Research Committee on Comparative Gender Studies

Statement of Purpose:

The Comparative Gender Studies Committee of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA) works to further the comparative study of gender and sexuality through organizing innovative seminar programmes at the ICLA and at other conferences, such as the ACLA, and through supporting research and publication in the fields of comparative gender, sexuality, queer and trans* studies. We define ‘comparative’ in its broadest sense as an approach to the study of literature and culture that includes: a) traditional comparisons across national and linguistic borders as these relate specifically to gender and/or sexuality; b) comparative work across historical, postcolonial, and transnational contexts focusing on gender and/or sexuality; and c) scholarship using gender and/or sexuality as sites of comparison themselves, or as they intersect with race, class, ethnicity, national and religious affiliation, and other sites of difference.

We also support research on the gender, queer and trans* politics of textual and/or cultural translation in all historical periods. The work from our seminars is published in international peer-reviewed journals and in edited collections with major academic presses. Anyone with a scholarly interest in comparative gender, sexuality, queer and trans* studies is invited to join the Committee, and we especially welcome graduate students.

Officers (2022-25):

President/Chair: Tegan Terezinha Zimmerman, Saint Mary’s University/ Mount Saint Vincent (Canada)

Vice President: Jordana Greenblatt, University of Toronto and York University (Canada)

Secretary: Elizabeth Richmond-Garza, University of Texas at Austin (USA)

Elected Executive Board Members:
Fatima Festić, University of Amsterdam (NL) – first term
Mélanie Heydari, Barnard College and Gallatin, NYU (USA) – first term
Pierre Zoberman, Université Paris 13 (FR) – second term

Past Presidents:

Liedeke Plate, Radboud University (NL)
William J Spurlin, Brunel University London (UK)
Margaret Higonnet, University of Connecticut (USA)

Activities:

The Committee sponsors meetings at the ICLA congress and meets in the intervening years at ACLA. In July 2016 it organised a five-day seminar at the ICLA World Congress in Vienna on the topic of ‘(Queer) Relationality: Gender and Queer Comparatists at Work’, and in 2017 it sponsored a three-day seminar at the ACLA Annual Meeting in Utrecht, entitled ‘Queering the Posthuman’. It also sponsored a programme at CCLA 2017, entitled ‘Posthumanism: Genders, Sexualities, and Literatures’. It plans to meet in 2018 at ACLA at UCLA, with a seminar entitled ‘(Un)believably Queer?’.

Publications:

The Committee has published a number of special issues in such journals as Comparative Critical Studies (2009), Comparative Literature Studies (2014), and Intertexts (2014). Additionally, the Committee has published edited volumes, such as Translating Women (ed. Luise von Flotow, 2010) and Comparatively Queer (eds. Jarrod Hayes, Margaret Higonnetand William J Spurlin, 2010). All of these works have made important interventions in the field. The committee has several other projects in line, including an edited collection based on the papers presented at recent committee-sponsored meetings.

Website and contact:

The ICLA Comparative Gender Studies Committee has its own website and welcomes interested individuals to contact us at iclagender@gmail.com.

To download the yearly reports of the Committee to the ICLA, click below:

Research Committee on Comparative Gender Studies

news-archives