Comparative Literature

Psychoanalysis: Freud and Beyond (CMLT 38830) Winter 2027
This course offers an introduction to psychoanalytic theory by surveying significant writings by Freud and Freud's readers. We will pay particular attention to the way that Freud's theories of the mind translate into theories of the social world and of history. Taking its cue from the "beyond" of Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle, the course will pay especial attention to the development of the death drive and explore its relationship to a constellation of psychoanalytic terms including but not limited to instincts and the drive, narcissism, melancholia, masochism, and religion/illusion. How have these concepts evolved over the course of their deployment in 20th- and 21st-century critical and political projects like feminism and queer theory? How have major developments in psychoanalysis read Freud anew? And in what ways do these psychoanalytic projects respond to their historical conditions-especially conditions marked by political, ecological, economic, and public health crises? (Kris Trujillo)

Writing Between Worlds: Exile, Migration, and Diaspora (CMLT 35412) Autumn 2026
This course will examine the themes of exile, migration and diaspora in a variety of literary texts from the late 20th and early 21st centuries in dialogue with recent cultural theoretical work. The texts to be studied will include novels, poetry, short stories, essays, and films from three sets of locations: authors of South Asian (Indian and Sri Lankan) origin in North America and Europe; writers of Turkish, Japanese and Indian origin in Germany; and Latin American-born writers writing from abroad, in addition to Johny Pitts' ethnographic book Afropean. Notes from Black Europe (2020). Besides charting the theoretical coordinates of exile, migration and diaspora studies, we will explore questions such as: How has the accelerated movement of people, ideas, goods, and cultural practices affected literary authors of different racial, class, gender, religious, and national origins? What is the meaning of belonging, home and homeland? How do authors relate to concepts of the nation, national identity, and nationalism? What happens to the physical body, affect, love and intimacy, the family, and intergenerational relations in migration? What are the narrative and lyric patterns and tropes of writing between worlds? Is there a "poetics of dislocation"? How do writers handle issues of language, the mother tongue and bi- or multilingualism? All texts will be read in English translation, but we will also make translation a central issue of discussion by examining original texts whenever possible. (Nisha Kommattam)

American Jewish Experience: Texts and Contexts (CMLT 46677) Autumn 2026
What texts and contexts constitute American Jewish experience? In this class, we will consider the birth of a unique Jewish ethnicity in America, with a deep dive into the literature, the theology, and the politics of American Judaism from the turn of the 20th century to the post-October 7th moment we now inhabit. Beginning with reflections on the protestantization of American Judaism, special attention will be paid to the intersection of ethnic and religious experience in contemporary American Jewish life. With a foray into the boom in American Jewish Passover Haggadahs, we will explore the unique shape of the seemingly oxymoronic American Jewish religious secularism. We will consider Jews, Civil Rights, neo-Hassidism, and the counterculture and read ethnographies of American Jewish immigrant communities and aging urban synagogues. Debates on the silence of the American Jewish community after the Holocaust will be set against the backdrop of the quest to reconstruct East European Jewish life during that same period. Finally, we will explore the powerful growth of Diasporism in American Jewish culture today. (Sheila E. Jelen)

A more complete listing is available through the Department of Comparative Literature course page.
 

The Comparative Literature Specialization allows students to structure their coursework and thesis around the study of Comparative Literature within MAPH. Students who complete the following requirements will receive a Comparative Literature transcript notation:

• MAPH Core Course (Foundations of Interpretive Theory).
• Four graduate-level Comparative Literature courses, one of which is strongly preferred to be Comp Lit 501 or 502, or another approved theory course.
• An MA thesis in Comparative Literature, supervised by a faculty member in the department or someone listed as Comparative Literature resource faculty.
• Demonstration of proficiency in one foreign language, through upper-level literature or content coursework in the language, a language exam, or a letter from an instructor attesting to fluency.

Please direct any questions you may have about specializing in Comparative Literature to maph-support@uchicago.edu. 

"We, Strange Pilgrims: A Lyrical Inquiry into Exile, Inheritance, & Narrative"
Mauricio Correa Cano, MAPH TLO '26
Advisor: Ahmad Qabaha

"On Female Ghosts, Fox-Spirits, and Immortal Deities: Phantoms, Spectrality, and Melancholia from China to North America"
Xiao Wen Li, MAPH '26
Advisor: Kris Trujillo

“Imagining Palestine: Modes of Haunting and Resistance”
Mariam Alafranji, MAPH TLO ‘26
Advisor: Ahmad Qabaha