Comparative Literary Studies
Academic Program Introduction
Comparative Literary Studies introduces students to the study of literature beyond individual national and linguistic boundaries. The program allows students to link literary studies with other areas of interest—film, philosophy, linguistics, translation, human rights, gender and sexuality, and more. Our courses emphasize how language operates within different cultural and historical contexts, providing students with skills for appreciating cultural diversity and difference. Students also gain advanced skills in writing and interpretation.
We offer a rare breadth of linguistic and cultural expertise and curricular options. Students choose from courses from departments and programs across the College to construct a major program that suits their interests, and they often pursue a second major, including in STEM fields.
Learning goals
Analyze literary texts, genres, and movements across departmental, national, and linguistic boundaries and in conversation with other texts, cultures, media, or technologies.
Apply key concepts of theoretical approaches to cultural and textual studies.
Understand the history of comparative literary studies and world literature, especially as they evolve in the current global literary moment.
Understand the dynamics presented by a literary text in translation and adaptation.
Acquire skills to appreciate cultural differences.
Programs of Study
Comparative literary studies major and minor
Students go beyond the study of an individual literary tradition to embrace the study of literature in a broadly comparative context.
Course highlights
Reading Travel
CLCV212
Every story is a travel story, and this class introduces students to the theme of travel as it appears in a range of literary texts from Homer's Odyssey to Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Toni Morrison's novel Home. We will focus on the ways that mobility, transience, and unsettledness function in these works both to confirm and challenge our ideas of home, identity (both personal and cultural), and the possibilities of return.
(CLCV 212 and CPLT 212 are cross-listed courses.)-
Contemporary Historical Fiction in English and in Translation
ENG354
In the 21st century, the historical novel has moved globally into literary fiction--novels characterized by complex narrative structures, richer use of language, and more wide-ranging questions about history, time, identity. What makes a novel precisely historical? Why do recent literary historical fictions often toggle between the past and present, as characters in the present look to the past for their own histories? How do historical novels embrace genre hybridity by incorporating science fiction or the gothic? How do these novels not only use history as their setting, but seek to question our notions of history? Texts range from the Ugandan epic Kintu (Jennifer Nansuguba Makumbi), to You Dreamed of Empires A (Álvaro Enrique)--a mashup of the encounter of Cortés and Moctezuma in Tenochtitlan, to Han Kang''s Human Acts--the visceral account of the 1980 democratic uprising in South Korea. All texts will be read in English. (CPLT 354 and ENG 354 are cross-listed courses.) -
First-Year Seminar: Monsters
REL112Y
An introduction to the history and concepts of monsters and monstrosity. We will apply readings in literary and cultural theory to case studies drawn from biblical literature and iconography from the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean myths and cosmologies, Victorian-era gothic novels, and contemporary popular culture to study monstrous beings from the earliest examples until the present. We will center questions concerning the human creation (and fear) of monstrous beings, the cultural specificity of terror, the social significance of monsters, and how the history of monsters informs, and has been informed by, the ancient world. No previous knowledge of the Bible, literature, or monsters is required or presumed.
Research highlights
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Professor Sergio Parussa investigates the relationship between Judaism and writing in contemporary Italian literature as well as its intertwining with LGBTQ+ culture in Italy. His work includes translations of literary works, such as L'orso maggiore by Ginevra Bompiani, as The Great Bear (Italica Press, November 2000), and Simonetta Perkins by L.P. Hartley (Nottetempo, 2008).
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Professor Carol Dougherty works at the intersection of literature, politics, and history in archaic and classical Greece. Her current research approaches Greek tragedy within the discourse of hospitality, exploring the political and ethical issues that narratives about welcoming the foreigner represent on the Athenian stage. Her book Travel and Home in Homer’s Odyssey and Contemporary Literature was published by Oxford University Press in 2019.
Beyond Wellesley
Beyond Wellesley
A major in comparative literary studies adds value to any résumé. Our graduates pursue careers in media, law, public service, the tech industry, the nonprofit sector, publishing, international business, and academia, among other areas.
Recent Employers
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