The symposium

What is the use of literary study now, in this new university [that has lost the guiding mission that has sustained it since the early nineteenth century]? Should, ought, or must we still study literature? What is the source now of the obligation to study literature? Who or what addresses to us a call to do so? Why should we do it? To what purpose? Can literary study still be defended as a socially useful part of university research and teaching or is it just a vestigial remnant that will vanish as other media become more dominant in the new global society that is rapidly taking shape?

(J. Hillis Miller, "Governing the Ungovernable: Literary Study in the Transnational University", Between the Lines 2:2, 1995)

Hospitalities of Literature | (teaching after ...) is a one-day symposium. It immediately follows the Mourning and its Hospitalities conference, and continues its themes into the pragmatic, professional, institutional and cultural contexts of teaching.

The symposium will involve the participation of the conference's plenary speakers, in close discussion. There will be separate bookings for this event. All are welcome!

Discussion will be initiated by a small number of brief commissioned discussion papers, which will not be delivered at the symposium but circulated in advance to participants.