History

The Dimic Institute for Comparative and Cross-Cultural Studies was formerly the M. V. Dimic Research Institute for Comparative Literature, founded by University Professor Milan V. Dimic, at the University of Alberta, in 1985. The Institute served for many years as the institutional home for the internationally respected Canadian Review of Comparative Literature/Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée, also founded and directed by Professor Dimic. Over the years, the Institute has organized numerous scholarly conferences, including The World Congress of Comparative Literature in 1993 and Meaningful Marginalities in 2006. It has also published some 18 volumes on various aspects of literary scholarship. With the amalgamation of departments at the University of Alberta in the late 1980s, the mandate of the Institute has been broadened to include all aspects of cultural production. Within this expanded vision of the Institute’s activities, the current Co-Directors, Dr. Odile Cisneros (Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature Program) and Dr. Patricia Demers (Department of English and Film Studies and Comparative Literature Program) are engaging local, national, and international cultural communities and soliciting submissions for a Dimic imprint series in association with the University of Alberta Press.

Aims

The Dimic Institute for Comparative and Cross-Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta investigates advancing perspectives on literature and culture through a variety of partnerships within and beyond the university. Located in the Faculty of Arts and networked within several communities, the Institute explores a diversity of cultural realities through many media. The emphasis on cross-cultural intersections and comparative contexts is vital to the new nomenclature and name of the Institute.