Website: http://complit.rutgers.edu

Undergraduate Director: Jorge T. Marcone

Graduate Director: Elin Diamond

Core Faculty:

Ousseina Alidou, B.A., Niamey (Africa); M.A., Ph.D., Indiana
African literature and folklore; African and comparative women's studies

Edyta Bojanowska, B.A., Barnard College; Ph.D., Harvard
Nineteenth-century Russian literature and cultural history; empire and nationalism studies; post colonial theory; Polish literature

Elin Diamond, B.A., Brandeis; M.A., Ph.D., California (Davis)
Drama and performance; dramatic theory and critical theory; feminism and gender studies

Uri Eisenzweig, B.A., Tel Aviv (Israel); M.A., Doctorate, Paris
French literature; literary theory; Western literature of the 19th and 20th centuries

Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., California (Berkeley)
Feminist theory; cinema and cultural studies; World War II and Holocaust; television and contemporary culture; theories of national identity; French cinema and culture

Michael Levine, B.A., Cornell; M.A., Ph.D., Johns Hopkins
Nineteenth- and 20th- century German literature, literary theory, and intellectual history; intersections among literary, philosophical, and psychoanalytic discourses; Holocaust studies

Nelson Maldonado-Torres, B.A., Puerto Rico; Ph.D., Brown
Comparative race and ethnic studies; comparative critical theory; Caribbean philosophy; decolonial thinking

Susan Martin-Márquez, B.A., M.A., Chicago; Ph.D., Pennsylvania
Modern Spanish peninsular cultural studies and Spanish-language film; cinema studies

Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, B.A., Puerto Rico; M.A., Ph.D., California (Berkeley)
Hispanic Caribbean and Latino literature; literary theory; colonial and postcolonial theory; migration studies; Latin American literature

Nicholas Rennie, B.A., Princeton; Ph.D., Yale
Literature of the Enlightenment and the age of Goethe; modern aesthetics and intellectual history; Frankfurt School; 20th-century German novel

Paul Schalow, B.A., Hampshire College; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard
Japanese literature (Edo period); gender and sexuality in Japanese literature; Japanese women's writing

Richard Serrano, B.A., Stanford; M.A., Ph.D., California (Berkeley)
Maghrebi and Sub-Saharan African literatures in French; modern French poetry; the Qur'an and Arabic poetry; Chinese poetry (especially Tang and Qing); Korean poetry

Ben Sifuentes-Jáuregui, B.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Yale
Latino/a literature and culture, 20th-century Latin American literature and cultural studies; gender theory and sexuality studies; psychoanalysis

James Swenson, B.A., Brown; M.A., Ph.D., Yale
Eighteenth-century literature and intellectual history; 20th-century criticism and theory

Emily Van Buskirk, B.A., Princeton; Ph.D., Harvard
Russian and Czech literature, film, and literary theory; autobiography; in-between genres; everyday life; representations of war and the Leningrad blockade; the culture of the thaw; gender and sexuality; memory and history; theories of the self

Alessandro Vettori, Dottore in Lettere, Firenze (Italy); Ph.D., Yale
Medieval poetry and Dante; rewriting of biblical texts in literary texts of the Italian tradition; the devil in European culture; autobiography

Janet Walker, B.A., Wisconsin; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard
The novel from its European beginnings to its transformations by East, South, and Southeast Asian writers; hybrid modernity in material culture, literature, and the arts; modern Japanese fiction and the West

Steven Walker, B.A., Wisconsin; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard
Interface of ancient Greek and modern texts; Jungian interpretation of myth; modernist cryptic intertexts

Affiliate Faculty:

Stephen Bronner, B.A., CUNY (City College); M.A., Ph.D., California (Berkeley)
Critical theory; political theory

Abena Busia, B.A., M.A., St. Anne's College (Oxford); Ph.D., St. Anthony's College (Oxford)
African women in British and American fiction

Ed Cohen, A.B., Georgetown; Ph.D., Stanford
Sexuality; health and healing; political philosophy; social theory; cultural history; transformational technologies; popular culture

Drucilla Cornell, B.A., Antioch; J.D., UCLA Law School
Contemporary continental thought; critical theory; grass-roots political and legal mobilization; jurisprudence; women's literature; feminism; aesthetics; psychoanalysis; political philosophy

