The literatures of the Americas constitute a vast field of symbolic production shaped by the linguistic, cultural, and historical diversity of their peoples. In dialogue with contemporary challenges in literary studies, this symposium seeks to bring together research dedicated to the critical analysis of works, authors, traditions, movements, and literary phenomena produced across the American continent, understood in its geographical, cultural, and epistemological plurality. Its objective is to promote a space for discussion on the multiple ways in which literature participates in the construction, representation, and problematization of American experiences.
The symposium welcomes papers investigating the literatures of Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, Canada, as well as transnational and diasporic communities connected to the Americas. Particularly welcome are studies that explore the relationships between literature and philosophy, literature and politics, literature and memory, literature and identity, as well as research focused on issues of coloniality, decoloniality, cultural displacement, gender, race, language, and the production of subjectivities.
Grounded in the understanding that literary texts constitute privileged spaces for aesthetic creation and critical reflection on human experience, the symposium encourages approaches that articulate diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives, including literary criticism, comparative literature, cultural studies, literary theory, hermeneutics, philosophy of literature, and related fields. We are especially interested in papers that propose new readings of American literary works and traditions, revisit established canons, or bring visibility to authors, texts, and repertoires that have been historically marginalized.
The symposium also welcomes research on literary circulation, translation, reception, literature teaching, and reader formation, provided that such studies remain centered on critical reflection concerning the literary production of the Americas. By bringing together scholars from different institutions and levels of academic training, the symposium aims to strengthen scholarly exchange and contribute to the expansion of interpretive horizons within contemporary literary studies.
The symposium seeks to consolidate a space for dialogue among researchers who understand literature as a form of knowledge, aesthetic creation, and critical intervention, capable of revealing the complex historical, cultural, and imaginative webs that constitute the Americas.
