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Director of Graduate Studies:
Professor John T. Hamilton
In the Department of
Comparative Literature, we examine the range of literature,
its transmission, and its dynamic traversal of linguistic,
geographic, cultural, political, and disciplinary boundaries.
Our students adopt a global perspective and interdisciplinary
outlook as they pursue work in various languages, traditions
and academic fields. Faculty members offer courses embracing
the ancient and modern periods of world literature, exploring
critical, theoretical, and historical issues, as well as problems
of representation in the broadest sense. This type of analysis
expands the field of literature to include a wide variety
of cultural practices -- from historical, philosophical, and
legal texts to artifacts of visual and popular culture --
revealing the roles literature plays as a form of material
expression and symbolic exchange.
Admitting an average
of six fully-funded students a year into its doctoral program,
the department provides an intimate intellectual setting in
which students work closely with core faculty while exploring
the considerable resources offered by other NYU departments
and by universities participating in the Inter-University
Doctoral Consortium (Columbia University, CUNY, Princeton
University, Rutgers University, Stonybrook, Teachers' College
- Columbia, Fordham University, and The New School for Social
Research).
Graduate students play
a vital role in the life of the department, notably through
the organization of annual colloquia which attract the participation
of graduate students and faculty from across the nation and
around the world.. Recent colloquia include "Forclosure
and Forgiveness: Tracing Debt in Literature and Culture"
(Mark Sanders, keynote speaker), "The Speakable, The Unspeakable,
and the Politics of Listening: Ethics of Confronting the Real"
(Ngugi wa Thiong'o, keynote speaker), "National Literatures
Under Siege" (Assia Djebar, keynote speaker) and "Translation:
Themes and Variations" (Lawrence Venuti, keynote speaker).
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