Founded in 1967, the Coordinating Committee for the Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages (CHLEL) is the ICLA’s longest-serving research committee. Members are elected to serve on CHLEL for a maximum period of three consecutive terms or nine years. The main aim of CHLEL is the coordination and publication of its eponymous book series: Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages. The committee also hosts regular international conferences, on the occasion of its annual in-person business meetings.
Our book series is published by John Benjamins Publishing. It currently comprises thirty-seven large, comparative, co-edited volumes. Nine further volumes are in preparation. The series includes four sub-series: a geographical, a period-oriented, a topic-oriented, and a problem-based strand. Projects in the first three strands typically produce at least two and up to four volumes, over a number of years. Projects in the fourth sub-series usually lead to the publication of one volume with a specific literary historiographical topic.
The focus of our work includes literatures in smaller and minority European languages. We also take a specific interest in literature written in European languages beyond Europe and the Anglosphere, especially in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Many volumes in our series explore European-language literature in light of the consequences of globalization, colonialism, migration, and transcultural influence. We also focus on the literary object, its historical materiality, its redefinition in the digital era, its old and new media forms, and its relations with other aesthetic art forms. Criteria for acceptance of a project in our series are high-level academic quality, a genuinely new approach to a specific area of literary history, an international team of editors and contributors, and a comparative methodology.
We regularly issue calls for new CHLEL projects and are always glad to receive expressions of interest and ideas for new volumes. Project directors and volume editors do not need to be members of the CHLEL committee. Elections to the Committee take place every three years. New members are proposed for election by an electoral commission, which is typically chaired by a former president of CHLEL. They are voted by all members of the CHLEL committee.
CHLEL is a diverse committee which includes colleagues from many different countries and at various career stages, including early career researchers.
