印第安纳大学伯明顿分校

Course Requirements

A minimum of 30 credit hours 20 credit hours of which must be in Comparative Literature, including C501 (Introduction to Contemporary Literary Studies), C502 (Fields and Methods of Comparative Literature), and two literature survey courses offered by the Department, one dealing with the pre-modern period and one dealing with the modern period.

In addition, M.A. students must complete a proseminar chosen from among graduate courses in Comparative Literature that are not being used to fulfill other requirements. With the consent of the instructor, any graduate course in Comparative Literature may meet this requirement, except C501, C502 and C507. The requirement is met by taking a graduate course in which the student has the opportunity to:

• write a research paper that develops an original thesis or idea;
• orally defend a preliminary version of the paper;
• and, in the light of the questions raised at the oral discussion, submit to the instructor a revised version of the paper with the critical and scholarly apparatus appropriate to a publishable article.

The requirement does not stipulate that the paper be read or otherwise presented in class, only that it be defended in class. A student need not take a course conducted entirely as a proseminar, but may, with the permission of the instructor, carry out the required activities in a course which other students are not taking as a proseminar. Forms to certify completion of a proseminar are available from the Graduate Studies Office.

A student should take no more than 35 hours of graduate course work (excluding C805 credit) without first completing the M.A. degree: if a student exceeds these credit hours before being admitted to the Ph.D. program, the Department will determine which credit hours beyond 35 (if any) will count toward the Ph.D. degree requirements. Although the Graduate School sets a limit of five years on completion of all M.A. degree requirements, the Department expects students to complete the M.A. requirements within two years.

Upon completion of the Master’s Degree requirements, students will have to petition to enter the Ph.D. program in Comparative Literature. Students must submit a brief letter of application indicating their prospective program of study, along with a letter from their mentor or prospective research advisor supporting their admission. (Please contact the Graduate Studies Office for further details). Admission to the Ph.D. program in Comparative Literature is by no means automatic, internal applications are evaluated on the same basis as external applications.

Language Requirements

The Department’s foreign language requirements reflect the need for graduate students to achieve a level of reading knowledge suitable for literary analysis. Students entering the MA, MA/MLIS, and MAT programs are normally expected to have reading proficiency in at least one foreign language. (Proficiency implies the ability to read sophisticated literary texts with no assistance other than a dictionary). Students entering the doctoral program are normally expected to have reading proficiency in at least two foreign languages. Students in the MA and MA/MLIS programs will ultimately need to certify reading proficiency in two foreign languages in order to complete the requirements for their degrees. Students in the doctoral program will need to certify reading proficiency in three foreign languages in order to be eligible for the Ph.D. qualifying examinations.