Concordance

Introduction

Although the corona crisis has been tough on many of us, it has also shown us how important a sense of community is. There is quite a large group of researchers using a variety of empirical approaches to study literature and reading, but these researchers are scattered across several international communities, which are not always in contact with one another. Opportunities for discussing research with like-minded scholars tend to be confined, for many of us, to once a year (or once every two years) events. At IGEL we often hear from our student members that throughout the rest of their academic year they miss the community spirit that they find at an IGEL conference, as they feel like lone islands at their more traditional humanities departments.

Together with a number of sister societies, we have created an online discussion platform as a way to support the endeavors of researchers with an interest in all forms of empirical investigations into literature and reading, and to simply make them feel like part of a community of like-minded researchers. On Concordance we can exchange ideas, share resources, and learn about upcoming events, publications, and training opportunities concerning the empirical study of literature. Under the heading of “Empirical Approaches to Literature and Reading” we count everything from naturalistic, to experimental, to computational approaches to investigate (literary) texts, and (literary) reading. We are hoping to show researchers who are new to this type of research, the wide range of societies and researchers involved in empirical research on reading and literature, so they may find their peers and a sense of belonging.

With Concordance we can also help you to organize online and hybrid events. We are able to offer support for the management of online discussions around papers and talks, with different level of privacy (private/public events), and ensuring long-term archiving and access to such materials and discussions. If you are organizing an event (or thinking about it), you can reach out to us using the contact form on this website or directly email Federico Pianzola.

Editorial Board

• Laura Allen - ST&D
• Pernille Høegh - LCE (University of Oslo)
• Akshay Mendhakar - ELIT
• Louise Nuttal - IALS
• Kimberley Pager-McClymont - PALA
• Federico Pianzola - IGEL
• Simone Rebora - ELIT
• Fransina Strandling - “Empathy and Narrative” discussion group
• Teresa Turnbull - ACCELS (RWTH Aachen University)

Links to sister organizations

• Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA)
• International Training Network for the Empirical Study of Literature (ELIT)
• International Association of Literary Semantics (IALS)
• Society for Text and Discourse (ST&D)
• Aachen Center for Cognitive and Empirical Literary Studies (ACCELS)
• Literature, Cognition and Emotions (LCE)
• International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA)

Go to Concordance

(This is a temporary link, we will soon have a dedicated domain)