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 2023 semester.

Omoniyi Afolabi 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 Cory A Reed Elizabeth Richmond-Garza Thorsten Ries Andrew M Riggsby Sonia Roncador Cesar A Salgado Thomas Levi Thompson Alexandra K Wettlaufer Lynn R Wilkinson Jennifer M Wilks Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski Helena Woodard Marjorie C Woods