In this ACLA State of the Discipline Report, Alexander Key writes, "Being an Arabist elicits warm acceptance in Comparative Literature in 2015, but Arabists are still in no position to advocate for the inclusion of Arabic thinkers on our departments’ theory reading lists. Why?"

Brault examines the promise of data as the opportunity to examine methods, to do something new and to vary methods, to scale claims and the type and amount of evidence presented to substantiate them, and to deepen and complicate arguments.

Presumably, it has never been a good time for the humanities. Perhaps because it is simply in the nature of these disciplines to find themselves perpetually in crisis, lagging behind the times, dragging their leaden feet made out of indelible words, asking for more and more time in a civilization perpetually in a rush. They are constantly on the edge of a precipice, but we cannot deny that, while they awkwardly balance on the edge, they do enjoy magnificent views. After all, our fields do not thrive on security, on solid facts, on controlled experiments with measurable outcomes.

Auerbach's command of languages have often made him seem inimitable. But they did not always come easily to him, and they were not exactly a result of training. They were a result of his temperament: his urge to learn what he needed to learn in order to write what he wanted to write.

What has happened since the first Comparative Literature hires were made in Arabic over the last few decades?

I would like to start my contribution at Arcade by proposing a distinction between “comparative literature as content” and “comparative literature as form.”