Languages of Love

Love may be universal, but do we speak the same language? What are the ontologies, epistemologies and semiologies that underpin how we fall in and out of love, make love, and speak or write about our experiences of love. ‘Languages of Love’ brings world languages into conversation to interrogate the ways in which language is shaped by and formulates our experience of our own materiality and encounter with the material conditions of living. In these material conditions dwell others – and love is a universal shorthand for connecting, through the intersubjective medium of language, to an/the/many/one other. The exploration of this peculiar unique state of being in languages, (faith) cultures, literary practices, and knowledge traditions will serve the purpose of framing Comparative Literature as a decentred, relational practice of willing engagement with others along a multipolar axis. The approach and method will be plurilingual and multimodal anchored in encounter and divergence between East and West, South and South, love and desire, the visceral and transcendental, art and technology, experience and expression. Languages of Love is a three-year AILC-ICLA research project that intends to complete its work in three years and will not seek any renewal.

Members of the AILC-ICLA can become members of the committee and can participate in the seminars and conferences organized by the committee (those who wish to join the Research Committee but are not already ICLA members can take up membership, see the page How to Become a Member). Early career researchers are welcome to join the committee.