UST to host international conference on Ethical Literary Criticism on April 26 to 28

THE UNIVERSITY of Santo Tomas (UST) will host an international conference on Ethical Literary Criticism. With the theme “Celebrating Literature as a Distinctive Ethical Expression,” it will be held from April 26 to 28 at the UST Paredes Building, fourth floor, Dr. George S.K. Ty Function Hall.

Through a new and revitalized critical approach in literary studies, the conference aims to foreground perspectives and discourses on the relationships between literature and society, the relations between writers and their works, and the relations between readers and works from an ethical vantage point. It was made possible through the coordination of the University of Santo Tomas Office of the Scholar-inResidence, the UST Research Center for Culture, Arts and Humanities (RCCAH), the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters, the UST Department of Literature, and the International Association of Ethical Literary Criticism (IAELC), in the spirit of promoting international academic exchange and encouraging scholarly collaboration in the field of literary and cultural criticism.

The Plenary speakers are: Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of World Literatures Founding Director Professor Nie Zhenzhao, Ph.D., from Zhejiang University in China; Critical Performance Studies Professor Victor Merriman, Ph.D., from Edge Hill University in England; Media Communication Department Chair Prof. Joel David, Ph.D., from Inha University in the Republic of Korea; and Research Center for Culture, Arts and Humanities Director Prof. Joyce L. Arriola, Ph.D.

IAELC, having been devoted to the study of world literatures from the perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism, expands and enriches possibilities for the study of Ethical Literary Criticism through annual international conferences, such as the aforementioned.

In accentuating the “ethical turn” in literary studies, literature becomes an avenue for ethical illumination and edification in the contemporary world. In reading or re-reading canonical and non-canonical literary works from the perspective of ethics as a means of validating the revelatory capacity and explanatory power of this new critical framework, the forum addresses literary systems, symbolic structures, and critical constructs in ethical literary criticism such as ethical identity, ethical environment, ethical confusion, ethical taboo, free will, rational will, natural will, irrational will, and the human and animal factors intersecting sociological, psychoanalytic, philosophical, and other imperatives.

The topics of the conference include (1) Ethical Literary Criticism: Concept Analysis and Theory Mapping; (2) Ethical Literary Criticism and Interdisciplinary Studies; and (3) Ethical Literary Criticism and the Re-reading of World Literary Canons, among others.

The registration fee of P1,500 covers the conference kit, certificate and snacks. For inquiries, contact the head of the secretariat committee Asst. Prof. Ma. Eloisa Perez at 09229577444 or email your queries to maesevillaperez@gmail.com.