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: 1st Aug 2025, 12:58:53am KST

 
Only Sessions at Date / Time 
 
 
Session Overview
Session
Special Session I: UNESCO Memory of the World (MoW)
Time:
Tuesday, 29/July/2025:
11:00am - 12:30pm

Session Chair: Youngmin Kim, Dongguk University
Location: KINTEX 1 Grand Ballroom


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
Chair, AILC/ICLA Standing Research Committee on Translation Studies

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
Chair, AILC/ICLA Standing Research Committee on Translation Studies 


Session Abstract

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. 


External Resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXPWPH6PQF0&t=141s
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Presentations
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?

Jan Bos

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

Lucia Boldrini

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.

Lothar Jordan

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

E.V. Ramakrishnan

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