Comparative Literature

The Comparative Literature program 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 departments throughout the University, representing a variety of literatures and related disciplines.

Rigor and Innovation

Comparative Literature at Emory reflects the strengths of a distinguished group of faculty internationally recognized for their literary scholarship as well as for their theoretical work.

• We emphasize the primary expertise and goals of Comparative Literature: close reading and deep knowledge of literary theory, employed to compare literatures in different languages across national boundaries and to engage in theoretical explorations across disciplinary boundaries such as psychoanalysis and philosophy.
• We recognize 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.
• We encourage innovative theoretical reflection across linguistic and disciplinary boundaries, that grounds the work of comparison in theoretical rigor and in close reading, paying vigilant attention to the intricacies of language.