Memos from the besieged city: lifelines for cultural sustainability

Introduction : comparative touchstones of literature

Auerbach's scar

The siege of Baghdad : Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Orhan Pamuk, and the commissions of history

Of learned ignorance : Nicholas of Cusa and cardinal spaces of culture

Memories of the future : Giordano Bruno remembers us

A carceral archive and the culture of conspiracy : Fray José Servando Teresa de Mier Noriega y Guerra, enlightenment's contestant

The arts of mitigation, the garden in the barbarian : Zbigniew Herbert

The labors of Cassandra : Arendt in Jerusalem

The People's Republic and the republic of letters : the alarming Gao Xingjian

Memo from the next millennium : a coda for Calvino

The inventions of comparative literature : a minute on method.