`HISTORIES OF LITERATURE': A ROUND TABLE
THE OLD GYMNASIUM BUILDING, 
GALLERY OF MODERN ART, EDINBURGH, 
21-22 FEBRUARY, 1997.

The parallel publication of two histories of literature dealing with 
major European cultures is a rare opportunity to take stock of 
`a genre of scholarship which raises almost as many questions as
it offers to answer. The ideal solution would be to compile a monumental
`history of histories of literature', but, in the meantime, reflection
by practitioners and debate from consumers seems both timely 
and profitable. In this round table, the accent is on exploration and
constructive enquiry rather than the reiteration of fixed positions. The 
organisers feel that their efforts will have been rewarded if as many 
people as possible have had their say, and everyone has gone home 
from the Gallery of Modern Art with new ideas to think about and 
old ideas to reassess.

The round table has been made possible by the generous assistance of the 
following, to whom we offer our public gratitude:

Austrian Cultural Institute, London
Cambridge University Press
Cuisine d'Odile. Edinburgh
Einaudi Scuola, Turin-Milan
Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
Giuliano's, Edinburgh
Goethe Institut, Glasgow
Graduate School of Modern Languages, Edinburgh University
Italian Institute and Consulate, Edinburgh
Loescher, Turin
The Italian Consortium, Scotland

FRIDAY PROGRAMME

5.30pm: Registration (tea available)

6.15: Presentation of the Cambridge Histories of German
and Italian Literatures: a question and answer session with the editors
Professor Helen Watanabe O'Kelly (German); Professors Peter Brand 
and Lino Pertile (Italian); the interviewers will be Professor A. W. 
Barker and Professor R. Ceserani.

7.30: Reception

SATURDAY PROGRAMME 

The aim of the round table is to facilitate, and bring
into the open, discussion about the decision-making 
processes which lie behind the construction of literary 
histories. Listed below are only a few of the potential 
directions the discussion could take. Please feel free, 
at the sessions, to redefine, amplify, refine, reject the 
topics as presented here - that is what the round table is for!


9.45 am: First Session - The Canon?: 

- the role of literary histories in recording, accepting, 
challenging (eg `out with dead white males'), redrawing 
the canon (eg `are some forms of publicity "literature"'?); 

- the canon itself as an object of literary history (the tracing 
of its evolution as an end in itself); sectorial canons 
(eg generic, political, religious, gendered etc) versus 
comprehensive, integrative models (when does separate 
treatment become a ghetto?); 

- the selection of writing as representative or exceptional 
(does one depict an epoch by the salon des refuses or by 
those who enjoyed contemporary acclaim but subsequent 
oblivion? in other words the relative merits of the contemporary 
versus the posthumous).

- the very recent past: the terminus of the present and the 
role of histories in the shaping of the as yet unshaped;

11.00am: Coffee

11.15 Second Session - Design Criteria: 

- narrative driven by `cultural mentalities' or `literary events'? 

- the place of literary criticism in the criteria of construction; 

- the value systems inherent in the axes used (periodisation; 
ideological or theoretical basis; canon as value system; concept, 
if any, of genre; linguistic or regional coverage; competing
concepts of history and their potential and limitations as 
intellectual programmes for literary history); 

- presence of implicit value systems also in the dictionary or 
encyclopaedic format (choice of entries, length devoted, 
criteria adopted by editors); 

- the role of explicit design statements in single-authored and 
multi-authored histories;

12.30-2.00pm Break for Lunch

2.00pm Third Session - Literary History and Other Disciplines: 

- history and literary history; 

- the role and relevance of other arts (visual, theatrical, musical, 
cinematographic); 

- literary history and the social/political; 

- national identity and literary history (literary inheritance, 
whether unreflected or `constructed' as a definer of community; 

- literary and linguistic history; 

- literary history and oral literature; 

- the place of comparative literature;

3.15 Fourth Session - Future Prospects: 

- where next? 

- literary histories in the age of (quantitative) cultural 
superproductivity; 

- literary histories and hypertext/web; 

- endogamy and exogamy: histories of literature produced within a culture, and histories produced from the perspective of another culture;

- supranational histories (eg European) for an age when national 
boundaries are breaking down or being redefined; possibilities 
of a collaborative project with European funding? 

- works as `passive' reference or works as `shapers' of opinion; 

- literary histories and the institutions of education and cultural 
transmission (schools, universities, libraries, and publishing).

5.45 Conclusion followed by a reception

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Enquiries and indications of attendance to:  [log in to unmask]

or by telephone to Marie Dalgety on 0131-650-3646


Jonathan Usher
Department of Italian
David Hume Tower
George Square
Edinburgh 
tel 0131-650-3644


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