Globalization is not a new phenomenon. Ideas have been circulating all over Europe (and the world) since ancient times, and intercultural dialog is a wide field offering a great variety of approaches.
In such times as ours, when the world is swift to change and cultures are destined to meet (sometimes, alas, to clash), the place of literature, or broadly speaking: human and social sciences, within society is often questioned and needs redefining: From the reception studies of the 1970s and 1980s to the stress laid on intermedial and intercultural relations, not forgetting the work done on cultural transfers, this question opens up a wide field of theoretic, methodological, and aesthetic research, which is explored through this volume.

Fiona McIntosh-Varjabédian is professor of comparative literature at the University of Lille. She has worked on the writing of history and of the historical novel. She works currently on the representation of randomness and determinism in 19th-century literature.
Alison Boulanger is maître de conferences in comparative literature at the University of Lille. Her main field of research is the way in which twentieth- and twenty-first-century novels grapple with history, shaping and questioning its representations.