Welcome to Penn State's Graduate Program in Comparative Literature

Dear Prospective Graduate Student:

 

The Department of Comparative Literature is a dynamic and diverse environment where distinguished work takes place.  Our faculty strive to create an intellectual community where graduate students are valued colleagues.  We invite you to browse our website and learn more about our program.

 

At the bottom of the page you will find directions for beginning the application process.

 

Why choose Penn State for Graduate work in Comparative Literature?

 

Intellectual Diversity

• Our faculty and graduate students conduct research in a broad range of fields.  At the heart of our work is a keen interest in crossing (and questioning) borders -- between national and regional literary fields, between literary studies and other disciplines, between verbal and visual forms of culture, and more. The department's strengths are truly global in scope with particular areas of emphasis including, but not limited to, inter-American studies, East-West relations, East Asian Studies, Medieval Studies, European Studies, African studies, and Transatlantic studies.  Recent graduate research has examined questions of gender, ethnicity, diaspora, globalization, and cultural conflict to name only a few areas of study.
   
• Students in our program join a dynamic and diverse group of nearly forty graduate students.  Many of them support their studies with teaching assistantships in our department's literature courses, or in one of the languages offered by the Comparative Literature Department (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili) or courses offered by other units such as English, French, German & Slavic, Spanish, Italian & Portuguese, or in other areas such as Women’s Studies or Classics & Mediterranean Studies. 
   
• The department's close ties to our sister departments and programs has created a vibrant intellectual community for our students.  In addition, our graduate students actively participate in interest groups in many fields such as those dedicated to African Studies, Science, Technology, and Society, Disability Studies, Ethics, and International American Studies.

Academic Excellence and Innovation

• Our department is committed to providing our students with the highest level of scholarly training. This commitment to excellence includes solid preparation in both traditional and innovative forms of comparative scholarship.  Many of our faculty have been at the forefront of shaping the field of comparative literature and two members of our department provided essays for the report on the state of the discipline conducted in 2004 by the American Comparative Literature Association. We are also home to one of the top journals in the field: Comparative Literature Studies.
   
• Our program offers an innovative and flexible curriculum that allows students, particularly those at the doctoral level, to design individualized programs of study tailored to their interests.
   
• All students receive a thorough program in literary criticism.  We offer an innovative doctoral minor in critical theory jointly sponsored with the Philosophy Department.  Doctoral students can also choose to pursue minors in fields such as Women’s Studies and Latino Studies.

Fellowships, Assistantships, and Grants

• Our program offers excellent financial support at nationally competitive levels. All students admitted to the PhD receive four years of financial support and a semester long teaching release to write their dissertations. Students admitted on the MA/PhD track receive five years of support and a semester release as well. Most students in the MA program also receive some form of financial assistance. 
   
• We offer special funds for students from underrepresented groups (U. S. citizens and permanent residents who are African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native American Indians). The Bunton-Waller Graduate Awards, for example, give four-years of support for doctoral study at $20,000 plus tuition.
   
• Students on assistantships take on a variety of assignments, including both language and literature teaching, working as a research assistant, or being an editorial assistant for the journal Comparative Literature Studies.
   
• Students in our department have had substantial success in receiving competitive internal grants, awards, and fellowships, many of them offered through the Office of Research and Graduate Studies of the College of the Liberal Arts, as well as Funding Awards and Grant Opportunities for their study and research from organizations such as the Fulbright Program, the American Association of University Women, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and many others.

• We also offer grants to support travel to conferences, to conduct research in foreign countries, and to visit archives.

Professional Training and Placement Success

• We are deeply committed to helping students develop as professionals. For example, the Department makes a special effort to send students to annual meetings of major professional associations, such as the American Comparative Literature Association, provides close assistance in the preparation of grant and fellowship applications, and offers guidance in the writing of an M.A. paper in the form of a journal article.  We regularly host workshops dedicated to training our students for the profession.

