Literary Studies is currently going through a deep transformation, preparing itself for the launch into the twenty-first century. The present volume, which is dedicated to Douwe Fokkema on the occasion of his retirement from Utrecht University, captures this transformation in a number of squibs by a select international group of scholars. Topics dealt with are: canon formation, conventions, cultural relativism, hermeneutics vs. empirical studies, and the problem of values, all themes very much central to current discussions in comparative literature and literary theory. Taken together they form a variegated picture of a discipline in a changing world, continually involved, so to speak, in 'The Search for a New Alphabet.'