Comparative Literature

Return to: USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

As a discipline, Comparative Literature seeks out and encourages transnational and transcultural experiences and perspectives. Our students are trained to ask broader and better questions about the many forms of cultural production surrounding them. Comparatists study the nature of literature and other media across and between different languages and cultures. They gain a broad knowledge of different cultural traditions representing writers and artists of diverse origins and from many historical periods. In addition to cross-linguistic and cross-cultural literary studies, the undergraduate program explores literature in social, political, intellectual and historical context and the relationship of literature to other arts, philosophy, and media, including digital media. The Department of Comparative Literature offers both a major and minor in comparative studies.

Students in Comparative Literature work with emergent and established scholars at the cutting edge of their various fields and disciplines. Our undergraduates are encouraged to adopt comparative study and literary theory not only as integral elements of interdisciplinary academic work, but as crucial tools of democratic citizenship in global contexts. The department has strengths in critical theory, and in both Western and non-Western literary and cultural traditions, including U.S., Latin American and Caribbean, Western European, Middle Eastern, East Asian and South Asian. The broad scope of scholarly expertise represented in the department enables students to reflect critically, across their course of studies, on the ways in which globalization affects the creation, dissemination and consumption of culture and to analyze literature, arts, and media as sites of resistance to and rethinking of this globalization.

Our undergraduate program is more broadly conceived than at many other universities. While we offer traditional Comparative Literature courses that cross the boundaries of national literatures and study literary periods, movements, and genres, our courses also allow students to explore literature in its interaction with philosophy, to discover the relation of literature to other arts and media, and to reflect on practices of translation as themselves modes of transcultural exchange and production. The strong non-Western component in the undergraduate program encourages our students to think with nuance and complexity about the place of literature in wider social and political contexts.

Taper Hall of Humanities 161
(213) 740-0102
FAX: (213) 740-8058
Email: complit@dornsife.usc.edu
dornsife.usc.edu/colt

Chair: Erin Graff Zivin, PhD

Faculty

University Professor of English, American Studies & Ethnicity and Comparative Literature and Aerol Arnold Chair of English: Viet Thanh Nguyen*, PhD (English)

University Professor of English and Comparative Literature: David St. John, MFA (English)

T.C. Wang Family Endowed Chair in Cinematic Arts and Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Comparative Literature: Akira Mizuta Lippit, PhD (Cinema and Media Studies)

Gender Studies Professor in Media and Gender and Professor of English, Comparative Literature and Gender Studies: Joseph A. Boone, PhD (English)

Florence R. Scott Professor of English and Professor of English and Comparative Literature: Tania Modleski, PhD (English)

USC Associates Chair in Humanities and Professor of English, American Studies & Ethnicity and Comparative Literature: John Rowe, PhD (English)

Professors: Vincent Farenga*, PhD (Classics); Erin Graff Zivin, PhD (Spanish and Portuguese); Julian Gutierrez-Albilla, PhD (Spanish and Portuguese); David E. James, PhD (Cinematic Arts); Margaret Rosenthal*, PhD (French and Italian); Hilary M. Schor, PhD (English); William G. Thalmann*, PhD (Classics); Daniel Tiffany, PhD (English); Alexander Zholkovsky*, PhD (Slavic Languages and Literatures)

Associate Professors: Gian-Maria Annovi, PhD (French and Italian); Brian Bernards, PhD (East Asian Languages and Cultures); David T. Bialock, PhD (East Asian Languages and Cultures); Roberto Ignacio Díaz*, PhD (Spanish and Portuguese); Olivia C. Harrison (French and Italian); Heather James*, PhD (English); Janet Johnson, PhD (Music); Natania Meeker, PhD, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques; (French and Italian); Panivong Norindr, PhD (French and Italian); Samuel Steinberg (Spanish and Portuguese); Antonia Szabari, PhD (French and Italian)

Assistant Professors: Neetu Khanna, PhD; Veli N. Yashin, PhD

Associate Professors (Teaching): Michael du Plessis, PhD; Jason Webb, PhD

Emeritus Professors: Peggy Kamuf, PhD, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques (French and Italian); Gloria Orenstein, PhD; Albert Sonnenfeld*, PhD, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques (French and Italian)

*Recipient of university-wide or college teaching award.

Graduate Degrees

The MA and PhD in comparative literature are offered through the Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture program, as described here .

Programs

Bachelor’s Degree

• Comparative Literature (BA)

Minor

• Comparative Literature Minor

Graduate Certificate

• Translation Studies Certificate

Courses

Comparative Literature

Italian

• ITAL 382g Dante