With the great task of revitalising Comparative Literature, comes the lesser task of revitalising its designated subreddit. To do so, I thought I'd throw this sub a bone, a chance for casual reflection and discussion. Below is a short summary of David Damrosch's theories on world literature and Comparative Literature, and I wonder whether anyone has any immediate thoughts. Anything will do, whatever comes to mind. The following is a few extracts from Damrosch's work: What is World Literature? (2003):

I take world literature to encompass all literary works that circulate beyond their culture of origin, either in translation or in their original language. [...] In its most expansive sense, world literature could include any work that has ever reached beyond its home base, but Guillén's cautionary focus on actual readers makes good sense: a work only has an effective life as world literature whenever, and wherever, it is actively present within a literary system beyond that of its original culture.

In his conclusion, Damrosch proposes a "threefold definition focused on the world, the text, and the reader":

1. World Literature is an elliptical refraction of national literatures.

2. World Literature is writing that gains in translation.

3. World literature is not a set canon of texts but a mode of reading: a form of detached engagement with worlds beyond our own place and time.

What do comparatists on here think of Damrosch? How has he affected your way of reading as a comparatist? Is his formulation still relevant today, 20 years later?

Hello Comparatists!

In an attempt to galvanise subreddit, I thought it would be good to have an (un)official reading list, similar to the one you might find on r/CriticalTheory. A reading list might not only help generate some conversation, but also create some sort of coherence and direction. Basically, I'm thinking of anything from the 'classic' reading material (David Damrosch's What Is World Literature?) to more modern or even unorthodox texts. Here are some suggestions below, taken from Further Readings I've encountered. I realise it's an extensive list, and too long. I'm hoping the community will help me get rid of the unnecessary texts and focus on bare essentials.

Introductions to Comparative Literature

• Bassnett, Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction
• Hutchinson, Comparative Literature: A Very Short Introduction
• Domínguez, Saussy, and Villanueva, Introducing Comparative Literature: New Trends and Applications
• Morgan, Omri, and Reynolds, ‘Comparative Criticism: Histories and Methods'
• Brown, ‘What is “Comparative” Literature?’
• Brown, ‘Literature and Form 4: What is “Comparative Literature”?’ [Lecture]
• Derrida, ‘Who or What Is Compared? The Concept of Comparative Literature and the Theoretical Problems of Translation’

On Comparative Literature

• Apter, The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature
• Apter, ‘Global Translation: The “Invention” of Comparative Literature, Istanbul, 1933’
• Saussy, (ed.), Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization
• Tötösy de Zepetnek, (ed.) Comparative Literature Now: Theories and Practice
• Tötösy de Zepetnek, Comparative Literature: Theory, Methods, Application

On World Literature

• Damrosch, What Is World Literature?
• Damrosch, World Literature in Theory
• Apter, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability
• Cassin (ed.), Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon
• Casanova, Pascale, The World Republic of Letters
• Goethe, Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret
• Moretti, Distant Reading
• Spivak, Death of a Discipline

Literary Theory

• Aristotle, Poetics
• Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literatur
• Eagleton, Literary Theory
• Bloom, The Western Canon
• Lukács, Studies in European Realism
• Lukács, Art and Objective Truth
• Adorno, Aesthetic Theory
• Adorno, Cultural Criticism and Society
• Steiner, The Death of Tragedy
• Steiner, After Babel
• Benjamin, ‘The Task of the Translator’
• Wellek and Warren, Theory of Literature
• Foucault, Discourse On Language, Truth and Power
• Foucault, 'What Is an Author?'
• Foucault, 'Discourse on Language' (Archeology of Knowledge)
• Kristeva, 'From One Identity to Another'
• M.H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and Critical Tradition
• Lacan, 'The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience'
• Lacan, 'The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason Since Freud'

Anthologies

• Damrosch, David, Melas, Natalie, and Buthelezi, Mbongiseni (eds), The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature
• D’haen, Theo, Damrosch, David, and Kadir, Djelal (eds), Routledge Companion to World Literature
• Schulz, Hans-Joachim, and Rhein, Philip H. (eds), Comparative Literature: The Early Years

Looking for a few people to help me moderate this subreddit–I've been very busy for a while and totally neglected it, sorry.

Please DM if you are interested, mention any relevant experience moderating and/or in Comp Lit as a field (and what kind of things you might regularly post to keep the subreddit going, e.g. links to interesting news, articles, job openings, etc.)

