The Master's Program in Comparative Literature, housed in the Department of English, offers its students the opportunity to study literature across the boundaries of language or culture. Truly interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, the Program is moving to the forefront of literary studies, expanding its scope to include literature from around the world, bringing very different textual productions into close contact for mutual illumination. Literary theory and translation are important parts of this Program's curriculum, providing tools for organizing the information produced by such contact, and allowing for direct access to each literature.
Students can design their own programs of study, in collaboration with their advisors.
The program faculty consists of members from the Departments of English, Classics, Greek and Latin, Near Eastern Asian Studies, Romance Languages and Literature, and German and Slavic Studies, and the Humanities Program. The M.A. with a major in comparative literature is offered only as a Plan B master's program requiring 33 credits including a 3-credit essay. Students must take a seminar in literary theory and the comparative study of literature, course work in two literatures, and a course in translation. The courses for the program in comparative literature are drawn from the departments of faculty members who participate in this program.