THEO D'HAEN is Emeritus professor of English, American, and Comparative Literature at the University of Leiden, Netherlands, and the University of Leuven, Belgium. He is former President of The International Federation for Modern Languages and Literatures (FILLM). D'haen has authored and co-authored 13 books, edited or co-edited more than 50 books, and published over 200 journal articles and book chapters. Recent publications include A History of World Literature, World Literature in an Age of Geopolitics, and Literature: A World History, Volume II.

ANDERS PETTERSSON is Emeritus Professor of Swedish and Comparative Literature at Umeå University, Sweden, and a former Vice-President of the International Comparative Literature Association. His main research interests are fundamental literary theory and transcultural literary history. Pettersson has published six monographs, including The Idea of a Text and the Nature of Textual Meaning, and edited or co-edited seven books, most recently the first volume of Wiley-Blackwell's Literature: A World History.