By taking courses offered by the division's many departments, students can study broadly and deeply about many languages and cultures. The Comparative Culture Studies program attempts to escape from the localistic focus of conventional literary and cultural studies by emphasizing a broad comparative focus, analyzing cultural movements from a cross-national and an interdisciplinary point of view. The courses are designed to introduce students to cross-cultural problems, examining contact, propagation, and reception in an international context. Many courses present analyses of the Japanese experience in comparative perspective. The aim of this program of studies is to analyze literary works from a wide variety of approaches, ranging from practical criticism to new critical theory.
Courses cover poetry, prose and drama.
These three major literary forms are surveyed from the ancient Greek era up to the present in terms of the European intellectual tradition, and the essential structures of each genre are elucidated. This program of studies analyzes European languages and cultures, particularly English, German, French and Spanish, from the perspectives of historical linguistics and philology, synchronic structural analyses, verbal communication and cultural background. The main purpose of this program of studies is to give students a broad knowledge of American language and culture, including literature, history and society, and thus foster people who will work on the international stage and possess the intellectual skills to contribute to lessening cultural conflicts and mutual misunderstandings. British Language and Culture Studies Studies in British language and literature range from English language and literature to the literatures and cultures in the English language, mainly those in Britain, Ireland, Canada and Australia. These courses aim to help students gain a broad and international view and knowledge through reading, listening to, speaking and thinking in English.