​

Thanks!

M-G

Hello all. I'm trying to decide between focusing on simplified or traditional Chinese characters to build my foundation for comparative literature studies. I'm pretty equally versed in both at the moment, but I need to choose one to really focus on. Any recommendations on which would fit better in the discipline?

Hi all! I'm looking for suggestions of literary works that "re-tell" or intentionally mimic other works but from a different angle, or where the citation itself is used as a broader creative device (but that are not fanfiction!).

I've come across two examples that I think are brilliant (The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud, in reference to Camus' The Stranger; and Tayeb Salih's novel Season of Migration to the North, in relation to Conrad's Heart of Darkness). Irigaray's Speculum also has moments like these, in relation to Plato.

I was wondering if this has perhaps been considered a genre of some sort, and if so, if there are more works that are worthwhile looking at, and perhaps reading side by side the "original" book.

I'm interested in re-writing, translation, and citation/quotation as literary and theoretical practices.

Greetings all, I hope you are doing well.

I have a midterm paper for my comparative literature course and its due on the 30th of September.

We have to make a survey of 8 articles, but I'm having troubles understanding the argument in some of those papers. Any help will be appreciated!!

Thank you so much in advance.

Compare the types of prejudice(s) that impact judgement in To Kill a Mockingbird and Twelve Angry Men.

Preferably something with similar aesthetics regarding nature. Doesn’t need to be a book, a movie would also be welcome. The general theme of the course is EcoGothic. Maybe someone can helps it would be appreciated.

Hello all! I'm embarking on a grand undertaking to make a parody game of Cards Against Humanity called Cards Against the Humanities which is in the vein of everything being cultural and literary references. To that end, I'd love it if you all could add your wittiest ideas to my google sheet, both for black cards and for white. Mods, if this doesn't fit the spirit of the subreddit I understand but will be sad :(

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C_mxCC8p9PzDoBuMCtXLWGqegb3jYBsdzKFOB2Up1gw/edit?usp=sharing (NSFWish?)

My plan is to make a pdf with the cards a la the free version of CAH and post it back on the subreddits in a few days time, so be sure to add your best ideas! I've gotten the ball rolling with about 30 cards of my own design (I'll add more as I think of them) and I'd love to get other people in on this in order to represent a broader depth of knowledge and wider base of wildly inappropriate references. That's part of why I'm posting it on this subreddit, actually! I'm also posting links on other humanities related subreddits in the hopes that we can create something we would all enjoy/learn from, so feel free to crosspost.

​

A few tips for writing cards: White cards are usually pretty short, with the average word count being about 5, but some are as many as 11 or 12.

A good black card should make sense with around 50% of the white cards. Black cards don't need to be cultural references themselves, and should mostly just make sense with the white cards (which should all be references).

Quotes should be in English, unless they're so incredibly recognizable so as to be understood by a general audience. (i.e. et tu, Brute?)

Don't be afraid to get it on ;)

Hello everyone, I am doing a comparative study of two novels as a part of my Masters end of studies project. It would be really helpful if you can give me any advice on how to conduct a comparative study (anything)..and what to do in the methodology section (just write the school of criticism I'm working with?). Also, if you have any sources I should check, please share them with me. Thank you ❣️

Hi guys,

I am a current undergraduate and aspiring professor, and would really appreciate some advice. Currently my area of focus is contemporary American literature, but I am currently selecting some other languages to supplement my other areas of interest. Broad question, but languages do you guys find worthy of study and would recommend? Currently I am set on Persian (undisputable -- as I am Persian-American myself) and potentially German. Of course, this is a broad question, but I am very interested to hear your input.

Hello

I have been overworked and am happy to have some people come on as mods for this sub. DM if interested with just a few sentences about you/what you‘d like to do as a mod.

Best, MG

Post. I'm wondering if there are any PHD programs that could help me pursue my interests in Sanskrit (in the Comp Lit program). Looking around the big shot schools like UC Berkeley and Columbia, it doesn't look like anyone there knows anything, and although I'd be ok ending up in a classics department if its what I'm more suited for (looking to pick up ancient Greek and Hebrew, so maybe I should've started there lol), I'd like to take this literary theory bullshit with me. I picked up Sanskrit because it felt like a lot of these 20th century philosophies were trapped in the same grammar as the ancient ones, and came to conclusions that weren't dissimilar from conclusions people drew thousands of years ago (there's a fun Nietzsche quote for this if anyone is interested)--not to mention that a lot of the German philosophizing that the French derive their theory from was developed with a heavy influence from these sources; sources which, right now it appears nobody in comp lit is even able to read. Regardless, if it can't work out I'll just prep for the LSATs; yeah I'm a smart kid, and I have all the cred to go to grad school and the recs, the grades, the undergraduate journal publications and graduate conference presentations to back it up--but I can't be the first one here to feel like this whole business is unseemly, you speak their language, propagate their ideology, and you're elevated. My attempt to escape from that may be met with praise from the department, although I'm not sure what it means for employability.

