Institute Format

The Institute for World Literature is a four-week program, taking place in a different academic center of world literature each year. The Institute has three major components:

  • Seminars, meeting four afternoons weekly, led by our Institute faculty; participants take one seminar during the first two weeks of the program and a second seminar for the second two weeks.
  • Colloquia, meeting in small groups one morning each week, in which the session’s participants will present a paper related to one of the overarching, general framings of World Literature.
  • Plenary lectures by the IWL faculty and distinguished guest lecturers, surveying the history and fundamental concepts of the field, and presenting new directions in comparative and world literary studies.

Please note that both the seminars and colloquia are REQUIRED components of the IWL program.

With participants coming from about three dozen countries, all events at the Institute take place in English.