Best Universities offering graduate programs in Comparative Literature

What do you learn in a Comparative Literature Graduate Program?

A Master’s in Comparative Literature is an interdisciplinary degree, combining the studies of language, literature, and culture. Most students in comparative literature graduate programs know a second language, giving them a larger base through which to read and comprehend various works of fiction. Often, comparative literature is an international discipline, involving works of writers from all around the world. Most comparative literature programs analyze literature in connection to history, philosophy, politics, and linguistics, and study the intersection of literature with other media forms such as film, drama, visual arts, and music.

Graduates of a comparative literature program can go on to work as teachers, publishers, journalists, translators, or authors. Additionally, graduates may go on to pursue a PhD in comparative literature, or another related field.

Master's degree in Comparative Literature is offered by 50 American universities. Dartmouth College had highest number of international students receiving a Master's degree. Yale University had the most women graduates in this program.

University of Chicago

Ranked as: #4 in Best National University

Tuition: $57,759

State: IL

Acceptance: 7.26%

One of the country’s earliest comparative literature programs, the Department of Comparative Literature boasts a rich history of global and trans-historical thinking, internationally renowned faculty, and eminent visiting scholars. MAPH students can choose to focus all of their coursework in the Department or complement their research in Comparative Literature with classes in other subject areas, such as Cinema and Media Studies, Classics, Gender and Sexuality, Germanic Studies, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, English Language and Literature, Romance Languages and Literatures, Slavic Languages and Literatures, and South Asian Languages and Civilizations.

Comparative Literature

University of Chicago GRE score and admission requirements for graduate programs in Foreign Languages, Cultures, Literature and Linguistics

STD_TEXT: 241344

Columbia University in the City of New York

Ranked as: #4 in Best National University

Tuition: $46,216

State: NY

Acceptance: 5.91%

Program Category: PhD ProgramsChair: Alan StewartDirector of Graduate Studies: James Eli AdamsAssociate Director of Graduate Studies: Matthew HartWebsite:english.columbia.eduDegree Programs: Full-Time: MA, MPhil, PhD Full-Time Part-Time: Free-Standing MA. The English and Comparative Literature has played a significant role in the history of literary study in the United States and abroad since its inception. Students should not free-standing program if they wish to advance beyond the MA in the English and Comparative Literature department at Columbi the free-standing program is terminal. In the MA year, students take eight courses, which must include the Master’s Seminar and the Colloquium in Theory and Method.

English and Comparative Literature

STD_TEXT: 399398

University of California-Santa Barbara

Ranked as: #40 in Best National University

Tuition: $26,544

State: CA

Acceptance: 32.2%

MA PhD in Comparative Literature with a German Literary Studies Specialization (CLG). Networking fields in this way enables CLG students to situate their study of the German literary tradition within a broader intellectual and cultural context, thereby optimally qualifying them for academic appointments in a profession in which interdisciplinary and transnational training is essential. The MA requires a minimum of 40 units of graduate-level course work in German literature in an interdisciplinary context and in a second national literature.

Comparative Literature

STD_TEXT: 139604

University of California-Irvine

Ranked as: #42 in Best National University

Tuition: $26,544

State: CA

Acceptance: 28.76%

Comparative Literature at Irvine focuses on interdisciplinary study beyond traditional canons and genres. The program has sought in turn to question the limits of the postcolonial paradigm through research in black studies, Native American studies, LGBQT studies, feminist studies, and various minority formations--for example, racial, ethnic, gendered, sexed, religious--within national and transnational spaces. The many theoretical accents that have emerged out the debates above also involve reciprocal and mutually transformative relations with other components of critical theory, informed by such well-established modes of thought as Marxism and psychoanalysis.

Comparative Literature Ph.D.

University of California-Irvine GRE score,GPA for masters degree in Foreign Languages, Cultures, Literature and Linguistics

STD_TEXT: 14079

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Ranked as: #42 in Best National University

Tuition: $28,221

State: IL

Acceptance: 62.16%

The Ph.D. in Comparative Literature provides rigorous training in multiple languages and literatures, comparative cultural methods, and critical theory, leading to careers in the academy and beyond. Course work in at least three national literatures and related fields provides the basis for work on translation, the history of ideas, gender and women’s studies, cinema and media, Holocaust and genocide studies, multilingualism, postcolonialism, the environmental and medical humanities, globalization, and world literature.

