number of literary examples, I ask how these theoretical perspectives might come together to offer a Comparative Literature with a greater emphasis on the living complexity and potential reciprocity of languages, translation, and literary study. |
| 4:30pm | General Assembly Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom 2025 ICLA Congress General Assembly |