Towards a History of Comparative Literature in a Global Perspective: Matija Murko and his international collaborators

Scholars recognise the need to acknowledge the contribution of non-central academic contexts to the global development of academic disciplines, but this endeavour is marred by a difficult problem. When studying the global history of scholarship, how can one approach the vastness and diversity of historical sources around the world? And how can one approach the global history of scholarship by acknowledging all its local appearances? In this project, we address this problem by developing and testing a methodology for researching the history of comparative literature in a transnational, global, and transdisciplinary perspective. The solution we propose is to combine close and distant reading or micro- and macro-history. We develop this methodology through “continuous exploratory development” which means that we test, evaluate, and formalise it in the course of the actual research process. To this end, we study the work of a peripheral figure in comparative literature, the Slovenian comparatist and anthropologist Matija Murko (1861-1952), and we research his influence on the global development of the discipline. The project has four main goals. First, we offer a systematic discussion of Murko’s ideas about world literature, oral literature, and the comparative study of literature, for which we closely read Murko’s published research. Second, we investigate his international collaborators as well as the influence of his work on concurrent comparatists and the long-term development of comparative literature. This investigation is grounded in extensive archival research of three main archives (Ljubljana, Litoměřice, Zagreb) and several smaller collections of documents (Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Cambridge, MA). Archival research is combined with geomapping of Murko’s international network and with a longue-durée reading of his influence on the discipline’s development in four academic “centres” (Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, the USA). Third, our close reading of Murko’s documents and our distant reading of his influence on the discipline serves the function of testing the proposed methodology for the research of comparative literature’s global history. Throughout the project, we evaluate, improve, and formalise this methodology. Finally, this project has one additional objective, which is to establish an international network of scholars working on the history of comparative literature and scholarship more generally. This guarantees long-term sustainability of the project results because it allows us to apply the developed methodology to a future collaborative study of different cultural and historical academic contexts. The main dissemination result is a monograph on Matija Murko and his contribution to the history of comparative literature (in English, with a translation into Slovenian following). In the monograph, we plan to systematically present our methodology for the study of comparative literature’s global scholarship. Moreover, we present at least four conference papers and publish at least two academic papers (on Murko and his collaborators; and on Murko’s heritage in contemporary comparative literature), one in a Slovenian and one in an international journal. As part of dissemination, we plan to organise a regular seminar series on the history of comparative literature and the history of scholarship; and an international conference on Murko and his contribution to literary studies. Both act as a platform for international collaboration, evaluation of project results, and dissemination. Finally, we produce and regularly update a project webpage, which is designed to allow active participation by visitors.