CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT: Professor Lezra

DIRECTOR OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES: Assistant Professor Vatulescu

Comparative literature is an innovative, interdisciplinary major that allows students to explore literature and literary questions unfettered by national borders and institutional boundaries. In comparative literature, students develop a multifaceted critical approach that both emphasizes the integrity of literature and expands an understanding of textuality to include all cultural artifacts and modes of thought that involve language and representation. The Department of Comparative Literature encourages students to pursue theoretical and philosophical modes of reading while engaging texts and developing an understanding of the theory and non-English practice of translation. To interrogate how literature is enmeshed in nonliterary contexts, comparative literature majors may develop expertise in relevant, related disciplines such as art history, philosophy, history, anthropology, and cinema studies. Comparative literature departmental course offerings include classes in world literature and interdisciplinary studies where students work intensively with a distinguished faculty of scholars in African, Caribbean, Chinese, European and Anglo-American, Japanese, Latin American, Middle Eastern and Islamic, and Russian and Slavic literary studies.

Faculty

Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Scholar in Residence:
Reiss

Collegiate Professor; Professor of Comparative Literature and German:
Hamilton

Professors:
Apter, Baer, Braithwaite, Chioles, Diawara, Iampolski, Javitch, Lezra, Ronell, K. Ross, Ruttenburg, Sanders, Sieburth, X. Zhang

Associate Professors:
Basterra, Dopico

Assistant Professors:
Halim, Vatulescu

Associated Faculty:
Bishop, Fischer, Freccero, Gajarawala, Molloy, Pratt, Stam, Tylus, Watson, Young

Affiliated Faculty:
Aching, Affron, Beaujour, Dash, Feldman, Haverkamp, Hollier, Kennedy, Krabbenhoft, Levy, Lockridge, Meisel, Mikhail, Schechner, Shohat, Vitz, Yúdice