INTRODUCTION

The Inaugural Conference of the European Society for the Study of English was held at the University of East Anglia, Norwich on 4-8 September 1991. It was the culmination of two years’ planning by European scholars committed to the study of the many cultures, languages and literatures denominated by the word ‘English’ around the world, and to the development of a learned society whose purpose is both to foster and address the new understandings of English which are emerging in the context of European political and economic integration. The scope of the conference could have been restricted by calling for papers on a specifically European theme, but it was decided that such a strategy r isked defeating the conference’s aim to provide a general assembly for the profession in Europe, and implying that ESSE’s concerns were comparativist or Eurocentric in a narrow sense. ESSE was established in the conviction that the past and future sense of the word ‘English’ is to be discovered within the word ‘Europe’ and that even a British study of a British writer will in future carry the inflection of this political geography. Many members of ESSE will be interested in intercultural comparison, but this is by no means ESSE’s only or principal constituency. Europe is too vast and various a resource for such restriction and ESSE’s task is to enable all constituencies engaged in English studies in Europe to develop their scholarly interests.