Comparative methods in literary studies can be seen as the contribution by the humanities to a broad transformation of university disciplines beginning in the early 19th century; a new perception of phenomena in the life sciences (anatomy, psychology), and social sciences (jurisprudence, linguistics, anthropology). The change of perspective was motivated by the need for more systematic relationships within already existing bodies of knowledge, as well as for new connections between objects apparently foreign, alien to one another. Finally, in what might be felt as an ethical dimension, one desires to relativize one’s own parochial certainties, and to rethink these from a cosmopolitan, an international, viewpoint.

The comparative literature program is true to these traditions, while attentive to the necessity of revision, change, renewal, of its offerings on the basis of the experience of the multiplicity of literary forms, as well as current work in literary theory and criticism.

The program insists that every course examine works from different linguistic and cultural areas and periods and/or from different disciplines. We call attention to the origin and diffusions of genres, themes, and movements, and the relation between literary and other art forms. We require reading fluency in original languages (as well as translations) for all upper-division studies (seminars, thesis), and expect that students become acquainted with and capable of employing critical methods of textual analysis.