The Comparative Literature Department at Emory offers Ph.D. students a comprehensive curriculum leading to teaching and scholarship in literary disciplines across national traditions and in the theoretical and critical exploration of literature and language. Teaching faculty are drawn from surrounding departments throughout the University, with a variety of literatures and related disciplines represented in the Department. The emphasis of the Department reflects the primary goals of Comparative Literature: the comparison of literatures in languages across national boundaries and the engagement in theoretical explorations across disciplinary boundaries such as psychoanalysis and philosophy. The Department also recognizes the crucial significance of engaging “languages” more broadly defined, including, for instance, those languages or symbolic systems that are central to developments in the sciences and in technology. The Department thus encourages innovative theoretical reflection across linguistic and disciplinary boundaries, while at the same time grounding the work of comparison in theoretical rigor and in close-reading that is in vigilant attention to the intricacies of language.

Comparative Literature at Emory reflects the strengths of a distinguished group of faculty nationally recognized for their literary scholarship as well as for their theoretical work. Particular emphasis is placed on training in close reading and in literary theory. Students choose a focus in at least two national literary traditions, as well as an area of theoretical or conceptual interest. Candidates are encouraged to pursue theoretical interests in one or more of the six areas that cross disciplinary boundaries: 1) Trauma, Psychoanalysis and Testimony; 2) Comparative Literature and Religion; 3) Politics and Global Culture; 4) Literature and Aesthetics; 5) Literature, Technology and Human/Post-Human Studies; 6) Literature and Philosophy. These fields represent the scholarly expertise of the Comparative Literature faculty as well as the interdisciplinary emphasis of the University. Students who wish to pursue in-depth training in a particular literary tradition may study toward Certificates in English, French and Spanish. Certificates are also offered in Philosophy, Women’s Studies and there is the additional option of a Minor in Psychoanalytic Studies, which provides courses both in the University and in the Psychoanalytic Institute.

The Ph.D. Program in Comparative Literature

The curriculum in Comparative Literature provides for the study of at least two national literatures and a set of theoretical or philosophical areas of interest.  Students are asked to focus on 1)  a range of literatures in the form of at least one primary and one secondary body of literature representing different traditions;  2)  a set of defined theoretical, critical and/or historical areas of inquiry that are pursued within the framework of a student's designated literatures and 3)  at least two different historical periods within the bodies of literatures in which they are working.  Students may choose between two courses of study:  the standard comparative literature option, which allows maximum flexibility, and the concentration option in a national tradition, which requires increased focus on one of the national literatures and may lead to a Certificate in that department along with a PhD. All students are required to demonstrate excellence in one foreign language and a good reading knowledge in a second foreign language.