A little survey...Comp lit vs. national Lang

[Francophile1]

Since in the past Ive juggled with whether to choose a national lang PhD or Comp. Lit...(in the end it was Comp. Lit...for various reasons which I will mention later), I just wanted to take the time to do a short survey.

If you chose Comp Lit, why do you think for you it's better than say a Phd in a language? Benefits/disadvantages?

Thank you all!

[BillyPilgrim]

Since in the past Ive juggled with whether to choose a national lang PhD or Comp. Lit...(in the end it was Comp. Lit...for various reasons which I will mention later), I just wanted to take the time to do a short survey.

If you chose Comp Lit, why do you think for you it's better than say a Phd in a language? Benefits/disadvantages?

Thank you all!

I think there are a few reasons. First, Comp Lit allows the opportunity to study multiple languages in depthly. I know most English programs -and so I am assuming national language programs as well- require reading knowledge of an additional one or two language(s), but in Comp Lit that number is raised to three and I imagine requires a more thorough study than the English - or nat lang - degree would expect. This is probably why CL degress on average take a few years longer to complete - the expectation of foreign language understanding is quite high.

The decision to choose between a CL or language degree also depends on the specific program. If Uni X's French dept has a faculty member in your line of research, you should apply there as opposed to that school's CL dept, even though you may want a CL degree of have an undergrad degree in CL.

If you look at faculty's CVs, you will notice there is a lot of cross over. Professor Y may have a his PhD in Spanish but is a memeber of the CL dept. CL departments, generally speaking, seem to hire PhDs from many different fields. Judith Butler, for example, is a PhD in philosophy but was a member of the CL and Rhetoric dept at Berkeley.

I think the actual subject title of one's degree (French PhD, CompLit PhD, Religion PhD) is irrelevant when compared to the degree holder's publications, research, etc....

There is no hard line separating the disciplines.