Comparative Literature

Overview

In this Comparative Literature MPhil/PhD programme offered at University College London (UCL), potential supervisors’ disciplinary perspectives are drawn from language departments including the School of Slavonic & East European Studies, Greek & Latin, Anthropology, Geography, literary studies and queer studies and across UCL.

UCL is a global leader in the thriving field of comparative literature, building on the great strength of its well-established language-specific literary and cultural degrees. With its exceptional range of modern and ancient languages, UCL provides an ideal environment for comparative inquiry. 

We actively support interdisciplinary research across languages and cultural periods, and welcome comparative projects that may benefit from joint supervisory support.

Students are normally required to make a presentation on their plans to CMII staff in the summer of their first year. All UCL research students have to submit a substantial report and defend their research plans in an Upgrade Exam in order to transfer from MPhil to PhD registration status, normally within 9 to 18 months of first enrolment.

The maximum length of the PhD thesis is 100,000 words. The ideal length of a PhD thesis in Comparative Literature is 80,000 words.

Careers

PhD students may go on to academic careers or careers in research, in publishing or in creative writing.

Employability

Skills acquired as a result of taking this programme include: ability to conduct research in library archives and electronic archives; ability to synthesise and summarise large amounts of information; abliity to use evidence in order to construct a convincing argument; ability to work with texts in more than one language; acquisition of sensitivity to the cultural register of texts; ability to plan workloads efficiently and meet deadlines.