The Glocality of the Acta Comparationis Litterarum. Local Interpretations of Educational Freedom, Coercive Innovation and Comparative Literature

Abstract

The Present Tasks of Comparative Literature (Vorläufige Aufgaben der Vergleichenden Litteratur) is the most often-cited essay of the first international journal of comparative literature, the ActaComparationis Litterarum Universarum. The article proposes a revision of the generally established explanations of this pioneering text, and traces back the microcultural genealogy of the idea of freedom and autonomy associated with the emerging modern discipline of comparative literature in the essay. In this new intellectual framework both the essay and its broad horizon are interpreted as a glocal interplay of recycled and enthrallingly reinvented transnational ideas.

Keywords

• acta comparationis litterarum universarum
• hugo von meltzl
• sámuel brassai
• history of comparative literature
• transnational
• academic freedom
• lernund lehrfreiheit
• autonomy of the universities