General Information
The Comparative Literature Undergraduate Research Symposium Committee welcomes submissions for our 11th Annual Symposium, “Re-presenting Spaces: Literature, Ecology, the World We Share,” to be held on April 27th, 2024.
We welcome submissions from all undergraduates and recent graduates not currently attending graduate school. Applicants enrolled in concurrent Bachelor’s/Master’s degree programs lasting five or more years must not have completed their master’s program during application. Applicants who have been accepted to graduate programs are welcome to apply, provided that the start date of their program is after the date of the symposium.
While we accept abstracts of all subjects within the broad category of “comparative literature,” we especially encourage submissions to express relevance to the theme. However, don’t let the theme discourage you from applying! We do not expect submissions to strictly adhere to the theme – rather, they may be interpretations based on your own scholarship.
Accepted applicants will be expected to prepare a 15-20 minute presentation or discussion of their research (with up to 30 minutes of material) to be delivered at the conference, and be prepared to respond to a moderated Q&A. Participants must be able to present in English or provide a language interpreter. English translations must be provided for multilingual abstracts.
Deadline for Submission (Priority Deadline): February 14th, 2024 (23:59p.m. PST).
Extended Deadline: February 28th, 2024 (23:59p.m. PST). Submissions between the two deadlines will be automatically waitlisted but there’s still a good chance of getting in!
Please note that all of our dates and deadlines use Pacific Standard Time.
Abstracts and Papers
This year, we encourage applicants to include full papers in addition to abstracts for review. If applicants are submitting abstracts for unfinished theses or research papers, we only ask for a writing sample of the full paper (at least 4 pages). Abstracts and papers will be read anonymously (institution and name redacted) by our committee members.
Financial Stipends
Unfortunately, we do not offer financial stipends this year. Please consider attending virtually if in person participating is unavailable to you. We apologize for the inconvenience caused and thank you for understanding!
Virtual attendance
We will allocate time for fully virtual and hybrid panels in our program. However, please note that space in our virtual panels may be limited.
If you are an in-person attendee who would like to switch to virtual attendance, the deadline to switch to virtual attendance for all attendees is April 20th, 2024. Please notify us via email by the deadline. Attendees who opt to switch to virtual attendance after the deadline may be dropped from the program due to late notice.
Decisions
Decisions will be emailed on March 15th, 2024. The deadline to accept your offer is March 20th.
If you are placed into the waitlist, waitlisted applicants will be notified on March 21st, 2024. In this case, the deadline to accept your offer is March 26th.
Still have questions? Email us at calcomlitsymposium@gmail.com and one of our committee members will respond within 1 week. Hope to see you in April!
Comparative Literature Undergraduate Research Symposium 