UTexas

Comparative Literature

Master of Arts
Doctor of Philosophy

For More Information

Campus address: Calhoun Hall (CAL) 217, phone (512) 471-1925; campus mail code: B5003

Mailing address: The University of Texas at Austin, Graduate Program in Comparative Literature, 208 West 21st Street B5003, Austin TX 78712

E-mail: complit@austin.utexas.edu

URL: http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/complit/

Facilities for Graduate Work

Comparative Literature offers a core of courses in the discipline and draws on the teaching and scholarly resources of faculty members in more than 20 programs in language, literature, culture, and area studies. In addition to the University Libraries facilities, special collections in the Harry Ransom Center and the Benson Latin American Collection, for example, offer opportunities for research.

Areas of Study

Students seeking the Master of Arts degree are expected to develop a broad knowledge of the theory and practice of comparative literature, both through coursework and through the completion of a report or thesis. In addition, they expand their acquaintance with a single world-language literature by studying it at the graduate level.

Students seeking the doctoral degree are expected to develop extensive knowledge of one world-language literature and broad knowledge of a second. They are required to complete, in effect, the equivalent of a master’s degree in one world-language literature, while demonstrating proficiency in either two additional languages or in one additional language and a third area of relevant study. The program also prepares students in literary theory and criticism and in the scholarly and critical methods of studying the relationships among various literatures and cultures. Interdisciplinary study is also encouraged, as students explore the interrelationships between literature and other fields (such as art history, gender studies, ethnic studies, anthropology, film, philosophy, and psychology) as part of their programs of work. After fulfilling all requirements in the areas of literature, theory, and language and passing both qualifying and comprehensive examinations, students choose a period, genre, or historical, cultural, intellectual, or critical problem on which to write a dissertation.

Work toward the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy is offered in collaboration with the Departments of Asian Studies, Classics, English, French and Italian, Germanic Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Slavic and Eurasian Studies, and Spanish and Portuguese, as well as many area-studies centers within the College of Liberal Arts.  Additionally students may undertake relevant coursework in anthropology, history, linguistics, philosophy, LGBTQ studies, women's and gender studies, African and African diaspora studies, Asian-American studies, Mexican-American and Latina/o studies, art and art history, music, radio-television-film, and other units approved by the graduate advisor in comparative literature.

Graduate Studies Committee

The following faculty members served on the Graduate Studies Committee (GSC) in the spring 2024 semester.

Omoniyi Afolabi
Marina Alexandrova
Kamran Ali
Katherine M Arens
Minou Arjomand
Vladislav Beronja
Douglas G Biow
Marc Bizer
Jason R Borge
Pascale R Bos
Daniela Bini Carter
Kirsten Cather
Sung-Sheng Yvonne Chang
Hector Dominguez-Ruvalcaba
Emily L Drumsta
Alison K Frazier
Thomas Jesus Garza
John M Gonzalez
Karen Grumberg
Sabine Hake
Michael P Harney
Geraldine Heng
Neville Hoad
Brian Hurley
Syed A Hyder
David D Kornhaber
Naomi E Lindstrom
Keith A Livers
Carol H MacKay
Tracie M Matysik
Julie A Minich
Lisa L Moore
Avigail Noy
Jeannette Okur
Jorge Perez Perez
Gabriela Polit
Lito Elio Porto
Cory A Reed
Elizabeth Richmond-Garza
Thorsten Ries
Andrew M Riggsby
Sonia Roncador
Cesar A Salgado
Julija Vida Sukys
Thomas Levi Thompson
Alexandra K Wettlaufer
Lynn R Wilkinson
Jennifer M Wilks
Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski
Helena Woodard