LETTER FROM THE ADPCL PRESIDENT, CAROLINE ECKHARDT, AND SECRETARY-TREASURER, CORINNE SCHEINER

Comparative Literature, Summer 2004 by Eckhardt, Caroline D, Scheiner, Corinne

We are pleased to report on recent and upcoming projects of the Association of Departments and Programs of Comparative Literature (ADPCL), the administrative group associated with the ACLA. We invite you to visit our website (http: //www.adpcl.org).

During the past year, the ADPCL sponsored sessions at both the ACIA and the MLA. Our December 2003 MLA session addressed "The Crisis in Scholarly Publishing: Comparative Literature and the Smaller-Market Foreign Languages," with speakers representing a learned society (Pauline Yu, President of the American Council of Learned Societies), a university press (Mary Murrell, Senior Editor at Princeton University Press), and an academic department (Haun Saussy, Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature at Stanford). At the April 2004 ACLA meeting, we held an administrative meeting and, along with the ACLA's Graduate Caucus, co-sponsored a session on the job market, focusing on "Strategies for Finding (and Keeping) a Tenure-Track Job," with speakers Sabine Thuerwaechter (University of California-Riverside), ju lie Stone Peters (Columbia University), and Corinne Scheiner (Colorado College).

For the December 2004 MLA meeting, the ADPCL is sponsoring a special session on "New Institutional Forms of Comparison," with speakers Katie Trumpener (Yale University), William Moebius (University of Massachusetts-Amherst), and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Columbia University).

For the March 2005 ACLA meeting, the ADPC]L plans to present the results of a survey about the ways in which departments and programs help prepare graduate students for the job market, and the kinds of jobs new and recent Ph.D.s have found (how many are officially in Comparative Literature? have joint appointments? etc.).

Aside from conference sessions, we are glad to report the following initiatives:

(1) Starting with the September 2004 issue, PMLA's directory listings will include a list of departments, programs, curricula, and other academic units housing Comparative Literature. The ADPCL has supplied the information for this list and will update it annually for the MLA.

(2) The ADPCL will be submitting an application to the MLA for formal status as an Affiliated Association, as we believe we now meet the MLA's criteria in this regard.

(3) We have encouraged the MLA to include Comparative Literature more fully in its new project to create an online directory of graduate programs in English and in Foreign Languages, and the MLA has indicated its willingness to do so.

(4) To further strengthen our ties with the ACLA, we have proposed that the ADPCL have ongoing representation on the ACLA's Advisory Board, specifically that, "In view of close ties between the ACLA and the Association of Departments and Programs of Comparative Literature (ADPCL), the ADPCL President (or another representative designated by the ADPCL) is a member of the ACLA Advisory Board." This proposal will be acted on by the ACLA during the coming year.

(5) Looking forward, the ADPCL is embarking on a new project on the Undergraduate Curriculum. Initially planned as a june 2004 working conference, this project is now taking shape as a study leading to a "Report on the State of the Undergraduate Curriculum in Comparative Literature," a document to be based on earlier partial reports or drafts plus updated information, and to be discussed at a plenary session or stream planned for the 2005 ACLA meeting, and a session or forum to be submitted for the 2005 MLA meeting. Those interested in participating are invited to contact the organizers of this project, Corinne Scheiner (Colorado College, cscheiner@ ColoradoCollege.edu) and Kathleen Komar (UCLA, komar@ucla.edu).

The ADPCL exists to serve the administrative interests of comparatists anywhere, whether you are in charge of fostering comparative literature within a program, department, or committee structure, or whether you are the only comparatist in your academic unit and are trying to create new comparative courses or in other ways give greater institutional visibility to our discipline. Let us know how we can be of assistance.

Sincerely yours,

Caroline D. Eckhardt

President, ADPCL

Penn State

e82@psu.edu

Corinne Scheiner

Secretary-Treasurer, ADPCL

Colorado College

cscheiner@ColoradoCollege.edu