Jill Ross, University of Toronto

President David Naylor
University of Toronto
Simcoe Hall, Room 2006
King’s College Circle
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 1A1

Dear President Naylor,

As the only faculty member with a majority appointment in the Centre for Comparative Literature, I must express to you the sense of shock and dismay at the potential loss of my academic and intellectual home here at the University. The Centre has provided myself, and all my colleagues, with the space to teach a broad range of subjects, across languages, disciplines and periods. The classroom experience at the Centre for Comparative Literature is truly a meeting of minds. As a medievalist working in Spanish, Catalan, Latin and Hebrew literatures, my classes at the Centre have been an open forum where Comparative Literature students trained in critical theory, and medievalists grounded in the culture, history and society of the European Middle Ages can come together with those conversant with modern Latin American or medieval Japanese literatures to challenge each other’s epistemological and theoretical frameworks and to profit from the more specialized knowledge each student brings from his or her respective departments. Such a dynamic and engaging classroom experiences are at the core of the Centre’s mission – the dialogic exploration of how languages, cultures, geographies and philosophies cross-fertilize each other.

The closing of the Centre would not only constitute the loss of unique and exciting classroom experiences for students, but would also have a negative impact on fostering the kind of innovative research by faculty nourished by such pedagogical practice. The Centre’s reputation has been built upon and sustained by the synergy between its faculty and students. The many wonderful scholars produced by the Centre, now teaching all over Canada and around the world, are a testament to the Centre’s commitment to teaching and research.

I would urge you to reconsider the recommendation to ‘distestablish’ the Centre. The loss of the Centre would not only be a blow to the standing of the University of Toronto as a hub of great research, but also to the university’s commitment to forward-looking, global, multidisciplinary education in the Humanities.



Yours sincerely



Jill Ross



Associate Professor
Centre for Comparative Literature
University of Toronto