The Department of Comparative Literature provides a broad range of courses in European as well as non-European literatures. Courses variously stress significant authors, themes, problems, styles, genres, historical periods, and theoretical perspectives. In cooperation with related departments in the humanities, the departmental offerings reflect current interdisciplinary approaches to literary study: hermeneutics, semiotics, deconstruction, cultural criticism, Marxism, reception aesthetics, feminism, psychoanalysis. 

Take a look at our highlighted Fall 2022 Courses here!

Faculty Accomplishments

 Congratulations to Naminata Diabate who has been awarded the African Literature Association 2022 First Book Prize for her book Naked Agency: Genital Cursing and Biopolitics in Africa (Duke University Press, 2020). 

Reflecting the author’s deep investment in African literature, culture, and media, the book forwards ambitious feminist arguments originating out of workshops and conversations with leading African and Euro-American scholars in the field. In its wide geographical reach, it displays a capacity to move across different modalities without losing textual detail. It synthetically brings together various contexts to present a nuanced and ambitious argument about women’s naked protests across Africa and the diaspora that are equally relevant to Euro-American biopolitical discussions.