Scholars will reflect on the future of comparative literature studies at a campus conference marking the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Yale's undergraduate major in literature.

Titled "Changing the Map: The Worlds of Comparative Literature," the conference will be held Friday and Saturday, Feb. 5 and 6, in the auditorium of the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St. The event is sponsored by the Whitney Humanities Center and the department of comparative literature. It is free and open to the public.

The conference will explore the status of literary studies in light of the contemporary world's increasing emphasis on cross-cultural contacts, transnationalism and globalization -- changes which have forced many academic disciplines to incorporate a more comparative approach. Leading scholars of comparative literature will look at their field's traditional comparative approach, and will speculate on the changes that this increasingly global sensibility has wrought on the historical institutions devoted to -- as well as the very concepts of -- "literature" and "culture."

There will be four panel discussions: "Texts and Teaching," considering how changes in modern sensibilities have reshaped the teaching of literature, at
3:15 p.m. on Friday; "The Uses of Theory," examining the historical and emerging theoretical concerns of a discipline in the process of reinventing itself, at 10 a.m. on Saturday; "New Directions for the Field," assessing the nature of this reinvention, at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday; and "The Globalization of Comparative Literature," offering a forum for general discussion of these topics, at 3:45 p.m. on Saturday.

For more information about the conference, contact the Whitney Humanities Center at 432-0673; or send email to vilashini.cooppan@yale.edu.