Jonathan Allan, University of Toronto

Dear President Naylor, Provost Misak, and Dean Meric Gertler:

This letter is with respect to the Strategic Planning Committee’s recommendation to dis-establish the Centre for Comparative Literature. In previous correspondence regarding similar but different matters (email regarding Conferences at the Centre for Comparative Literature, July 15, 2010), I have been referred to the report presented to the academic community at large. Admittedly this is a very interesting and important position paper being proposed by the Faculty of Arts and Science and its Strategic Planning Committee. But, let me propose one question about this document, though surely more will arise. In the report, we are told: “we have continued to add new units to the Faculty [of Arts and Science] over the past several years, most of them centres, institutes or programs, without due regard to our limited ability to support these initiatives. The risk is that we have spread our finite resources too thinly, to the possible detriment of all programs throughout the Faculty” (6). I would agree with the report that this is a concern; but my question becomes: if the Faculty of Arts and Science is genuinely concerned with these “finite resources,” why then are we told, pages later (cf. pp. 23-24), of the creation of a new department?

Let us consider this proposal further, “In making this recommendation,” the authors of the report write, “the Committee believes the proposed new department will succeed in attracting more students to work in an area where the Faculty offers real strengths” (23). Is this not already what is happening in the Centre for Comparative Literature? But more to the point, would this opening of a new department, which is already predicted to be very successful, not just end up being dis-established in a matter of years? Consider the case of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies as an example, the report reads, “the Committee noted that issues pertaining to transnationalism and diasporic communities have now attained a high level of prominence within research and teaching activities of many individual units. In effect, the Committee concluded that the Centre has succeeded in its mandate to inspire greater interest in the study and teaching of these phenomena” (19).

I am not arguing against the proposed Department of Earth Sciences, but my questions are two-fold: 1) if the department is predicted to be a success, will it not be dis-established within due-course, perhaps as quickly as CDTS?; 2) if the Faculty of Arts and Science has limited “finite resources” (6), how can it afford to be opening new programs whilst dis-establishing others?

In this spirit, I want to urge the Strategic Planning Committee, the President and the Provost of the University to seriously consider the plans that they are proposing. The Centre for Comparative Literature is a phenomenon unto itself. It has been home to the greatest Canadian intellectuals and now most of us are sent into exile and will suddenly represent a (pseudo-) diasporic community of our own. I feel no need to reiterate the history and success of the Centre for Comparative Literature as I am sure enough letters have already illustrated this point. I urge the Strategic Planning Committee, the Dean of Arts and Science, the President, and the Provost to sit down and seriously consider what the loss of the Centre for Comparative Literature will mean to the University of Toronto and how this loss will undoubtedly affect the University of Toronto’s reputation at home and abroad.

Yours truly,

Jonathan A. Allan
SSHRC Doctoral Fellow
Centre for Comparative Literature
University of Toronto, Canada


CC: Dr. Neil ten Kortenaar, Director, Centre for Comparative Literature
Dr. Jill Ross, Graduate Coordinator, Centre for Comparative Literature
Dr. Ato Quayson, Director, Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies
Save Comparative Literature Campaign