:: The department, recently judged by independent evaluators to be among the strongest half-dozen of its kind in the United States, has consistently attracted high-quality students from among the best Universities and colleges in this country and abroad. During the last four years, its students have come from American University, Bennington College, University of California/Berkeley, Central European University, Brown University, Cornell University, Hampshire College, Harvard University, University of California/Irvine, University of Essex (England), the Johns Hopkins University, Oklahoma State University, Penn State University, Reed College, University of Western Ontario, University of Virginia, and Yale University, among others.
The department currently has eight Presidential fellows, and one DAAD fellow among its supported students. In addition, the department's students have been extremely successful in obtaining financial support for study abroad. As a rule, practically all students succeed in studying at least one year overseas.
Academic Appointments for Ph.D. Graduates
The fact that holders of a doctorate in comparative literature are prepared to teach interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary courses, trained in several national literatures and languages, and knowledgeable in critical and literary theory explains why they are unusually successful in finding academic employment.
Indeed, the department has an excellent record in placing its students in teaching positions. Graduates have taught or presently teach at George Mason University, Wesleyan University, Haverford College, Temple University, American University, University of North Carolina, Ohio State University, Louisiana State University, C.U.N.Y., New York University, University of Wisconsin/Madison, Duke University, University of Western Ontario, University of Oregon, Washington College, D'Youville College and other institutions. This list is a clear indication of the desirability of our doctorates. A Ph.D. from the Department of Comparative Literature can expect to have the opportunity to compete for the very best academic positions available in American universities and colleges.
Recent Dissertation Titles
Li-chun Hsiao
"The Indivisible Globe, the Indissoluble Nation: Modernity, Postcoloniality, and National Literature in the Age of Globalization"
Ana Luszczynska
"The Event of Community: Jean-Luc Nancy, Toni Morrison and Sandra Cisneros"
Christopher Devenney
"Detours of writing exile and experience between literature and philosophy"
Zakaria Fatih
"Le mutisme de l'autre: quelques réflexions sur l'altérité dans certains romans français"
Stephen Gingerich
"Absence and multiplicity: naming the nameless in Heidegger, Nietzsche, Faulkner, and Carpentier"
Ilan Safit
"Movement as concept and as image in philosophy and in modernist literature"
Suzanne Gauch
"Sketches of Fantasia: Voice and Representation in Francophone Maghrebian Novels"
Jan Plug
"Bordering Histories: History, Politics, and Language in the Romantic Tradition"
Decio Torres Cruz
"Postmodern Meta-Narratives: Literature in the Age of Image. Scott's Bladerunner and Puig's Novels"
Stacey Herbert
"Reporting on the Artist as a Modernist: The Press and the Making of James Joyce 1918-1924"
Luca Crispi
"The mechanics of creativity: a genetic study of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake"
Isabella Winkler
"Quodlibet: the affirmation of the singular in recent continental thought from Derrida to Deleuze"
Scott Pound
"Textualism: literary theory and the depreciation of poetry"
Prasanta Chakravarty
"Like Parchment in the Fire: Literature and Radicalism, 1640-1660"
Beth Gerwin
"Unveiling the Feminine: Text and Textile as Nineteenth-century Metaphor"
José Buscaglia-Salgado
"Impossible Nations (forthcoming U. Minnesota Press)"
Brian McNeil
"Ethical Topographies"
Ian Jobling
"The Emergence of the Dark Hero in Scott and Byron: A Darwinian Perspective"
