UB Comparative Literature Deparment to Hold "Feast of Paradigms"

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Department of Comparative Literature in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences will present a two-day conference titled "A Feast of Paradigms" March 26-27 on the UB North (Amherst) Campus and in the Market Arcade Complex in downtown Buffalo.

The conference will run from 12:30-5 p.m. on March 26 in the Center for the Arts Screening Room on the North Campus. It will continue from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on March 27 on the third floor of the Market Arcade Complex, 617 Main St., Buffalo.

All events are free and open to the public.

The conference, which commemorates the department's 25th anniversary, will feature some of the department's more notable graduates, who will discuss how their work has adjusted to new theoretical paradigms in the field developed since they were students.

Event organizers hope the conference also will chart developments in comparative literature over the past two decades.

J. Hillis Miller of the University of California, Irvine, an innovator in comparative literature, will give the keynote address at 1 p.m. March 26. His talk will explore the question: "Will Comparative Literature Survive the Globalization of the University and the New Regime of Telecommunications?"

Miller's talk will be followed by one by Ewa Ziarek of the University of Notre Dame, who will discuss "'Love Letters': The Question of Sexual Difference in Ethical Criticism" and a talk by Allen Stoekl of Pennsylvania State University, who will speak on "Economy and Fiction Revisited."

The conference also will feature faculty members from Duke University, the Ohio State University, the University of Oregon and Central Connecticut State University.

The conference is being sponsored by the Julian Park Chairs in the Department of Comparative Literature; the Melodia E. Jones Chair in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures in the UB College of Arts and Sciences; the Andrew V.V. Raymond Chair, Eugenio

Donato Chair, James H. McNulty Chair and David Gray Chair of Poetry and Letters, all in the Department of English in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, and the Buffalo Theory Graduate Group.

For more information, call the Department of Comparative Literature at (716) 645-2066.