And all this Sanskrit stuff, I think I like it more than the expansion of differences that they offer as the project of comp lit: literally a death cult, end of history, second coming apocalyptical preaching to the end of the world, the end of the self, the displacement of the ego, the revolution into new Being--and the first shall become last! This course of madness is fun at first, but, I took a shit load of acid over the summer, lost my fucking head, went coocoo crazy and I still had to go to work in the morning. I'm going to have to drop my math class this semester and you know why, my fellow acolytes of insanity? Because I spent all fucking week before my first exam prepping for this graduate conference. I could've studied! I could've taken gen chem next semester!

Anyway, anyone know some good places?

Hi all! I wonder what would happen if an open, anonymous group of people co-wrote a paper. This link gives you editing access: please contribute and share!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xB724h0tWZiVry3sgzh_UbbYf10y7uO--nWkvfwzdQM/edit?usp=sharing

Hello everyone,

I have an MA in Philosophy (focused on history of philosophy, Nietzsche, and ancient Greek moral philosophy), and I've been teaching in university for the last 3 1/2 years, about to complete my fourth year after this semester. I had three years of German in university, and I've been trying to keep it up as much as possible. I would now like to get an MA and PhD in Comparative Literature.

How would you recommend I prepare for a program? Preparation could take a variety of forms, I imagine, including: Reading in primary sources; secondary reading in journals and monographs; language learning; I'm not sure what else.

Any more particular advice than this? Any texts that are essential to having a firm foundation in Comp Lit as a field? Any language recommendations? Anything I'm not considering?

Thank you for any help you have to offer!

Hey guys. Serious question. Graduated in 2017. Guess who still has no job? I'm hoping to gain a bit of insight here.

TLDR >> Comp lit has given me what seems to be, at least to any potential employer, zero employable skills. I’ve been unemployed for longer than it took me to get my degree. Teaching English abroad didn’t work out and the pandemic rages. It would be great to have any path or hear other stories. The following is simply a tale about my life and education, and a rant about the system. I haven’t proof-read this and mostly just let it kind of flow, so for this who do read it, I hope it’s tolerable. Thanks.

The journey has been a bit wacky. If I may, I'd like to rant a bit in a story-esque way, while also asking questions. We're all readers here right?

I was adopted pretty late in life. Not extremely late, but late. My idea of school was warped for a long time. There aren't too many things more difficult for a young kid swapping between entire towns and families, than school. Not only does your entire life at home change in an instant while you're in the foster system, but so does your school. Haven't learned cursive yet? Fuck you. Haven't learned geometry yet? 'Fuck you'.

So you know what? I did pretty poorly in school. Because getting bullied was kind of frequent while always being the new kid, I chose the 'class clown' option instead of the 'quiet awkward book worm' option. To be frank, at the time, it yielded better results. When I finally was in a permanent home, I followed this path. Although because I went to dying catholic schools, the school swapping never stopped. A multitude of schools I attended closed completely, prompting more switch ups until sophomore year.

With that said, people never thought I'd go to college. Family, friends, and teachers gave up on me in that aspect. However, at some point very early in my junior year I endured a life changing parent teacher conference with my chemistry professor. He was angry. He insisted that I could do the work, and that I wasn't like others. I was a smart guy. Something about that triggered me(in a good way). The next report card I brought home was a straight A report card, with my name in the newspaper. Every report card after that followed suit, with only one B leaving a blemish. Because I had swapped another school, people, including teachers actually recognized me as one of the 'smart kids'. It was an idyllic experience running into the English teacher of my previous year, who had told students not to 'be like me', what with her having to see my name in the newspaper now and all.

I was excited about college but still didn't know what I wanted to do. Community college there I went. This time, right before finals, my name appeared in the newspaper in a more dreaded fashion. A friend who was driving me to school was crashed into by a truck, and our car flipped over on the highway. Well, that was a complete waste of a first semester. I lost a lot of motivation considering I was not looking forward to 'doing it all again'. Plus now I had(and still have), ptsd from the crash. Waking up in the hospital sort of changed my life on a spiritual level as well.

