Location: Vienna University, Vienna
Deadline for Panel, abstracts in English or in French by 31 August 2015

Group Section:
Cultural Anxiety as Creative Potency of Cosmopolitan Perspective in Comparative Literature

In his essay entitled "Occasional Paris", Henry James begins by stating that "IT is hard to say exactly what is the profit of comparing one race with another, and weighing in opposed groups the manners and customs of neighbouring countries; but it is certain that as we move about the world we constantly indulge in this exercise. This is especially the case if we happen to be infected with the baleful spirit of the cosmopolite—that uncomfortable consequence of seeing many lands and feeling at home in none." The "habit of comparing" as cosmopolite exercise generates anxiety, a kind of cultural condition, due to the "uncomfortable consequence of seeing many lands and feeling at home in none."
The purpose of this seminar is twofold: 1) to examine different aspects and levels of cultural anxiety created in the process of forming "the habit of comparing"; 2) to define the ways of how cosmopolitan sensibilities take shape in terms of cultural dichotomy between the native and the foreign, by consequence pursue inner unity of the two.
By opening up the discussion of cultural anxiety, we seek to re-configurate a new cosmopolitan perspective in comparative literature. This will be done by analyzing specifically cosmopolitan literary issues and concerns raised continuously and/or rarely in comparative literary studies.

*Contact Information: eureka@snu.ac.kr
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This Group Section invites proposals for individual papers (twenty minutes) and three-paper panels.
To submit an abstract in English or in French, please visit the 2016 ICLA website http://icla2016.univie.ac.at/abstract-submission/ and submit directly on the website via "ONLINE SUBMISSION [to Individual proposal submission (group sections)].

Deadline for submission: August 31, 2015.