Best Graduate Programs in Comparative Literature - Updated 2022

The degree of Doctor of Philosophy in comparative literature is offered by the Comparative Literature in cooperation with other departments. The program of study enables students with exceptional training in languages and literatures to profit from the increased awareness and understanding that may be derived from the considered view of than one literature and of the theoretical presuppositions behind literary study as a whole. The program prepares candidates for scholarship in the field and for teaching in comparative literature, separate departments of literature, and the humanities.

The Department of Comparative Literature offers Comparative Literature as a secondary field in GSAS to enrich the education of PhD students in other departments who seek to do research and teach across the institutional boundaries of national languages and literatures. As faculty members, students specializing in a national literature may be called on to teach comparative courses or courses in general or world literature. The secondary field in Comparative Literature prepares them to do so by introducing them to basic issues in the field.

The Department of Comparative Literature introduces students to the study and understanding of literature beyond linguistic or national boundaries; the theory, interpretation, and criticism of literature; and its interactions with adjacent fields like visual and material culture, linguistics, film, psychology, law, and philosophy. The comparative perspective invites the exploration of such transnational phenomena as literary or cultural periods and trends (Renaissance, Romanticism, Modernism, postcolonialism) or genres and modes of discourse. Students may specialize in any cultures or languages, to the extent that they are sufficiently covered at Yale. The Ph.D. degree qualifies candidates to teach comparative literature as well as the national literature(s) of their specialization.

The first year of the Ph.D. program in Comparative Literature consists of eight graduate-level courses, all of which must be taken for a quality letter grade (not pass/fail). Students are expected to take a minimum of six courses in their field of study in years One & Two with room for language study built in. The two-quarter foundational sequence Comparative Literature 501 and 502 is required for ALL first years and transfer students, including those with a previous MA.

The major program at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society (ICLS) allows qualified students to study literature, culture, and society with reference to material from several national traditions, or in combination of literary study with comparative study in other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Under the guidance of the director of undergraduate studies, students select courses offered by participating departments.

The Ph.D. Program in Comparative Literature covers the study of narrative, poetry, representation and cultural history. The Program enables students to engage rigorously with critical theory. We draw our faculty from many disciplines: the languages and literary histories of Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, East Asia, and South Asia: history, art history, religion; anthropology; folklore; political science; Africana studies; Jewish studies; Gender and Sexuality studies; sociology; communications.

For over twenty years, Dartmouth Comparative Literature Program has attracted some of the best to the comparative study of literature and culture. Dartmouth is thus uniquely placed to train M.A. candidates in foreign languages, literary theory, and practical scholarship. The aim of Dartmouth one-year Masters Program is to provide the tools necessary for Ph.D. study or for careers in teaching and international studies. The curriculum stresses intensive language study, broad-based theory and methodology courses, research tools, directed independent work, and pedagogical training.

PhD students choosing a focus in comparative literature should be competent in three national literatures and have a general familiarity with critical theory. Students are encouraged to spend at least one year studying abroad, usually working in Paris, Florence, Hamburg, Geneva, or Madrid in programs sponsored by the department or the Modern Languages and Literatures. Similar arrangements can generally be made with the Classics and the programs in the romance languages and literatures. Complete requirements can be found in the Graduate Handbook.

As a comparative literature major, you’ll study the human condition as depicted in literary works from many different traditions. The international and comparative range provides majors with a broad, critical understanding of what literature is and does. Since knowing the language is essential to understanding a given literature and culture, all majors study a second language and literature at an advanced level.

The graduate program in Comparative Literature emphasizes flexibility and creativity. Our students tend to thrive under Cornell's graduate field system. The program imposes no required courses, thus allowing the student maximal latitude in composing a program of study. We understand "comparison" in a very generous sense and we encourage work that is theoretical, anthropological, critical, or historical as well as grounded in the study of particular cultural or linguistic traditions and in different media. Normally students to have the ability to do advanced work in at least two languages as well as having reading knowledge of a third language.