Get news & events by emailComparative Literature at UNC-Chapel Hill (CMPL) builds upon a strong foundation of foreign language learning, to promote the comparison of national literatures in their original languages as well as to enable the study of literary theory and interdisciplinary approaches to literature. CMPL's scope has been international and multicultural, reaching across boundaries of many sorts, including not only national and linguistic boundaries, but also disciplinary and cultural ones.
CMPL exposes students to a number of approaches without exclusive adoption of any one of them. CMPL students consider such issues as: What is literature? What is its relationship to language, philosophy, and religion, to political and social movements, to such arts as painting, music, and film, and to culture generally? How do literary movements originate and find expression across national boundaries? What critical approaches or reading strategies are most appropriate to any given text?
Want to know what current students are saying about Comparative Literature Courses? Below is a message an instructor recieved from a recent CMPL 121 undergraduate student:
"I just wanted to send you an email thanking you for awakening my passion for literature...I love to read, I love expressing my ideas in papers, and I love getting to the deeper meanings of literary works. After recitation today I could barely control my excitment. I felt refreshed, rejuvenated, and ecstatic about the progression of this course. Being a science major, I rarely have time to take courses outside my major, but I heard great things about the course.....I just wanted to say thank you for your mind-opening questions, your enthusiasm in class discussions, and your insight."
Furst Forum: John Ribó
John Ribó, a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature, gives a talk entitled "Ground Zeroes, New Worlds: 'Race' and Post-Apocalyptic Mutants in Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." January 25, 2012. Film by the SITES Lab.
Fall/Winter 2011 CMPL Newsletter
Click here to see the Fall/Winter 2011 Newsletter for the Comparative Literature Program!
The Semester-Long UniVarsity Film Series Has Begun!
The UniVarsity Film Series began last evening with a screening of The Last Wave at 7pm. This was the first of nine fantastic films that the department will be showing, in their original and glorious cinematographic format, over the course of the semester at the Varsity Theater. All of the films in the series are free and open to the public--so, please, come, bring friends and colleagues, etc. You won't be disappointed! For more information about upcoming films and screenings, please follow the link below.
Spring 2012 UniVarsity Film Series
Spotlight on Dr. Rebecka Rutledge Fisher: Her Graduate Student Mentoring Award and Secrets to Success
The Department of English and Comparative Literature recently honored Dr. Rebecka Rutledge Fisher with its Graduate Student Mentoring Award, recognizing her commitment to guiding and directing the professional development of its graduate students. Dr. Fisher, while describing some of the tasks she performs as a mentor, discussed editing dissertation chapters and articles for publication; guiding graduate students toward appropriate venues for the publication of their research; writing letters of recommendation for a wide range of fellowships, awards, and job placements; and helping graduate students locate and apply for funding.
When asked to describe her secrets to being a successful mentor, Dr. Fisher observed that mentoring is an essential part of her graduate teaching, one that requires a substantial time commitment. “My students are on a deadline just as I am,” says Fisher, acknowledging that she frequently privileges the work of her students over her own demands and deadlines in order to provide them with timely feedback. Dr. Fisher’s intention in offering this diligent attention is to help graduate students discover their unique voices as writers, to highlight their original ideas as researchers and thinkers, and to develop their professionalism and collegiality, empowering them to participate respectfully and meaningfully in discursive scholarly communities.
Perhaps Dr. Fisher’s greatest secret to being a successful mentor is that she remains actively engaged in her own discursive communities even as she dedicates time to the work of her students. She has recently completed a manuscript of her new book Habitations of the Veil: Metaphor and the Poetics of Being in African American Literature, to be published by the State University of New York Press in their philosophy and race series. Her article, "The Poetics of Belonging in the Age of Enlightenment: Spiritual Metaphors of Being in Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative” will appear in a special issue of Early American Studies, dedicated to the study of empire. She will also contribute an essay to South American Quarterly (SAQ) in a special issue focusing on W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction (1935). Dr. Fisher’s commitment to making critical contributions to her field enables her to advise her students about the most recent trends in scholarship, allowing them to become current, informed professionals. Dr. Fisher’s generosity, her kind professionalism, and her commitment to serving students not only make her a worthy recipient of the Graduate Student Mentoring Award but also an invaluable resource to her mentees and an asset to the university.
A Look at the Comparative Literature Welcome Back Reception
The Comparative Literature Program hosted its first annual Welcome Back Reception to tremendous success on October 6th in the Anne Queen Room of the Y-Building. Students from both the graduate and undergraduate colleges mingled with faculty members over a decadent array of autumnal foods. Numbering nearly eighty in all, the assembled faculty and students created the largest gathering of comparatists since the university hosted the ACLA in 2001. Of the Comparative Literature faculty, Professors Inger Brodey, Marsha Collins, Rebecka Fisher, Shayne Legassie, Diane Leonard, Erika Lindemann, Federico Luisetti, John McGowan, William Race, and Alicia Rivero were all in attendance. Toward the end of the evening, the Comparative Literature Program presented the prizes for the best graduate and undergraduate essays and unveiled its course list for spring 2012. The evening’s company and conversation combined with its ceremony to make the whole event a pleasure and a success.
Please visit the CMPL facebook page to see more images from the event.
Congratulations to the Recent CMPL Phi Beta Kappa Inductees
The Department of English and Comparative Literature congratulates Sara Morris and Elizabeth Benninger on their recent inductions into Phi Beta Kappa. Morris, a double major in Spanish and Comparative Literature, was inducted into the prestigious organization in the Fall of 2011, shortly after receiving a grant from the university to pursue research for her honors thesis. For Benninger, a Comparative Literature major, her induction into the society in the Spring of 2011 follows a series of undergraduate awards, which include the award for best Undergraduate Essay in Comparative Literature in the Fall of 2011 and a competitive scholarship to participate in the Carolina Southeast Asia Summer Program, which she received in the in the summer following her first year at UNC. Former student Catherine Cappelari, a senior German and Comparative Literature major, was also inducted into the society in the Fall of 2010 as was Jody Smith, also a Comparative Literature major, in the Spring of 2011.
