The research programme is oriented towards acquiring new knowledge, opening new perspectives, and applying new methodological procedures. The theoretical and methodological components of the programme are concerned with the crucial topics of contemporary literary science, where new cognitive and evaluative models are developing under influence from other humanistic approaches and literary critiques. The contribution of literary-historical and comparative components consists of the elaboration of some specific Slovenian materials. Main achievements of the programme: Research into older periods of Slovenian literature dealt with the oral rhetoric prose from the 17th to the 19th century, with the philological works of M. Pohlin and with the manuscripts of S. Zois from the end of the 18th century. It was directed towards editorial work on literary texts and documents and the interdisciplinary treatment of the respective problems of literary and cultural history. Major publications: a volume of critical studies on Janez Svetokriški (T. Lionelli, 17th - 18th century); reprinted edition of sermons by Roger of Ljubljana (17th - 18th century) with a separate volume of critical studies; a critical edition of three sermons by A. M. Slomšek (mid 19th century); a monograph on S. Zois' relations to Italian culture. On this specific field, we started to apply computer technology, and to develop corresponding new methods of research. Investigations into Slovenian literature of the 19th to 20th century were oriented towards items which did not (yet) have an appropriate treatment in literary history. Research was done on memoirs and autobiographies, on metaphor and rhythm in poetic drama and in translated poetry, on the return of emigrant literature into mainstream Slovenian culture; an international conference was dedicated to the present role of the Romantic poet F. Prešeren in the context of European cultural values. Major publications: an interdisciplinary collection of critical studies on Prešeren, culture, and Europe; a commented anthology of letters of Slovenian poets and writers on literature; a collection of documents and papers concerning the crisis of a major Catholic literary journal, Dom in svet (the crisis was a crucial event in the Slovene cultural history of the 1930s). Further, some aspects of Romanticism were treated in the perspective of comparative literature, especially the romantic poem. The relation of modernity to various conceptions of historicity was debated in the context of modernism, and contrasted with the works on modernism in Slovenian literature. The phenomenon of intertextuality was analysed from the perspective of literary theory and methodology. Its origins, the extension of its meaning, its relations to the notion of influence, to the historicity of literary text, to contemporary theoretical currents, and its adaptation in Slovenia were also discussed. Further research was done on discourse theory, on the problem of literariness, on theories of fiction. Research on historicity lead to the questions of dialogism, literary multilingualism, multiculturalism, identity and cultural memory. The basic aspects of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics and Iser's reception theory and literary anthropology were discussed. Some aspects of contemporary narratological theories and their Slovenian applications were also debated. An international conference was held on the problems of writing literary history, its modern and postmodern theories and its potential applications. The research on the history of literary scholarship in Slovenia dealt with its development in the 20th century, especially with the model of national literary history. The research of literary evaluation in Slovenia analysed the principals of literary judgments and its specific manifestation from philosophical and socio-cultural points of view.