Ph.D. in Comparative Literature

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign GRE score,GPA for masters degree in Foreign Languages, Cultures, Literature and Linguistics

STD_TEXT: 356884

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Ranked as: #47 in Best National University

Tuition: $24,054

State: WI

Acceptance: 51.73%

Graduate study in the Department of Comparative Literature and Folklore Studies (CLFS) emphasizes the active research into and theorizing of the comparative, the literary, the folkloric, and the cultural in a global context. CLFS faculty and students investigate cultures within, across, and beyond linguistic, regional, and national boundaries. The comparative and pluri-lingual nature of CLFS at UW–Madison enables the careful and informed study of new and evolving theories and cultural methodologies as well as of prior, present, and emerging cultural and literary practices and phenomena.

Comparative Literature and Folklore Studies, M.A. University of Wisconsin-Madison

University of Wisconsin-Madison GRE score,GPA for masters degree in Foreign Languages, Cultures, Literature and Linguistics

STD_TEXT: 174942

University of Maryland-College Park

Ranked as: #62 in Best National University

Tuition: $27,864

State: MD

Acceptance: 47.16%

MAIT - Masters in the Mathematics of Advanced Industrial Tech. SLLC - School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. The Ph.D. degree normally entails at least 30 credits of course work (beyond M.A. courses) and 12 credits of dissertation research. Advising will address the depth, breadth, and coherence of each student course plan and, if necessary, coordination among different histories of the early modern and modern.

Comparative Literature, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) University of Maryland

University of Maryland-College Park GRE score,GPA for masters degree in Foreign Languages, Cultures, Literature and Linguistics

STD_TEXT: 413537

University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Ranked as: #76 in Best National University

Tuition: $28,669

State: MA

Acceptance: 59.92%

Graduate students pursuing the PhD, MA, or MA in Translation find abundant resources in Comparative Literature at UMass Amherst, as well as a good deal of freedom, since our approaches to the discipline continue to grow with evolving scholarship. The Master of Arts in Translation and Interpreting Studies is a separate track of the M.A. in Comparative Literature. Students in the program will acquire expertise in practical techniques and strategies of translation as well as a rigorous understanding of the theoretical and cultural stakes of the field.

Comparative Literature

GRE score required at University of Massachusetts-Amherst master's degree programs in Comparative Literature

STD_TEXT: 158466

Binghamton University

Ranked as: #88 in Best National University

Tuition: $22,650

State: NY

Acceptance: 39.81%

The Graduate Progam in Comparative Literature at UMass Amherst offers the PhD in Comparative Literature and the MA in Comparative Literature. Students in both degree programs may choose to follow a focuased track in Translationand Interpreting Studies. Recent graduates have been placed in tenure track jobs at Beloit College (Washington), George Mason University, University of Georgia, University of Peradeniya, College of the Holy Cross, Florida International University, the University of Manchester, the University of Palermo, the University of Malta, and Union College they have held visiting assistant professorships at Swarth College and Tulane University, and postdoctural appointments at the University of Pennsylvania.

Graduate Studies in Comparative Literature

Binghamton University GRE score,GPA for masters degree in Foreign Languages, Cultures, Literature and Linguistics

STD_TEXT: 468905

University at Buffalo

Ranked as: #103 in Best National University

Tuition: $22,650

State: NY

Acceptance: 55.85%

PhD Applicants: Previous graduate scholarship record from MA program of 3.3 or better (based on a 4.0 system), and strong verbal, analytic and quantitative GRE scores. GRE scores are not required for MA applicants who do not plan to continue on to the PhD, but they are required for any applicant who plans to pursue the PhD or who wishes to be considered for a teaching assistantship, Schomburg Fellowship or other university funding. Request an official electronic score report from Educational Testing Service (ETS).

Comparative Literature

GRE score required at University at Buffalo master's degree programs in Comparative Literature

STD_TEXT: 484734

Best Graduate Programs in Comparative Literature - Updated 2020

What do you learn in a Comparative Literature Graduate Program?

University of Chicago

Columbia University in the City of New York

University of California-Santa Barbara

University of California-Irvine

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Wisconsin-Madison

University of Maryland-College Park

University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Binghamton University

University at Buffalo

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