This seminar is concerned with how alternatives to a universalist credo emerged in the 1960s and after, with diverging, sometimes incompatible claims to intellectual and political authority.

As a “Class of Excellence”, it will build on ideas that will be first explored in Prof. Greene’s inaugural lecture, and will further plumb the many dimensions and consequences of universalism, its rise, and its fall, exploring along the way the present and future of literary studies broadly conceived: what it can do, what it should do, and how literary criticism might serve many diverse audiences in the twenty-first century.

The session will include some readings and a seminar-style conversation with Professor Greene ; PhD students, postdocs, and lecturers are welcome to participate.

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