A Little History: from CLE to the CLRN
We launched our new website in spring 2026.
The old CLE website is available here:
The Network was first set up as “Cultural Literacy in Europe” (CLE) in 2007 with funding from the European Science Foundation (ESF) Standing Committee for the Humanities with the task of investigating the following questions:
- What is the current state of the field of literary studies in Europe?
- What is the interdisciplinary field of ‘literary and cultural studies’ (LCS) and what are its relationships to other fields?
- How is LCS already active in European society, in the form of ‘cultural literacy’?
- How can we develop and extend the contribution of LCS to Europe and its challenges?
In 2009 an ESF-COST synergy was created to carry the initiative forward; between 2009 and 2011 it ran five international workshops. It was decided that LCS research is based on four key concepts: Textuality, Fictionality, Rhetoricity, Historicity.
The initial two outcomes were an ESF-COST Science Policy Briefing, published in January 2013, and a volume of seventeen essays, From Literature to Cultural Literacy, coedited by Naomi Segal and Daniela Koleva, which was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2014.
The CLE organised its first international biannual conference in 2015. See past events on the old website for more information on all CLE conferences.
In 2021, the membership decided to change the association’s name to ‘Cultural Literacy Everywhere’ to take account of the considerable contributions CLE conferences had received from scholars with research interests beyond Europe.
Naomi Segal, who had co-founded and led the association since the beginning, decided to retire as Chair in 2024. Since then, Ricarda Vidal and Joanna Kosmalska share the post of Chair.
In January 2025, the membership decided to change the name to Cultural Literacy Research Network.
Cultural Literacy Research Network 