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albertine

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    Comparative Literature

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  1. Thanks for your reply - it's given me something to think about! Maybe my post should be more about narrowing down interests than about languages, because I'm not sure about how the geography of my interests works out (probably why I am so hesitant about national literatures). I don't want to become a professional scholar of French literature in general and didn't envision submitting it as a research language. Proust aside, my interests lie more on the Germanic side of things than the French, but I'm reluctant to commit to national literatures in general. I don't especially dislike German literature -- I actually quite enjoy it -- but I would hesitate to describe myself as someone with a consuming passion for German literature in general. Sorry if I'm not explaining this very clearly or if it makes no sense. I'll have to think more about this. And thanks for the info about language proficiencies. I've been very confused by how different departments seem to have different standards; UChicago, for example, asks only for "strong preparation" in one language and discipline and "adequate preparation" in another for admittance whereas Harvard asks for two languages/literatures with advanced preparation and says that their program allows time for further language study, but I see that many grad students are, like you say, native speakers of the languages they study and/or have taken a master's degree for a language. One question about what you said: I've read a lot of people talking about senior theses here, but this is a topic of confusion for me -- do you mean that I should write a thesis on my own time while I'm in undergrad? Besides the language classes, I've already exhausted what my undergrad institution has to offer me (I've taken our seminar for graduating seniors twice) and there aren't really any faculty at my school who can help me out; I've always taken comp lit courses with professors who research largely unrelated things. Our department is quite tiny and I'm thinking that maybe I should apply to a master's program.
  2. Hi everyone! Reading the archives of this forum has been tremendously helpful to me, but I have woefully few comp lit scholars in my life and I'm hoping to get advice from comp lit students here on a few things that are currently making me a bit anxious! I'm currently an undergrad comp lit major who will be graduating within the next semester or two, but I'm graduating either two or three semesters early and I'm wondering if I should prolong my undergrad career by that extra semester so I can become more proficient in my languages, either by studying abroad within undergrad or taking more courses at my university. However, my less immediate concern is about what I'll study in grad school. Languages: I'm a native English speaker and I will probably graduate as a double major in German (3-4 years; B2/C1, leaning towards C1). I've also studied Mandarin (equivalent of two years - one college year and Middlebury; probably like a B1?/HSK3-4), and French (equivalent of 1 year; probably A2/B1) in college. I'm going abroad and taking about 200 credit hours of German this summer so I can hopefully reach C1. Would it benefit me to do a degree in East Asian Studies, study abroad, or otherwise augment my language proficiencies before I apply to a comp lit program, or am I overthinking this? I've looked at grad student profiles on various comp lit departmental websites, but I'm still not exactly sure how proficient accepted applicants are in their languages, and if anyone has personal anecdotes, I'd greatly appreciate it/feel less uncertain about this. I'm worried that I'm not proficient enough in my languages to be accepted to a program and won't be given a sufficient amount of time to learn them before having to do grad-level coursework in them, or that I'll be rejected out of hand for low proficiencies. Interests: Probably like a lot of undergrads looking to go to grad school, I have a lot of interests, but I'd have to say that my primary interests are physical illness, epistemology, and identity/memory/mind as constructs in fiction, probably philosophy and literature. I'd also like to do work on Proust for sure, and maybe the Four Classics of Chinese literature. Are these interests unusual for a comp lit scholar? Am I less competitive if I don't take up national literatures as my specializations? I'm a bit worried because, to be honest, my primary interest within French literature (and motivation for studying the language) is Proust, and I don't envision myself ever excitedly doing research on, say, the themes that link together centuries of German literature. While I've found a few, but I'd be very happy if someone could point me to scholars or departments that specialize in or are particularly attentive to my interests; I've been bookmarking every prof with similar interests because they seem rare to me. Hopefully my questions aren't too silly! Thanks for reading.
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