adpcl
Association of Departments and Programs of Comparative Literature

Meetings and Minutes

The ADPCL Constitution indicates that the President will convene a meeting of the Executive Committee once a year, or as needed; a business meeting once a year; and general meetings every two years, or more often if the Executive Committee so directs.

Recently the ADPCL has been meeting once or twice a year, at the MLA (Modern Language Association) conference in December and/or at the ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) conference in the Spring. The business meeting has been held at the ACLA.  Click here for April 2003 minutes.   Click here for December 2003 minutes.  Click here for April 2004 minutes.  Our recent and upcoming MLA and ACLA sessions are listed below:

Sessions at the December 2003 meeting of the Modern Language Association

1.  Meeting for Comp Lit Administrators.  Saturday, December 27, 3:00 p.m.  At the close of the MLA's 1:00-3:00 p.m. meetings for English Department Administrators and Foreign Language Department Administrators.

2.  Session 406.  "The Crisis in Scholarly Publishing:  Comparative Literature and Literatures in the Smaller-Market Foreign Languages." Sunday, December 28, 7:15-8:30 p.m., Solana Room, San Diego Marriott Hotel.

Presiding:  Caroline D. Eckhardt, Penn State University

a.  "A Learned Society's Perspective:  What Can Professional Associations Do?"  Pauline Ruth Yu, Univ. of California, Los Angeles, President of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)

b.  "A University Press Editor's Perspective:  The Economic Crisis for Presses and the Options for Publishing on Foreign Language Literatures," Mary E. Murrell, Princeton Univ. Press

c.  "A Department Head's Perspective:  Economies of Scarcity and Economies of Excess--between Paper and Electronic Publishing," C. P. Haun Saussy, Stanford University.

ADPCL Sessions at the April 2004 meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association

The ADPCL sponsored the following sessions:

1.  Meeting for All Comp Lit Administrators.  Panel Leader:  Caroline D. Eckhardt, Penn State.

This was a session on administrative topics for all program representatives (department or program heads, graduate or undergraduate directors, chairs of curricula or committees, other representatives).  Topics included strategies for dealing with funding cutbacks, merger pressure, the undergraduate curriculum, relations with neighboring departments, responses to the crisis in book publishing, etc., and the role of the ADPCL (brief business meeting).  This session was held on Sunday, April 18, 8:00-10:00 a.m. in the Library.

2.  The Job Market, Academic and Non-Academic:  A Session Co-Sponsored with the Graduate Caucus. 

This session was held on Friday, April 16, 2:00-3:00 p.m. in Crowne Plaza Room 161.

Sessions at the December 2004 meeting of the Modern Language Association

1.  Meeting for Comp Lit Administrators.  Details to be announced.

2.  Special Session:  "New Institutional Forms of Comparison." Speakers:  Katie Trumpener (Yale), William Moebius (University of Massachusetts), Gayatri Spivak (Columbia).  Time and place to be announced when the MLA information is available.

ADPCL Project on the Undergraduate Curriculum

At the upcoming Spring 2005 meeting of the ACLA, and the December 2005 meeting of the MLA, the ADPCL plans to hold sessions that focus on the Undergraduate Curriculum (to replace a conference on this topic that had been planned for June 2004).  Pleae contact Corinne Scheiner at Colorado College if you are interested in participating in these sessions or in otherwise contributing to a Report on the Undergraduate Curriculum.

There may also be periodic special meetings. During the formation of the ADPCL a special meeting was held at the University of Illinois, and it has occasionally been suggested that an early summertime meeting would be a good idea. Anyone wishing to make such a proposal is encouraged to contact the ADPCL (adpcl@psu.edu).

As suggested by the schedule information above, aside from administrative sessions the ADPCL has regularly sponsored sessions on professional concerns.  At the ACLA, each year we've offered a workshop on the job market, which is usually eagerly attended by job-seekers, and sometimes a workshop for new Comparative Literature administrators. We have also held sessions focusing on topics such as professional development in Comparative Literature, the management of curriculum change, relations between Comparative Literature units and other fields, and other matters of interest to comparatists at large.  Volunteers both to propose topics and to serve on panels are welcome: contact the ADPCL (adpcl@psu.edu).