English vs Comp Lit

[plznE3]

One of my professors recently suggested that I look into Comp Lit programs, as I am a native German speaker, have written my honors thesis on a German writer, and am very interested in German thought and theory (especially Marxism, Frankfurt School etc).

I have made an appointment with another professor whose background is in Comp Lit but wanted to go into the meeting as prepared as possible.

 

I feel a bit confused about the job market for Comp Lit. I am not quite sure where I got this idea but it seems that people have indicated to me that it is a highly competitive field that doesn't really seem to be in high demand. My professor today, however, suggested that going into Comp Lit would increase my job chances as it would allow me to teach in German or English. Also, if I were to go into English, my area of interest would be 20th century American lit which seems to be overrun. Plus I've heard universities aren't really hiring Americanists right now. Do you guys think my job chances would be better if I went into Comp Lit or if I stayed with English?

 

Also, how competitive are Comp Lit PhD programs? Is it harder to get into an English program or a Comp Lit program? As I said, I'm a native German speaker with a working reading knowledge of Spanish (which could be brushed up to fluent within a semester) but both my French and Latin are in need of considerable polishing. I know language requirements for Comp Lit differ from program to program but I was thinking my language background probably gives me an edge for English while being utterly unimpressive for Comp Lit, thus making me more competitive for English programs. 

 

Any help would be very much appreciated. Please excuse all typos, this day has been insane.

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

[BunnyWantsaPhD]

My advice would be to choose a program that you find the most interesting. I keep hearing all of these arguments that the job market is better for this or for that (say, composition & rhetoric or comparative lit.), but the thing is that the difference isn't going to be that big--the job market sucks no matter what. So, you might as well make sure that you're doing what you love. After all, you're going to spend a lot of time studying and dedicating your life to whatever you choose. If we were all after secure job prospects we'd be in a business field. 

 

That's my two cents. I'm sure others will disagree. Best of luck! (Sorry I don't have much advice specifically on comparative lit programs vs english). 

[rhetoricus aesalon]

Granted, this information probably was biased and given only to make a point, but I was once told that the average opening in literature for TT jobs gets about 600 qualified applicants. The average in rhet/comp gets 60. I'm sure this will (and is) changing as more and more schools create graduate programs in comp, but for now I'd say that's a very tangible difference in the job market. To be specific to your situation, plznE3, I've heard that Comp Lit is even worse off than Lit.

 

With that said, it sounds like your professor is already showing you how a degree grants you transferable skills into other fields. If you can teach German with a comp lit degree, or Spanish or Latin or whatever else you will learn, it will undoubtably give you the option to apply to more positions and more instructor pools later.

 

I would say be honest in your meeting with this Comp Lit professor and share your concerns as well as your interests. To me, someone not in any way connected to Comp Lit, it sounds like you are already asking some good questions that a professional in the field should be able to answer, but be prepared for candid answers that may not be encouraging.

[poliscar]

Apply to the programs you're most interested in—there's no reason to exclusively limit yourself to either Comp. Lit or English if you have the requirements for both. 

First off, most Comp Lit programs ask you to elect one or two principal foreign languages, in which you're more or less fluent. Since you're a native German speaker, and you would be able to attain Spanish fluency within a semester, you really shouldn't have a problem there. The other languages—one of which is often an ancient language (Latin in your case)—required only demonstration of reading knowledge, generally through a short translation exam. The University of Chicago has some practice exams here, which are pretty status quo, http://registrar.uchicago.edu/languge-exams. Based on what you've said though, I think that your language preparation is sufficient. At most you would need brush up on your Latin, so as to be able to pass a translation exam. 

Following that, because the language requirements are fairly rigorous for Comp Lit programs, they are considerably less competitive than English programs. The professor you spoke with was also correct, in that English graduates quite often hire Comp Lit graduates, particularly from the top departments. 

Though it would probably help to polish your Spanish/Latin a bit, I think the more important thing to think about how you would present your research interests to a Comp. Lit. department. If you're interested in 20th century American lit, find a way to convincingly articulate that interest in relation to your other languages. Is there a particular matrix through which you'd be interested in studying literatures in English, Spanish, and German? A particular genre or guiding question? I would go back to your thesis and see if you're able to apply the general questions addressed in it to a broader comparative field. Being able to present a compelling area of research is as important as language training; you could be fluent in 10 languages, but if you can't draw meaningful links between them a committee isn't going to be interested in your application. 

I would also say that 20th century American lit is a competitive field, but American lit/studies is also going through a pretty significant transnational turn. Based on that, a Comp Lit degree could be very helpful if you intend to apply for Americanist jobs. 

[plznE3]

Thank you, everyone, for your advice. My meeting was postponed so I have no answers other than what I have found out looking into the whole matter myself.

