William Ferris, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Dear Dean Gertler,

I was shocked to learn that the University of Toronto has recommended that the Centre for Comparative Literature be “disestablished” as of 2011. The Centre, founded in 1969 by Northrop Frye, is the premier site for the study of comparative literature in Canada, and the home of three past presidents of the Modern Language Association of America (Northrop Frye, Mario Valdés, and Linda Hutcheon). The Centre will no longer be able to admit students to the PhD or MA degrees, and it will be reduced to a collaborative, non-degree-granting program in a School for Languages and Literatures. Such a move has grave implications for the role of literature and the humanities in the academy.

In today’s globalized, multicultural world, the discipline of comparative literature is more important than ever. Because of its crossing of cultural, disciplinary and linguistic borders, and its self-reflexive and critical modes of thinking about literature and culture, the research nurtured by the Centre’s faculty and students is crucial for a full engagement with the complexities of a multinational world, and it has important implications for the practice of other disciplines. Such research cannot be done in national language and literature departments.

When I served as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1997-2001, I strongly supported our nation’s interdisciplinary centres. These programs are uniquely qualified to address the complex issues our society faces today. You have a critically important resource that builds on the legacy of Northrop Frye and brings international recognition to the University of Toronto.

I urge you to reverse the recommendation to close the Centre and to strongly support the long international tradition of excellence and innovation of the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto.

Sincerely,

William Ferris



Center for the Study of the American South
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
410 East Franklin Street, CB # 9127
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-9127

Eva Kushner, Emerita, University of Toronto, response to Dean Gertler

Dear Dean Gertler,

thank you for answering my letter of July 12 to President Naylor. Your letter rightly draws my attention to the Academic Plan in its entirety and to the forthcoming discussions. These matters have been fully covered in much many-sided recent correspondence in which I have also taken part.

Today I wish once more to draw your attention to the particular case of the Centre for Comparative Literature, for a very specific reason. At this very moment the Executive Council of the International Comparative Literature Association is meeting near Seoul, South Korea, in preparation for the congress of the Association which will begin, in Seoul, in a few days. The International Federation for Modern Languages and Literatures, of which the I.C.L.A is a member in what I like to call the "UNESCO pyramid" of international learned societies, is also holding a meeting there. Many of the colleagues participating in these meetings are aware of the situation of the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto because of a multiplicity of reciprocal ties. If the pressure on the Centre continues, the image of the University of Toronto is bound to be affected in the eyes of the international Comparative Literature community, for two reasons mainly: the dismantling of the doctoral program, and the implication that Comparative Literature in its integrity is not an essential discipline at an excellent University. Please believe that I am not dramatizing. I sincerely hope that this particular case  (among all the others with which I realize the Faculty is faced) can be creatively and constructively handled in direct consultation with those affected by the proposed plan.

With apologies for disturbing you at this time, and many thanks for your attention

Eva Kushner, O.C., F.R.S.C.