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About Undergraduate Programs

We offer a major in Comparative Studies, a major in World Literature and minors in American Studies, Folklore and Religious Studies. As a Comparative Studies major, you will learn more about the variety of ways people have developed to understand and describe the world, their place within it, and their relationship to others. Understanding cultural similarities and differences is at the heart of the Comparative Studies program. Comparative Studies raises questions that help us understand how culture shapes the lives of individuals and groups. How, for example, does religion influence social change and stability in different cultures? How do different people express themselves and their concerns through literature and the arts? How do science and technology reflect cultural values and beliefs?

While Comparative Studies is most broadly concerned with the study of culture and cultural differences, individual faculty and students develop particular areas of expertise. The six areas of concentration for majors are:


Unlike many Arts and Sciences majors, the Comparative Studies major is interdisciplinary, which means that you will be taking courses in several departments to satisfy the requirements. Once you've chosen an area of concentration, you and your adviser can begin to put together the set of courses that best reflects your particular interests and also satisfies the requirements of that area. Comparative Studies maintains lists of courses in other departments that count for major credit in each area. As a Comparative Studies major, you will take an active role in planning the program that best accommodates your academic goals.

Comparative Studies also offers the undergraduate minor in the following fields:


The major in World Literatures is a new interdepartmental humanities major administered through the Department of Comparative Studies. Designed for students who are interested in both literature and globalization, the World Literatures major encourages students to explore literary texts in translation produced across global geo-political regions. Students in this major will develop critical and analytical skills through close readings of representative literary texts and also through the study of historical and theoretical questions related to

  • the translation and transmission of literary works,
  • the cultural and historical contexts of literary production,
  • the roles of literature in the contemporary world.
This major will help students develop the knowledge they will need to better understand complex interrelationships among societies with very different modes and habits of cultural expression, as well as within nations such as the U.S. that are themselves broadly multicultural. As students begin to understand the distinctive literary and cultural histories of the world's regions, they will expand their ability to respond to the future challenges of an inextricably interdependent and conflicted world.