"Revolutions, Post-Revolutions, Counter-Revolutions," March
16-17, 2012, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor  full name / name
of organization:  Comparative Literature Intra-Student Faculty
Forum (CLIFF) contact email:    In the spirit of the Department
of Comparative Literature’s “Year of Anachronism,” we propose to
engage with the historical contingency of the terms and concepts
suggested by revolutions, post-revolutions and counter-
revolutions. We maintain that experimentation and innovation in
the arts—as well as the articulation and advancement of social
and political revolutions—may be seen as a plurality of
expressions, contingent on distinct historical contexts and
cultural traditions, the movement and appropriation of
intellectual and artistic ideas, asymmetrical power relations,
and varying levels of tolerance for change.  In the context of
literature, we would particularly like to examine how Western/
European categories and periodizations of “revolutionary”
literary movements such as realism, avant-