CHLEL Project Report Template
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CHLEL Project Report Template Please, supply a clear statement describing the exact state of your project to facilitate the evaluation by the CHLEL members Project title: “Landscapes of Realism: Rethinking Year of first approval: 2014 Literary Realism in Comparative Perspectives” Report date: 29.7.2020 Project main editor/s: Dirk Göttsche (PI of Leverhulme International Research Network “Landscapes of Realism”), Margaret Higonnet, Svend Erik Larsen, Robert Weninger Project subeditor/s: Simon James, Steen Bille Jørgensen, †Patrizia Lombardo, Rosa Mucignat, Thomas Pavel, Galin Tihanov Researcher who will represent the project during the business meeting: Dirk Göttsche Project type: CHLEL series Annual report A general outline of all volumes (underlining changes concerning the previous report): Project aims: Moving beyond persistent disciplinary boundaries in literary and media studies, this project questions established, often national conceptions of Realism by radically rethinking the history, poetics and politics of realist modes of representation in literature, art, film and the digital media from the nineteenth century to the present day. It combines an interdisciplinary focus on literatures written in European languages with comparative consideration of other media and cross-cultural exchange, including with non-European language areas, from the nineteenth century to the present day. This ambition requires an innovative methodology and format that breaks emphatically with the traditional set-up of edited volumes and the routines of the ‘lone scholar’. No single researcher, even if versed in a range of languages and literatures, has the level of disciplinary and interdisciplinary expertise required. The core of the project therefore is a series of 15 intensive workshops, based around the joined-up discussion of tailor-made submissions circulated in advance, which systematically develop all aspects of the theme and provide a platform for rigorous interdisciplinarity and consistent comparativity, feeding into chapters that will be genuinely collaborative and co-authored throughout. The outcome are two substantial volumes on Realism in the CHLEL series. 2 Progress report May 2019 to July 2020 During this year the network has managed to complete Volume I of the publication while also advancing Volume II significantly. Volume I (435,000 words) went through detailed editing and copy-editing by two of the three editors (Göttsche and Weninger; Mucignat was on maternity leave), as well as the postgraduate assistants paid from the Leverhulme budget, during summer and autumn 2019. After a final discussion of the introduction at workshop 14, Volume I was submitted to CHLEL peer review on 3.1.2020. The three CHLEL peer review reports by Martin Swales, Lars Ole Sauerberg and Massimo Fusillo, received in April/May 2020, endorsed the volume as “a major achievement”, “a magnificent and profoundly important work”, “a landmark in critical studies generally and realism specifically”, and “extremely rich, dense and stimulating”, while also making a number of specific recommendations. Our editors’ response of 28 May 2020 welcomed most, but not all of these suggestions for mostly small final revisions. All revisions have now been completed. The joint title of both volumes has been amended to “Landscapes of Realism: Rethinking Literary Realism in Comparative Perspectives”, as suggested in our response to the peer review reports. The volume was approved by the CHLEL committee on 17 July 2020 and has now been submitted to John Benjamins for book production. Volume II is on track for submission to peer review by the end of 2020. It includes two contributions authored or co-authored by founding project member Patrizia Lombardo, who very sadly passed away in June 2019 after two years of battling cancer. The project decided to dedicate both volumes to her memory, and PI Göttsche liaised with the CHLEL committee about hosting the annual CHLEL symposium at Nottingham on 15 May 2020 in her memory as a former member of CHLEL. Along with the annual CHLEL meeting, the symposium has had to be postponed due to the corona crisis. The Leverhulme International Research Network, which funded most of the work of our project and acted as the framework and catalyst for effective delivery, ended on 31.12.2019. Editors and chapter leads have committed to fully complete the remainder of the work before the end of 2020. There are no structural changes in Volume I against the 2019 report; work focused on fine-tuning and preparing the chapters for publication (including the draft index and keywords for digital tagging). In Volume II conceptual work on the core essays continued: The “Emotion and Memory” core essay was