Comp Lit Luncheon Series

The Comparative Literature Luncheon is a weekly informal lunchtime gathering of students, faculty, and other members of the University community.  Each week there is a short (20 minute) presentation, by a visitor or a local speaker, on a topic related to any humanities discipline.

Jonathan Abel (jea17@psu.edu) and Shuang Shen (sxs1075@psu.edu) are the coordinators for the series this semester. We meet Mondays in 102 Kern at about 12:15 p.m.  You can bring your lunch or buy a lunch tray in Kern Cafeteria (next door) and bring it into 102. Coffee and tea are provided in 102 (no charge).  The speaker will begin at about 12:30 p.m. Allowing a few minutes for discussion, we'll conclude in time for classes that meet at 1:25 p.m.  All students, faculty, colleagues, and friends are welcome.

Click here for information regarding our luncheons from previous semesters.

We're on the air: Recordings of these presentations are broadcast on C-NET, the regional cable network for educational and government programming.   Each program is usually broadcast 4 times in the week following the date listed here.  Click here for the schedule of broadcasts for this semester. Click here for C-NET archive of broadcast in streaming video.

Or, download the talks at iTunes U.

The 2012-2013 Comparative Literature Luncheon is sponsored in part by a generous contribution from the Center for Global Studies.

SPRING SEMESTER, 2013

Monday, January 28, 2013
"Russian-American Literature in the 21st Century: The Sequel," Adrian Wanner, Penn State

Monday, February 4, 2013
"Translating Calligraphy," Abé Markus Nornes, University of Michigan

Monday, Feburary 11, 2013
"Digital Tools/Early Modern Books," Sarah Werner, Folger Shakespeare Library

Monday, February 18, 2013
"Chimera of Correspondence," Eduardo Cadava, Princeton University

Monday, February 25, 2013
"Personhood and the Subliminal Mind: Yogacara Buddhism versus Freud," Tao Jiang, Rutgers University

Monday, March 11, 2013
"Talking about Chinese Poetry in Modern Japan," Matthew Fraleigh, Brandeis University

Monday, March 18, 2013
"Public Privacies: Forms of Self and Nation in Recent South African Autobiography," Gabeba Baderoon, Penn State

Monday, March 25, 2013
"Of Maps and Mannequins: Dung Kai Cheung, Hong Kong, and the Logic of the Fetish," Carlos Rojas, Duke University

Monday, April 1, 2013
"Disappearing History:  Scenes of Trauma in the Theater of Human Rights (A reading of Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden)," Cathy Caruth, Cornell University

Monday, April 8, 2013
"Zombie Metabolism: Performance, Consumption and the Promise of Infection," Atia Sattar, Penn State

Monday, April 15, 2013
"Black Women and the New Pornography," Ariane Cruz, Penn State

Monday, April 22, 2013
"Emotion vs. Strategy: On the New Media Experience of Space," Marie-Laure Ryan, Independent scholar

Monday, April 29, 2013
The "Nerds, Wonks, and Neo-Cons" symposium