So I took it slow. I worked and went to school part time. Eventually after I had enough credits to transfer and still didn't know what to do without great direction, I applied to pennstate U park and got in with only a few months before classes began. I had this strange idea that people seemed to feed kids at the time. With the way my life had gone up until that point, all I ever heard was 'go to college. get a degree. do well in school and life will be great'.

Seeing as my early education was a bit staggered, my math skills took the greatest hit. I hardly took any math in highschool, and I was under the impression after several meetings that it would be impossible for me to take anything that was even remotely math related. I loved reading about science related stuff so this was kind of a bummer (unfortunately I found out much later how much bullshit that is considering I could have easily taken lower maths and worked my way up in any college. I had just fallen for the ruse that was ‘if you’re bad at math, do something else’ etc). I was semi interested in other countries, history, writing, etc. I had been told several times that I was a strong writer. Incidentally, during my time at PSU, several comp lit professors would pull me aside personally or have meetings with me just to compliment my writing, and furthermore, would beg me to further my education into an MA or further. Didn't have the money for that.

I went to PSU and it was great. I learned Japanese as my second language. Loved it. I also loved to ‘explain English’ and the intricacies and relationships of language. With that, I thought I could be an English teacher overseas.

This is where a bit of the rant begins. I sort of recall teachers having meetings with me asking me ‘what are you going to do?’, with a kind of vague and distraught tremble in their voice. ‘Oh you don’t have a second major?’ ‘Oh no internships? Well that’s okay’. My advisor would tell me how great the program was. But everyone had a similar harmonizing tone when they asked these questions that would set off alarms at the time, but I was always in some way reassured that I would be okay. ‘This is a great program!’. ‘You’re great at this!’ ‘As long as you have a degree you’ll be fine!’. Of course now I loathe the thought of having nobody to pull me aside and tell me what real life was like. Tell me that I needed experience. Tell me that I absolutely REQUIRED internships and networking. Tell me that my advisor is paid to inform me that everything is great. Tell me that those people love when others flourish in their program because there were only maybe a total of 10 comp lit grads. Others were either in the ‘3 year masters program’ which I knew nothing about, or had secondary or even third majors. Who helped them, I don’t know. But whoever it was didn’t help me.

What about the plan to teach English? After school I mass applied to jobs in Japan and interviewed several times. Some unfortunate events in the world befell me at this time. A few years prior, you could read an absurd amount of articles about how ‘easy’ it was to get an English teaching job in Japan and how fun it was etc. However during my application process, well, Japanese interest was having what you might call a ‘boom’. Everyone wants to be in Japan now. Korea as well. Even though I believe my degree and experience holds up to the job descriptions, and many jobs had training, I simply had no shot. Even in interviews that went well with the worst reviewed companies, I couldn’t get hired. Even though I knew Japanese and obviously had a vested interest in wanting to be there. I suppose it was too much to try and compete with experienced teachers, linguistics MA’s, English MA’s and the like. It didn’t help that I had to explain what my degree even was to every interviewer.

I went through two drawn out hiring timelines with disappointing results and so, I forked out some cash and commuted to class for an accredited ESL certificate(I actually studied an online one, as well as an in-person one). With that, I applied all over again months later. Again, no results. Many companies didn’t even answer me. I then went to some different recruiters in order to basically take any job I could get. Turns out, nobody wants to go to China. Well, that isn’t particularly true. Less people want to go, especially from the United States, and especially younger people. China is also less regulated in the hiring process, or rather, there is less of a ‘top down’ hierarchy feel. Therefore if the interviewer likes you, they can essentially hire you on the spot. I didn’t really want to go to China, but I thought it would be a good experience, and that I could apply to jobs in Japan after a year. Well there were some contractual issues AND the Corona-virus happened. I was in China for a little over a month. Then did an ISA coding bootcamp for around a year, and that was basically a scam. Hell I even applied to some highschool retail jobs and cashier jobs. Only to not get hired as they keep a ‘help wanted’ sign on their door.

There is absolutely NO job I can find where I meet even half the credentials. None. I opened up over 10 jobs today with ‘writing’ in the description. Didn’t fit for any of them. I’m sorry for this rant but I’m in this unbelievably depressed rut and it’s just hard to hear from every single employer that has anything to do with writing, English, speech, international studies, etc, that my abilities are completely worthless. Do I just become a factory worker at this point?