Poliscar, I think you are correct, especially regarding describing my research interest in a way that really pulls together my main theory area and both of my major languages. This is what I'll be working on for the next week. Regarding the application to both English and Comp Lit programs, I was planning on doing that but then wondered how to make my research interest legibe to an English program if I am aiming to present it convincingly to a Comp Lit department, emphasizing the connection between the languages etc. Essentially, won't I be arguing that English is no longer the right area for me and that my interest in several languages/literatures has led me to Comp Lit? Do you think it would be best to have two different statements of purpose, each describing a slightly different research interest?

 

Also, I have now read several times that Comp Lit departments are much more theory heavy, could anyone confirm this and possibly talk a little about programs like Duke and Irvine and how much theory focus they allow? Also, please feel free to recommend schools, I am not really that interested in the language aspect, even though it would be nice to incorporate some German lit. What matters most to me is a quality education in (Marxist, postcolonial etc) theory. 

 

Thanks everyone!

[peterangelo]

Hey there! Just thought I'd throw in my two cents being that I'm currently applying to Comp Lit programs for Fall '14 (so yeah... probably gonna be a bit Comp Lit biased). I went through a similar debacle; my native language is English, but I now speak Spanish with practically native fluency and have been living in Spain the last several years since my BA. I was an English/Spanish double major with the initial intention of getting a PhD in English, but I didn't want to leave my Spanish behind, so I researched as an early undergrad and discovered Comp Lit.

 

After having decided that I love languages (I now also speak French and Italian), I decided Comp Lit was the way to go. My BA school didn't have it as a degree offering, but there were profs who had PhD's in Comp Lit that guided me. They told me similar things as others have said above: Comp Lit is generally more competitive, and the job market is practically non-existent. At the time of that conversation I had with an English prof who was Comp Lit PhD (circa 2008-09), he told me there were at the time 300ish jobs available for English professors and 6 for Comp Lit. Whoa! He told me just to go English... and other profs supported that notion saying if I wanted to work with and teach foreign authors, there are many many ways to sneak in works in translation (ie, "Great Books" courses) and thus get my foreign fill. This is true, but there's more to it than that.

 

When that prof said 6 jobs were available that year, it's a perfect example of how statistics can be misinterpreted. In order to decide whether or not Comp Lit is for you, and before thinking about jobs, you must understand the nature of the field. I'll do my best in explaining it as I've come to understand it. It's a field that originally was based on the notion that language shouldn't be a barrier in studying literature. If you're bilingual (or tri, or quadri, etc), then doors should be open for you, not closed. Well, that sounds peachy, but there's a problem: not everyone is multilingual, nor speak the same variety of languages as their other multilingual peers. This characteristic alone has shaped the field in an interesting way: on one hand, it makes Comp Lit a very malleable degree (much like a Humanities major), but on the other, its vastly broad nature has caused it to ebb and flow over time in terms of its presence in the academic world. (For the record, these aren't wholly my words; many profs have said this to me).

 

Sticking on the positive side, that means that you can tailor the degree as you please. If you want to compare ancient Japanese religion to modern Arabic philosophy, Comp Lit is the way to go. And it's a way that will allow you to apply for jobs in, say, Religious Studies if you've trained enough in that area (there's a Harvard Comp Lit prof at my alma mater who's now the head of the Religious Studies dept). So that's one example of its malleability. Now, another aspect of it is that it often finds itself somewhat more subjected to trends in literary studies than, say, English (that's obviously a very subjective and interpretative observation; I'm sure many will have a lot to say in contradiction, but like I said, this is my two cents...). For example, in the last decade both Environmental studies and Feminist/Queer studies have been hot topics in the humanities. Since Comp Lit is an interdisciplinary field that, unlike English, doesn't have a core traditional base in terms of how it's studied, it tends to share a stronger symbiotic relationship with these trends. If you want to look at it cynically, you can say that it takes advantage of them to stay afloat as a career field (this was what one professor told me); or you can see it as a reflection of the field's versatile and open-ended nature.

 

So those are my thoughts as to the nature of the field. Now back to jobs. One way to see potential jobs is to look at the faculty that make up Comp Lit departments in different universities. You'll see all kinds of different people. Some in history departments, religion, languages, and a strong amount in English; most with dual appointments in one of those fields and in Comp Lit. In general, you'd be marketable to English and foreign language departments, with of course the chance at others depending on how you designed your PhD course of study. So, I argue that there are MORE job possibilities than if you were to go just English.

 

I hope this helps anyone who's still shaky on what Comp Lit really is. Again, these are all just my observations, but they have been carefully made and based on many conversations with knowledgeable people and lots and lots of personal research. I apologize for my long-windedness. 

 

TL;DR-- Comp Lit is a widely open field with many job opportunities in different departments and allows you to study literature from a very liberal and multilingual standpoint.