Dear President Naylor,
I am writing as a young academic who has greatly benefitted from contact with the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. I have taken part in the 2008 Graduate Conference on 'Recognition' and I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of the work presented, the excellent organization and the resourcefulness of the centre's graduate students and staff. Not only did the organizers secured the participation of some of the bigger names in the CompLit world, but they also managed to find a publisher for the conference proceedings.
Initiatives such as this are crucial to the development of our discipline, and, as testified by the hundreds of letters you are receiving, the Centre itself is a point of reference for scholars of Comparative Literature worldwide.
At a time when many Universities around the world are setting up or expanding Comparative Literature Programmes, your decision to close an established Centre such as yours, with a long tradition and a high international reputation simply defies belief.
I strongly hope you will re-evaluate your decision and avoid measures which will damage not only the institution you are responsible for, but an entire community of students and scholars.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Rosa Mucignat
Lecturer in Comparative Literature
King's College London
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