Grad Profs- extent of inter-departmental collaboration?

[melusine]

So I am currently trying to round up an ultimate list of schools to apply to for Comp Lit this december.. And am at a bit of a loss in terms of my "fit" in some of the programs.

I want to study English, French and Russian Lit of a particular genre and time period. Sometimes, I find one or even two profs in the Comp Lit program of a given uni whose interests/languages match mine. More often than not, however, I am missing either a language or a genre/period combination. Meanwhile, in a separate Language department in the very same school, teaches a prof who would be the ideal missing piece to my tentative supervisor puzzle.

My question is this: when studying comp lit, is it at all possible to work with professors in one of your languages/literatures/interests, yet apparently not involved with the comp lit program? If not, I will have to dramatically cut down my list of potential schools. Which sucks.

Thx for your help!

[rising_star]

I think you can work with people from any department. Whether they can chair or co-chair your dissertation committee really depends on the specifics on your department and university.

More generally, I think you'll be fine if the profs in the comp lit departments are missing a language that you're interested in or a time period. Lord knows I worked on Swahili stuff as a comp lit undergrad and my advisor didn't know Swahili. It wasn't a huge deal, provided you translate the quotes you use.