Marianne DeKoven, B.A., Radcliffe College; M.A., Ph.D., Stanford
Modernism and postmodernism; 20th-century and contemporary literature and culture; gender theory and criticism

Jerry Aline Flieger, B.A., Wisconsin; M.A., Ph.D., California (Berkeley)
Twentieth century and contemporary literature and theory; gender studies; psychoanalytic literary theory

William Galperin, A.B., Chicago; A.M., Ph.D., Brown
Late 18th-century and early 19th-century British poetry and fiction; literary and cultural theory; film studies

Paola Gambarota, Ph.D., Pavia (Italy);  Ph.D., Yale
Modern Italian literature; theories of language and nation; European pre-war avant-garde; film

Mary Gossy, B.A., Bryn Mawr College; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard
Spanish and Latin-American literature; feminist and critical theory; lesbian and gay literature

Elizabeth Grosz, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Sydney
Feminist theory and philosophy

Martha Helfer, B.A., Washington (St. Louis); M.A., Wisconsin (Madison); Ph.D., Stanford
Literature of the age of Goethe; Romantic aesthetic and philosophical theories; German intellectual history (18th-20th century); questions of gender and the construction of subjectivity; philosophical approaches to literature; representations of Jews in German critical discourse

Myra Jehlen, B.A., CUNY (City College); Ph.D., California (Berkeley)
Transatlantic cultural relations; literature and history

Michael McKeon, B.A., Chicago; M.A., Ph.D., Columbia
Seventeenth- and 18th-century literature; critical theory; historical criticism

Fatima Naqvi, B.A., Dartmouth College; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard
German; Austrian literature and culture; film studies

Gerald Pirog, B.A., Rutgers; M.Phil., Ph.D., Yale
Slavic languages and literatures; critical theory; poetry

Edward Portnoy, M.A., Columbia; Ph.D., Jewish Theological Seminary

Stephen Reinert, B.A., Western Washington; M.A., Ph.D., California (Los Angeles)
Byzantine, Balkan, and Turkic history and culture in the 14th and 15th centuries

Louis Sass, B.A., Harvard; M.A., Ph.D., California (Berkeley)
Schizophrenia; assessment; philosophy of psychology; intersection of clinical psychology with philosophy, the arts, and literary studies

Louisa Schein, B.A., Brown; M.A., Ph.D., California (Berkeley)
Cultural politics, ethnicity, nationalism and transnationalism; diaspora, gender and sexuality; representation, media, postcoloniality, postsocialism; China; Asian America

Jeffrey Shandler, Ph.D., Columbia
Yiddish language, literature and culture; Jews and media; Holocaust representation; Jews and visual culture; American Jewish vernacular culture

Weijie Song, Ph.D., Columbia
Modern Chinese literature and film; cultural studies; sinophone and diasporic writings

Camilla Stevens, B.A., Tulane; M.A., New Mexico; Ph.D., Kansas
Twentieth-century Spanish American drama, theater, and performance theory; Caribbean cultural studies; contemporary Dominican theater and performance

Ching-I Tu, B.A., National Taiwan; Ph.D., Washington
Chinese poetry; literary criticism; Chinese thought

Rebecca L. Walkowitz, A.B., Radcliffe College (Harvard); M.A., Sussex (UK); Ph.D., Harvard
Twentieth- and 21st-century British, Irish, and Anglophone literatures; the history and theory of the novel; comparative modernisms; the new world literature; translation studies and the history of the book; cosmopolitanism; postcolonial theory; critical theory

Yael Zerubavel, Ph.D., Pennsylvania
Collective memory; history and memory; Zionism and Hebrew national culture; myths and ritual; Modern Hebrew literature; Jewish immigrant literature

Comparative literature is an exciting, interdisciplinary program that allows you to study literature as it shapes and is shaped by the world of science, economics, politics, sexuality, and other cultural and historical forces. It is a major that should be attractive to students with a wide ranging interest in literature, theory, and cultural studies, and who also wish to read literature in the original language as well as in translation.

The program draws upon faculty from a wide range of disciplines and offers a great deal of personal, individualized guidance in the construction of your major. There is also a strong group of graduate students with diverse interests and language abilities who guide undergraduates through the mentorship program.

Students who graduate with a major in comparative literature may go on to study literature in graduate school, or, because of their training in research, critical thinking, and writing, are also prepared for law school and other professional schools.