• We work hard to assist our students in the placement process. Recent Ph.D.s are now working at doctoral institutions such as Princeton, Dartmouth, University of Florida, Florida State, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign,  and University of Minnesota, at fine liberal arts colleges such as Smith, Oberlin, Vassar, and William and Mary, and also at non-U.S. institutions such as the University of Glasgow in Scotland, the University of Niamey in Niger (as head of department), and the University of Swaziland.

More information on the history, faculty, and degree requirements of our graduate program are available through our on-line graduate student handbook.  Also click here to request more information about our program.

 

Application, Admission, and Funding:

Admission to graduate study in Comparative Literature at Penn State is based on a number of considerations. Above all we seek intellectually curious, highly motivated students whose interests suggest a good fit with our departmental strengths. We welcome well-qualified applicants from diverse backgrounds.

We are often asked what our committee looks for and the truth is that there is no standard formula.  We consider GPAs and test scores (GREs and TOEFLs), but above all we look for intellectual engagement and scholarly commitment.  The graduate committee that evaluates applicants seeks evidence of intellectual promise, openness to new ideas and methods, capacity for original scholarship, the ability to think critically and to write clearly, and potential for professional success. Of obvious importance for scholars who will work across cultures is appropriate language preparation. Research plans that are in synch with our areas of expertise are also of importance.

Though we admit students on a rolling basis, for full funding consideration applications should be complete by January 15. Those who apply early have the best opportunity for support.

We will reimburse the SEVIS fee for international students who enroll in our program.

We recognize that the vast majority of graduate students require financial assistance to complete their studies. In the majority of cases, we admit students with multi-year funding packages (two years for the M.A., four years for the Ph.D., five or six years for the M.A./Ph.D.) that include both a stipend and a tuition grant-in-aid. No separate application for financial aid or graduate assistantship is required.

Your application to Comparative Literature at Penn State consists of four categories of items:

1. You must complete an online application to the Graduate School. Note that you will be asked to create a Friends of Penn State account.

2. TOEFL scores are required of applicants who do not hold prior degrees from institutions where the language of instruction is English. Applicants with degrees from U.S. institutions, on the other hand, must supply GRE scores. These are self-reported in your online application, with official scores submitted to Penn State through the normal mechanisms of the agencies that administer these tests. 

3. Official transcripts of all relevant university education, and three letters of recommendation should be sent via post by the university registrar(s) and recommenders, respectively, to the Department of Comparative Literature at the address listed below. We do not require a specific form for recommenders.

4. Your statement of purpose, a sample of your written work (preferably an essay on literature), and your speaking tape (a cassette tape or CD-Rom on which you read your statement of purpose, or part of it, in the languages you intend to use in graduate study, including English if you are not a native speaker) are submitted via post directly to the department at the following address:

Graduate Program in Comparative Literature
c/o Irene Grassi
311 Burrowes Building
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802  (USA)

We encourage you to get to know our faculty, graduate student cohort, and program thoroughly before applying. Visit our Graduate Program page to get started.

We of course hope to welcome you back here soon to start your application!

Sincerely,   Sophia A. McClennen Graduate Director E-Mail: sam50@psu.edu

What our Students have to say:

"What once profoundly impressed me during the recruitment process has continued to be the way this department is run:  faculty and staff are interested and highly invested in the education and success of their graduate students.  Apart from the stellar academics that abound at PSU, that often absent but crucial element of nurture persists here.  Faculty will take you as high and as far as you wish you to go."

--Kyle Anderson

"The Department of Comparative Literature at Penn State has provided me with unerring support and resources. I am more enthusiastic than ever about my career as an academic!"
 

--Atia Sattar

"The Department of Comparative Literature provides a collegial and supportive atmosphere in which we, as graduate students, are able to expand our respective intellectual horizons while learning to function as part of a dynamic, diverse, and highly professional team."

--Nathan Devir

"The Department of Comparative Literature at Penn State has given me the flexibility to build my own area of expertise, provided me with a strong and supportive intellectual community, and fostered my drive to further my education beyond the classroom."

-- Nicole Sparling