Taking its cue from the notion that 'competition' as a concept continues to be at the centre of vigorous debate within political and social theory, "Competition" – this year's first curated collection of EXC 2020's digital journal Articulations – introduces this concept as essential to literary community-building. It suggests considering 'competition' as a fruitful tool that helps analyse the performative habits of literary communities – conceptualised as "networked structures", as connections that are being established all the time as having an interest in their own existence and persistence – and their ideas and practices of globality. 'Competition' thus emerges as an extended and transtemporal concept that is not only tethered to but also highly mediated by notions of 'community' and 'communication'.

The curated collection "Competition" is the result of work carried out in EXC 2020's Research Area 1: "Competing Communities" and was released online in January 2025. The collection's insights, provided by Sona Mnatsakanayan, Miguel Rivas Venegas, and Michail Leivadiotis, will soon be joined by an extensive case study by Susanne Frank.

Editors: Samira Spatzek, Miltos Pechlivanos and Michail Leivadiotis

Curatorial Statement by Samira Spatzek and Michail Leivadiotis

Insights: 

Sona Mnatsakanayan: "From Aesthetic to National Competition"

Miguel Rivas Venegas: "Competing Ghosts: 'Zackige Männer', Viscous Monsters and Other Perimetral Creatures. The Political Bestiary of the Spanish Civil War"

Michail Leivadiotis: "The Language of Salvation: Episodes of Latin-Greek Competition from the Renaissance to the Reformation"

Susanne Frank: "Competing for World Authorship: A Case Study of Three China Novels by Sergei Tret'iakov, Pearl S. Buck, and André Malraux and Their Global Reception" (forthcoming)