In the Department of Comparative Literature, we examine the range of literature, its transmission, and its dynamic traversal of linguistic, geographic, cultural, political, and disciplinary boundaries. Our students adopt a global perspective and interdisciplinary outlook as they pursue work in various languages, traditions and academic fields. Faculty members offer courses embracing the ancient and modern periods of world literature, exploring critical, theoretical, and historical issues, as well as problems of representation in the broadest sense. This type of analysis expands the field of literature to include a wide variety of cultural practices — from historical, philosophical, and legal texts to artifacts of visual and popular culture — revealing the roles literature plays as a form of material expression and symbolic exchange. Admitting an average of six fully-funded students a year into its doctoral program, the department provides an intimate intellectual setting in which students work closely with core faculty while exploring the considerable resources offered by other NYU departments and by universities participating in the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium (Columbia University, CUNY, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Stonybrook, Teachers' College - Columbia, Fordham University, and The New School for Social Research).
Graduate students play a vital role in the life of the department, notably through the organization of the Comparatorium (Comparatorium), a regular colloquium featuring graduate student and faculty work in progress, and through organizing and participating in conferences which attract the participation of graduate students and faculty from across the nation and around the world. Recent conferences hosted by the department include "On Limits" (A. Kiarina Kordela, keynote speaker), “Lucretius and Modernity” (Catherine Wilson, keynote speaker), “Anachronic Shakespeare” (Samuel Weber, keynote speaker), “Posthuman Antiquities” (Adriana Cavarero and Claudia Baracchi, keynote speakers), “Re-Mediating the Archive: Image, Word, Performance,” and “On Reproduction” (Étienne Balibar, keynote speaker). In 2014, the department hosted the ACLA conference, “Capitals” (Judith Butler, plenary address). Graduate Certificate in Poetics and Theory symposia have provided publication opportunities for graduate students including Flirtations: Rhetoric and Aesthetics This Side of Seduction, ed. Daniel Hoffman-Schwartz, Barbara Natalie Nagel, and Lauren Shizuko Stone (Fordham University Press, 2015) (Link), and Lucretius and Modernity, ed. Jacques Lezra and Liza Blake (Palgrave, 2016) (Link)
ADMISSIONS: Please see "GSAS Admissions" at the right. If you have questions about the Admissions process, email complit.grad.admissions@nyu.edu.
Please note that the Ph.D. program in Comparative LIterature will not be accepting admissions applications for fall 2021. Due to COVID-19's impact on student progress, the department took the difficult decision to suspend its admissions cycle for one year. We will be devoting those fellowship resources to supporting students already enrolled in the program whose research and academic progress were impeded by the pandemic. In addition to providing extra financial support to those students whose studies have been most seriously affected, we are focusing on offering all of our students enhanced guidance and mentoring, and on maximizing their access to professional opportunities in our community. Our decision not to admit a cohort in 2021 was not an easy one, and we look forward to opening admissions again for fall 2022. The application for fall 2022 will be available in September 2021. Please direct questions to complit.grad.admissions@nyu.edu.
Comparative Literature PhD applicants with an interest in Russia should be aware of the Interdisciplinary Specialization in Russia, which takes advantage of curricular offerings in the Department of Russian & Slavic Studies. Students who pursue the ISR may choose to take up to half of their points in or cross-listed with the Department of Russian & Slavic Studies while earning the doctoral degree in Comparative Literature. For more information please contact the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Russian & Slavic Studies.
For all other questions on the graduate program, contact A.M Wild at al180@nyu.edu