Solidarity and Collaboration in Literary Study

21-22 May 2026

Matthew SCULLY

Dr Patrizia Zanella, UNIL

Dr Matthew Scully, UNIL

Prof. David Chariandy, University of Toronto

Prof. Sophie McCall, Simon Fraser University (CA)

Prof. Kai Minosh Pyle, University of Wisconsin-Madison Translator (to be confirmed)

This 2-day CUSO workshop will give doctoral students across Switzerland the opportunity to discuss and reflect on modes of solidarity and collaboration within the context of literary studies. We will consider Indigenous Studies and Black Studies as particularly generative foundations for these conversations due to the ethical weight they give to solidarity and collaboration, but such topics appeal to a wide variety of other fields and subfields important to Swiss doctoral students working in Anglophone literary studies, including American Literary Studies, Decolonial Theory, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Translation Studies, to name a few fields for which collaboration is itself an ethos. Our invited speakers, Professors David Chariandy, Sophie McCall, and Kai Minosh Pyle, combine academic and literary expertise and experience, so they will be an excellent set of interlocutors for these discussions. This event also aims to address practical considerations, such as how to collaborate ethically and effectively in a variety of contexts. To encourage such dialogues, we will have a professional translator participate in a workshop on the collaborative nature of translation. Throughout the event, we will be especially attentive to modes of solidarity with and through differences (following the work of Audre Lorde and others), rather than forms of being and working together that risk erasing difference into sameness. Given the interdisciplinary reach of this event, we will collaborate with other resources at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), including the Centre de traduction littéraire (CTL).

Event Structure:

Thursday:

● 14h-15h30: Workshop led by Sophie McCall

● 15h30-16h: Coffee break

● 16h-17h30: Workshop led by Kai Minosh Pyle

● 17h30-18h30: Break

● 18h30-19h30: Literary Reading and Discussion with David Chariandy and Christine Raguet

Friday:

● 9h30-10h: Coffee

● 10h-12h: Doctoral Student Workshop with Speakers

● 12h-14h: Lunch

● 14h-16h: Closing Roundtable Discussion 

UNIL

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