What is Comparative Literature?
We are an interdisciplinary, multilingual field of study in the Humanities. We cultivate the study of foreign languages and cultures into a field of Global Humanities: language, literature, and culture understood together and in mutually illuminating contrast.
A study of literatures, media, and cultures across borders of language, geography, and time.
Humanities
In Comparative Literature classes, you will read exciting and enriching texts translated from many languages. You may also study film, visual art, music, philosophy, world popular culture, and critical theory. We cultivate curiosity and creativity in teaching and learning.
Global
Every Comparative Literature instructor speaks and studies multiple languages. Though all Comparative Literature courses are taught in English, the approach is always shaped by the instructor’s immersion in more than one language and cultural tradition.
Flexible
You have the flexibility to pursue study abroad and take courses in multiple departments such as English Literature, American Culture, Anthropology, Middle Eastern Studies, Sociology, Philosophy, History, History of Art, Classics, Women’s Studies, and Film, TV, and Media.
Individual
You can combine your critical and creative interests across disciplines to develop your own unique approach to Comparative Literature.
Our Curriculum
Comparative Literature courses reflect the wide diversity of our faculty’s interests. Recent course topics have included: The Myths of Monstrosity; Translation and Migration; Great Performances at Michigan; Literature and the Body; Detroit Sports Culture in Context; The Makings of Good Literary Fiction.
