Invitation to Participate: Francqui Events with Prof. Roland Greene 

Greene’s scholarship explores poetry and poetics from 1500 to the present with a focus on Renaissance and early modern literature across the English, Iberian, and Latin American worlds. His major works include Post-Petrarchism: Origins and Innovations of the Western Lyric Sequence (Princeton University Press, 1991), Unrequited Conquests: Love and Empire in the Colonial Americas (University of Chicago Press, 1999), and Five Words: Critical Semantics in the Age of Shakespeare and Cervantes (University of Chicago Press, 2013). He also co-edited The Project of Prose in Early Modern Europe and the New World (Cambridge University Press, 1997) with Elizabeth Fowler and served as Editor-in-Chief of the fourth edition of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton University Press, 2012), a comprehensive revision of the discipline’s most authoritative reference work.

He is former President of the Modern Language Association (2015–2016), where he advocated for inclusivity and the public value of the humanities. From 2010 to 2023, he directed Arcade: The Humanities in the World, an open-access digital platform for global humanities scholarship, and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1.    Inaugural Lecture: “Literary Studies After Universalism: A History and a Manifesto”

Greene’s lecture will trace the decline of universalism: the idea that certain themes, experiences, or values in literature are common to all humans, transcending specific cultural, historical, or geographical contexts. This doctrine ruled the study of literature until about 75 years ago. Its disappearance made possible new canons of experimental, ethnic, and Indigenous writing, but left literary studies with a crisis of authority—and a diminished place in public culture—that remains the topic of countless jeremiads. After sketching a provocative history of this transformative episode in the life of a discipline, Prof. Greene will offer ideas toward the rebuilding of literary criticism’s authority on a sounder basis than what it was established on—in effect, remaking its foundation with a new sense of ethics and justice.

·      Date and time: March 4, 2026, 17-19:00, with a reception to follow

·      Location: Belvedere of the Boekentoren (Rozier 9, 9000 Gent, Belgium), UGent

·      Register here

2. Classes of Excellence: “On Universalism”

The “Classes of Excellence” will build on ideas that will be first explored in Prof. Greene’s inaugural lecture, and will further plumb the many dimensions and consequences of universalism, its rise, and its fall, exploring along the way the present and future of literary studies broadly conceived: what it can do, what it should do, and how literary criticism might serve many diverse audiences in the twenty-first century.

Each session will last about two hours and will include some readings and a seminar-style conversation with Prof. Greene; PhD students, postdocs, and lecturers are all welcome to participate in all four sessions.

a. UGent: “Universalism or What? The Turn Away Circa 1950”: a historical investigation into the post-war turn against universalism in literary studies. The objects of discussion will be several important statements in literary criticism read in the context of their historical moment.

·      Date and time: Wed. Mar. 11, 2-4pm

·      Location: Camelot, Blandijnberg 2, UGent

·      Register here

b. UC Louvain: “Universalism or What? The Politics of Literary Studies”: This seminar is concerned with how alternatives to a universalist credo emerged in the 1960s and after, with diverging, sometimes incompatible claims to intellectual and political authority.

·      Date and time: Wednesday, Mar. 18, 16h-18h, followed by a reception

·      Location: Salle du Conseil, Faculté de Philosophie, Arts et Lettres (FIAL), Collège Érasme, Place Blaise Pascal, 1, Louvain-la-Neuve

·      Register here

c. VUB: “Universalism or What? Who Writes? Who Reads?”: This seminar explores several recent ways of conceiving the vocation of literary criticism, not only who writes it but who reads it and why.

·      Date and time: Tuesday, 24 March, 10am-12 noon

·      Location: Room Van Gogh, Pleinlaan 5, 5th floor (VUB Main Campus, Etterbeek, building located next to railway tracks)

·      Register here

d. KUL: “Universalism or What? New Publics for Literature”: This final seminar gathers some recent reflections on how the publics for literature might be reimagined for our time.

·      Date and time: Tuesday, April 21, 2-4pm, followed by a reception for all

·      Location: MSI 01.12; Faculty of Arts – KU Leuven; Erasmusplein 2, 3000 Leuven

·      Register here

Note that Ph.D. students at UGent are eligible for Doctoral Training Program recognition for these Classes of Excellence via the Doctoral School. See here for more information.

3. The Closing Symposium: “Poetics in an Age of Differences”

Belgian scholars of all levels (PhD, postdoc, ZAP) are invited to present their research on poetry and poetics, and literary studies more generally, and will reflect together on the social and political forces within their work. Symposium presenters may be drawn from attendees of the Classes of Excellence at each of the four partner universities, but participation (as a presenter or simply as an attendee) will remain open to members of any Belgian institute of higher learning.

·      Symposium date and time: Thursday, May 7, 9am-5pm

·      Location: Auditorium De Wolken, Muntpunt (Pl. de la Monnaie 6, 1000 Brussels)

·      Submit your proposal by March 27 here

·      Register for the Symposium here

To maximize the long-term value of the symposium, we plan to publish a selection of contributions to the symposium in a peer-reviewed special issue of the Journal of Literary and Intermedial Crossings (13.1, early 2028). More info to follow.