Saint-Pierre et Miquelon
August 11, 2010
President David Naylor
Simcoe Hall
University of Toronto
Cc: Provost Cheryl Misak, Dean Meric Gertler, Prof. Neil ten Kortennar, savecomplit
Re : the disestablishment of the Centre for Comparative Literature
Dear President Naylor,
I have from the start endorsed the petition by the students of the Centre for Comparative Literature who oppose the decision to disestablish the Centre. If I have refrained from writing until now, it is because I know too well that my status as former director, instead of helping the cause of the Centre, could have been perceived as supporting partisan motivation. As the Bible says “no man is a prophet in his own country”. Now that the national and international academic community, through a petition of more than 6000 signatures and numerous letters addressed to you, has had the opportunity to express its views, I join my voice to theirs to denounce a shocking and ill-advised decision.
I do not intend to offer a full defense for the Centre. Many excellent arguments have already been provided in the letters which were sent to you, and I do not want to repeat what was previously so well said. Drawing on my experience as a former director, I simply wish to add a few remarks.
Far from being an ad hoc program which would serve a specific and temporary purpose, as the decanal decision seems to imply, the Centre was created under the leadership of Northrop Frye more than 40 years ago, to be the locus of a discipline which appeared in the 1830s in Europe before being taught at Harvard University at the end of the 19th century. Since then, Comparative Literature programs have flourished in the best universities around the world and especially in the US. What is unique to Comparative Literature as a discipline is that it allows a dialogue among national literatures, with the arts and other disciplines from the angle of cultural inquiries. Furthermore, it reflects upon and theorizes its own practice. If theory has to some extent penetrated the language and literature departments at the University of Toronto, it is certainly not present in these units to the same depth and with the same purpose as it is in Comparative Literature. In addition, the Centre is the only academic unit at the University of Toronto where graduate students can pursue research on several national literatures in the original languages. Since its inception in 1969, the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto has been a highly dynamic and productive academic unit, praised for the quality of its programs, the excellence of its faculty, teaching and research. It has always attracted top students from Canada and abroad where it contributes to enhance the reputation of the University. One has not to take my word for this, but simply to look at where the signatures on the petition are coming from and where the letters which were sent to you originated. Moreover, the large number of applications the Centre receives each year from abroad confirms how well it is regarded in foreign academic circles. Along the years the Centre has acknowledged the changes that occurred in the discipline, introduced new methodologies, promoted interdisciplinary inquiry and teaching, and went beyond its Eurocentric origins to welcome seminars and research in Asian, Latin American, African literature and culture. Remaining at the forefront of cross-cultural exchange, literary theory and innovative inquiry, the Centre for Comparative Literature is not simply another unit in the Faculty of Arts and Science, but stands at the very heart of the Humanities at the University of Toronto. Recommending its disestablishment is not only ill-advised, it is an absurd attack against academic excellence, a crime against Humanities. Such a move would deeply hurt the reputation of the University of Toronto in Canada and abroad.
I urge you to reconsider such a short-sighted and counterproductive decision.
Sincerely,
Roland Le Huenen, D. Lit (honoris causa), FRSC
Professor of French and Comparative Literature
Former Director of COL (1998-2009)
University of Toronto
