Exploring Methods in Comparative Literature and the Global Humanities
Comparative Methods Lab
The Comparative Methods Lab is a transdisciplinary research network exploring new methodologies for the comparative cultural study of our one and many worlds. By interrogating and re-energising concepts developed from the long history of the study of world literature, media, and culture, it brings together scholars from around the world intent on exploring comparative methodologies.
Research
Learn about our members’ collaborative and individual research projects and publications
Network
Meet our team and connect with our growing global network
Activities
Follow our seminar series, reading groups, conferences, symposia, and networking activities
Resources
These free materials are provided by members of the Global Comparative Methods network to support various aspects of research into Comparative Literature and more.
Research Materials
Suggested bibliographies, research summaries, pamphlets, and methodological reflections.
Teaching Materials
Suggested syllabi, lesson plans, and advice for teaching the study of world literature, media, and culture.
2025 Symposium: “Comparative Methods: Worlds, Institutions, Disciplines”
25 June 2025, Northeastern University London and Online
The Comparative Methods Lab is excited to announce its inaugural symposium on the theme of “World, Institutions, Disciplines.”
At a time when economic and political pressures are forcing large-scale reorganizations of university infrastructures and new configurations of a multi-polar world, this one-day symposium will address past, present, and future methods in comparative literature, a discipline that has always sought to examine and reimagine different formations of the world and/or worlds.
As a discipline in the institution of the university, comparative literature flourished under world conditions that are under radical pressure and transformation. Even as the world as an object of study is transforming rapidly and demanding new forms of comparison, the world of the institution no longer seems to accommodate comparative literature as a discipline. This symposium will ask about the continuing viability of comparative methods to address this twin crisis. Are there comparative methodologies that might offer paths to engaging and reframing these twinned institutional and historical problems? Where (and how) can the methods developed in the history and present of the discipline intervene?