Moving beyond the monolithic notion of world literature – commonly associated with cultural connectivity and transnational interaction but also with monolingual sameness – our debate opens to a multiplicity of emergent “comparative moods” that have come to re-define research in the modern languages and that are presented here, from the perspective of Comparative Literature, as a cause for optimism and mutual renewal of purpose.

This symposium celebrates the launch of the Comparative Literature Section of Modern Languages Open. Michael Cronin, Andrew Ginger, Florian Mussgnug, Francesca Orsini, Haun Saussy and Galin Tihanov were invited to identify a theme or issue facing the discipline of Comparative Literature today, and to explore it within a Modern Languages framework.

Each piece can be read as a manifesto of sorts: posing new questions, sketching out new areas of enquiry, and suggesting new frameworks of thought.