| Admissions to the graduate program in comparative literature has been
temporarily suspended. Effective fall 2007 (Online update 5/30/07) |
College: College of Letters and Science
Designation: Department
Major: Comparative Literature
Degrees Offered: M.A., Ph.D.
Other: Ph.D. Minor
Faculty: Professors Layoun (chair), Adler (also German), Saiz; Assistant Professors Livanos, Statkiewicz; Affiliate Professors Livorni (French and Italian), Newlands (Classics); International Affiliate/Visiting Professor Ramalho de Sousa Santos.
The Graduate Program in Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison emphasizes the active theorizing of the comparative and of the interdisciplinary. Within this context, comparative literature investigates literatures and cultures within, across, and beyond national/linguistic boundaries. The comparative and pluri-linguistic nature of comparative literature at UW-Madison enables the careful study of new and evolving theories and literary and cultural methodologies as well as of prior, present, and emerging literary and cultural phenomena.
Students may study problems in theory and criticism, culture, genre, mode, periodization, literary movements, and translation. They may engage problems and questions concerning the interaction of "high" and "low" literatures; of literature with other arts or other disciplines; and the relationships between literature and economic, sociopolitical, and other historical structures and issues, including ideological and value formation.
The graduate program leads to the master of arts and the doctor of philosophy degrees in comparative literature. Ph.D. candidates in other majors may elect to pursue a minor in comparative literature.
The Department of Comparative Literature offers a Ph.D. minor to graduate students of other departments interested in pursuing the workings of comparative methodology and in broadening the critical framework for their study of literatures, cultures, and texts.
The minor requires a minimum of 12 credits of comparative literature course work, which must include at least one seminar (at the 800 or 900 level); CL 702 (Problems in Comparative Studies) is strongly recommended though not required. Three credits may be taken at the 400 level, with the consent of the director of graduate studies. (See Courses section for more information.)
At the beginning of studies in the department, all Ph.D. minors should contact the director of graduate studies concerning course work for the minor. Completion of the minor will be certified by either the director of graduate studies or the department chair.
Graduate admissions to the Department of Comparative Literature has been temporarily suspended effective fall 2007.
For more information: Department of Comparative Literature, 934 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706-1525; 608/262-3059; fax 608/262-9723; bollant@lss.wisc.edu; polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/complit/complit.html.