Most theoretical models of intermediality are inherently epistemological: media studies, including intermedial studies, basically investigates, criticizes and historicizes all the different ways of perceiving the world by way of different apparatus or communicative entities which may be more or less technical, advanced and complex.

However, in recent decades a new set of questions has occurred, approaching the world not only epistemologically but also ontologically: such questions are often subsumed under the heading of New Materialism(s): ontological ideas relating to process philosophy and studies of emergent qualities have become more and more prominent in Media- as well as Literary – and Gender Studies. Such an ontological frame is of special relevance to Comparative Literature, where it raises important questions on the nature, practice, and relevance of comparison, and indeed of the notion of literature itself.

As the integration of such non-substantialist approaches within intermedial studies and comparative literature is still in its early stages, these theoretical-methodological relations deserve closer academic attention. The general aim of this panel is therefore to investigate in depth the possible relations between intermedial studies and new materialist methodologies.