finalized for workshop 14; a near-final draft of the core essay on “The Battle of Forms” (now retitled “Dynamics of Realist Forms”) and a first draft towards the core essay on “People and Objects” (now: “Objects and People”) have been discussed at online workshop 15 (via Zoom on 2.7.2020), which also discussed eight new and revised case studies for Volume II. A near-final draft of the core essay on “Worlding Realism” along with all other case studies that have not yet been processed will be discussed at online workshop 16 (via Zoom on 11.9.2020) so as to ensure completion at the same level of collaboration and quality control as before. A small number of additional case studies has been recruited during the review period (see table of content and list of abstracts below). Work on the “Introduction” and discussion of whether 3 to have a “Conclusion”, and in which format, is ongoing. Detailed editing and copy-editing has started and is due to be completed by end December 2020. One of the postgraduates who did copy-editorial work on Volume I, now a postdoc and Honorary Research Fellow at Nottingham, has been recruited to assist with the linguistic and editorial work required. Svend Erik Larsen and Steen Bille Jørgensen have secured University of Aarhus funding (DKK65,000) to pay him. Using the fact that the Universities of Nottingham (Göttsche) and Connecticut (Higonnet) are both members of the Universitas 21 network, we also applied to the U21 Researcher Resilience Fund for postdocs to secure a further US$5,000 for this work, but this application was unsuccessful. The format of the workshops has again proved highly effective as a means of producing the volumes of this intensely collaborative international and comparative project, and therefore remains unchanged: conceptual chapter outlines, then draft chapters and case studies, finally completed sets of materials for each sub-theme are circulated in advance of the workshops so as to enable focused discussion aimed at maximizing the potential of each contribution; each submission is assigned respondents from inside and outside the network who bring in additional expertise and act as informal peer-reviewers; most case study authors have attended at least once so as to better understand the methodology and ambition of the project, which in turn benefits the coherence of the emerging publication. Panel chairs produce summaries of the discussion for circulation to all workshop participants and network members; chapter leads provide feedback to case study authors who cannot attend and act as editors for their sub-themes. One practical change resulting from the editorial work on Volume I is that a joint bibliography for each of the volumes has been abandoned in favour of individual chapter/case study bibliographies. Overview of workshops held: Workshop 13 at SOAS, 24.-25.5.2019 (organisers Göttsche and Ouyang): core essays “What is Realism?” and “Rereading 19th century Realism” plus 22 case studies; 16 participants. Workshop 14 at King’s College London, 22.-23.11.2019 (organisers Göttsche and Mucignat): Volume I “Introduction”; core essays “Rereading 19th century Realism”, “Emotion and Memory” and “Objects and People” plus 8 case studies; 12 participants. Workshop 15 (originally scheduled to be hosted at SOAS, 1.-2.5.2020) moved online (Zoom) and deferred to 2.7.2020 due to the corona crisis (organisers Göttsche and Larsen): core essays “Dynamics of Realist Forms”, “Objects and People”, discussion of Volume II “Introduction” plus 8 case studies and brainstorming of Volume II conclusion; editors and volume II chapter leads only (7 participants). Workshop 16 (originally to be hosted by King’s College London) online (Zoom) on 11.9.2020 (organisers Göttsche and Larsen): core essays “Objects and People” and “Worlding Realism”, “Introduction” to Vol. II, any remaining case studies, discussion of possible “Conclusion” (c. 12 participants expected). Full workshop programmes and materials are available on request. All workshops included review sessions on progress and business meetings to coordinate next steps; minutes are available on request. The project Dropbox ensures that all project members have access to up-to-date versions of chapter outlines, up-to- date chapters and case studies, and abstracts so as to facilitate cross-referencing and avoid duplication. A separate Dropbox has been created for the submission of all material to CHLEL peer review and the 4 publisher John Benjamins. The Leverhulme Trust has acknowledged the PI’s final project report, submitted in January 2020. An outline of the volume/section to be assessed during the current meeting (underlining changes concerning the previous report): N/A – see progress report above Specific actions taken concerning the previous year evaluation as contained in the