Comparative Literature
What You'll Study
While it seeks to prepare its students for reading and research in the languages and histories of different societies and periods, it is also dedicated to their critical and cultural analysis. Literary theory in all its forms helps to break down the borders between national literary fields, as well as between literary studies and other disciplines. Indeed, the discipline of Comparative Literature asks, often, just what "literature" is, and how it functions as a product of (and response to) our imaginations, our languages, and our social and economic lives. Students in our courses, majors in the department, and graduate students in the Ph.D. program all interact to shape debates about the place of the verbal arts (and the methods of their study) in past times and our own.
Featured Alumni
WOLF School Director, Web of Life Field (WOLF) School and Little Basin Cabins & Campground/UCCR
Class of '92
Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford University Department of Bioengineering
Class of '11
Related Majors

African and African American Studies

East Asian Studies

French
Pursue course work at all levels in the language, cultures, literatures, and intellectual histories of the French tradition.
- 1 of 2
- >
What if I Studied...?

Civil and Environmental Engineering
This pre-professional program balances the fundamentals common to many specialties in civil engineering and allows for concentration in structures and construction or environmental and water studies.
Questions, Comments, or Concerns? Learn more about the Majors site.