Department of Comparative Literature

Comparative Literature is about exploring connections — connections among various literary, visual, and cultural traditions in a global world; connections between past and present; and connections across different academic disciplines and modes of intellectual inquiry.

Comparative Literature trains students in the critical analysis of texts, seeking to understand how the rhetorical and aesthetic features of those texts—whether literary, visual, or theoretical—negotiate and shape social values, attitudes, and beliefs. International in scope and interdisciplinary in orientation, our field emphasizes intellectual breadth and fosters intellectual initiative by maximizing students’ opportunities to design their own courses of study.

Learn more about our department