Text only

Introduction and Aims | Entrance Requirements | Course Structure
| Assessment | Cost | Grants And Scholarships | Contact Information | Home

Course Structure

In the first semester, students take a core course and one elective option. The core course 'Encounters: Literature and Thought' provides a foundation for advanced research in comparative literature. The core course looks at a number of different case studies, and includes a series of embedded research training components.

In the second semester, two further courses, 'Art Matters' and 'Comparative Imperialisms', explore in greater depth some of the political, aesthetic and literary questions introduced in the core course. Students on the programme are also free to choose from a wide range of other elective options offered across the School and College.

An individually tailored course on 'Issues in Comparative Literature' then allows each student to develop a more specific research project, and offers preparation for the dissertation that can be either comparative in nature, or with a particular focus on French, German, Hispanic or English.

First Semester

Encounters: Literature and Thought (40 credits)

The 20th Century Avant-Garde (20 credits)

Second Semester

Dissertation Preparation (10 credits)

Issues in Comparative Literature (10 credits)

Art Matters (20 credits)

Comparative Imperialisms (20 credits)

Summer

Dissertation in Comparative Literature (60 credits)

Students may also choose from taught postgraduate courses offered elsewhere in the School of Language and Literature or the College of Arts and Social Sciences. These would include, for example, 'Scottish Literature: The Twentieth Century and Beyond', 'Reading History's Past', 'Theory of the Novel', 'Topics in Modern Thought', 'Romanticism and Genre', 'Realism in Film: Documentary and the Docudrama', 'Postmodernism in Irish and Scottish Writing', 'Creative Writing'

Dissertation

An individually tailored course on 'Issues in Comparative Literature' then allows each student to develop a more specific research project, and offers a preparation for the dissertation that is either comparative in nature, or with an emphasis on particular culturefor example, French, German, Hispanic, African, Asian, American, etc).

Student who satisfactorily complete the coursework, but do not progress to the dissertation, will be awarded a ‘Diploma in Comparative Literature'.  Students who satisfactorily complete the coursework and dissertation will be awarded the degree of ‘MLitt in Comparative Literature' 

Examples of some recent essay and dissertation topics:

• "A Psychological Analysis of the Tlatelolco Massacre"
• "Appartenances: Culture, Family and Gender in the novels of Marie Ndiaye"
• "Adorno, Benjamin and Valéry Proust Museum"
• "The Pseudonymous Voice in Kierkegaard, Blanchot and Derrida"
• "Literature as Necropolis in Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald"
• "Truth and Responsibility in Monénembo's The Oldest Orphan"
• "Narrative Structure and Subjectivity in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children"
• "The Concept of Recognition in Sartre and Hegel"

Professor Michael Syrotinski · Course Coordinator · MLitt in Comparative Literature and Thought
School of Language & Literature · University of Aberdeen · King's College · Aberdeen AB24 3UB
Tel: 01224 272152 · Fax: 01224 272562 · Email: m.syro@abdn.ac.uk