Anyway I just felt like I needed to get something off my chest. I don’t expect many if any people to read this. Hopefully some will read the TLDR.

Thanks.

Greetings, folks.

may I, if it would not be insolent, request you of recommending decent Comp lit graduate programs, especially of MA programs?

Even though I will proceed to Ph.D, which is my goal, after finishing MA, but I am not so competitive to go to Ph.D directly, I will go to MA first.

My interest :

1. Comparison between ancient/medieval texts of different regions (e.g : comparison between Old Testament and Greek texts, like Auerbach did in his work)

2. Reception of Ancient/Medieval texts in Renaissance/Enlightment Era

3. Modern(I mean no Modern which means before Post Modern, but nowadays, 21th century) reception of 2.

Language :

Korean(Mother tongue) English German French(but French is quite elementary)

Latin Ancient Greek

Actually, I am planning to apply to graduate programs in Classics, but recently I have taken it under my consideration to apply to Comp lit programs as well.

I hope to get your answer!

Hello all,

I posted a similar question like the below in r/Assyriology, but I didn't get a terribly helpful amount of responses:

Are there any faculty you're aware of working with Mesopotamian languages, Egyptian, and the like in Comp. Lit. and comparable departments?

I've nosed around a bit, but I'd like to pose this bare and see if anyone is aware of anyone.

Thank you.

Hi all,

I'm applying to PhDs in Comp lit this fall, and wanted your advice. I'm an American who's been living in Italy for the past two years, and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for strong comp lit programs in the US, Canada, or Europe for Italian?

I would concentrate on Italian 19th and 20th century fiction, and can also work in French, German, and Hebrew.

Thanks for your advice!

I am considering minoring/majoring in Comparative Lit and I was wondering if anyone has any insight on the field. Is it worth it? What are some of the potential career opportunities?

Hi, I'm in my first year of University,my major is Literature(world literature and comparative literature) and my minor is English language and literature. This semester I have this course on Concepts of Comparative Literature. The professor asked us to pick three books and/or works of art we deem fit and write an essay, he gave us the liberty of choosing whatever topic we want. I read the translation of Précis de littérature comparée by Francis Claudon and Karen Haddad-Wotling, because that's one of the books he recommended, but I am still lost. I went to every class and I tried to pay attention, I even attended his Zoom classes and seminars, but I still don't know how to tackle my assignment which represents my grade for this semester. I am pretty sure that I cannot pick any 3 books from different cultures, but I haven't read that much to easily point out what I need for a specific essay, I don't even have the slightest idea about what should I write about. I'm only fluent in 2 langauges, but he said it's ok if only this time we read the translations. Can anyone here point me in the right direction so I can understand what I need to write for my essay? Any resources that can be found online for free are more than welcomed. Please give me some advice, I'm really stressed out and I want to pass. (If this type of post isn't allowed I will delete it. )

Hi! I'm a grad student, not comp lit, who is taking a co-taught comp lit/art history course. Different disciplines call for different writing styles and often seemingly unspoken rules. I'm a solid writer in general, so I want to be clear that I'm not looking for any help in that direction. I just need some resource suggestions on writing a comparative lit paper. Thanks!

Hey everybody! I’m going to college next year and I’m planning on double majoring in Classics and Comparative Literature. For my classic degree I will be taking Latin and Greek and I’ve decided that one of my languages for comp lit will be German. In conjunction with my German studies for comp lit I was wondering if it would be better for me to study Russian literature (although not the language itself) or English.

I plan to pursue a PhD and ultimately teach it that helo any.

Hey everyone!

I'm currently in my third year of undergrad, majoring in Philosophy & Political Science, with a minor in Chinese and a new minor in CompLit. I recently discovered the discipline and now I'm interested in pursuing it in graduate school.

So I have a question: my areas lie in comparative literatures of East Asia, does anyone know of schools that have particularly strong CompLit programs with faculty working in East Asian literatures?

I'm considering graduate studies in the literary discipline: either Comp Lit or English.

I've been told it's hard to credentialize a Comp Lit degree--the academy tends towards 'pure' English graduates. Is this true? What are the benefits of a Comp Lit M.A./PhD over against an English degree? In what ways is it more attractive, if at all?

(Obviously one benefit is that a Comp Lit degree helps to perfect secondary languages - I'm not asking about this).