Director of Undergraduate Studies:
Professor John Chioles
The undergraduate major is designed to foster
serious work in literature at the advanced level, while giving students
a strong background in critical and cultural analysis and a keen ability
to pose questions and write with lucidity and force. The major provides
an ideal intellectual site for students to draw connections across cultures,
periods, genres, and disciplines in a rigorous yet individually designed
way. A comparative literature major could lead to the advanced study of
literature at the graduate level but could just as readily be a strong
basis for advanced degrees and/or careers in journalism, publishing, international
relations,
international law, cultural studies, medicine, philosophy, education, public
policy, film and entertainment, and the information industries of computer
software and the World Wide Web.
Many comparative literature majors wish to study literature in its international
contexts, having already mastered one or more foreign literatures. However,
such mastery is not required in all courses or of all majors, and courses
are open to a wide range of nonmajors with eclectic and interdisciplinary
interests.
