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Graduate
programs at Cornell are organized around the "special committee"
which is composed of three or four faculty members and endowed with significant
autonomy in guiding and determining the particular program of each graduate
student. The graduate program in Comparative Literature uses the flexibility
inherent in this arrangement to its full advantage. First, the program
imposes no required courses, thus allowing the student maximal latitude
in composing a program of study. Second, the program sets minimal restrictions
on the composition of the special committee, requiring only that the chair
of the special committee belong to the graduate field of Comparative Literature,
so that the remaining 2 or 3 three members of the committee can be drawn
from the graduate field of any discipline. These two defining aspects
of the graduate program permit the graduate student, in consultation with
the Special Committee, to compose a program tailored precisely to her
interests as these evolve and become refined in the course of study. The
graduate program’s flexibility has fostered cutting-edge interdisciplinary
approaches and allowed students to explore emergent fields of study.
SUPERVISION:
During the first year the student's work is normally
directed by the Field Committee with the Director of Graduate Studies
(DGS) as chair. (In the event the student forms her or his Special Committee
early in that year, the Special Committee takes charge.) The Field expects
students to have a strong undergraduate major in literature, some introductory
familiarity with literary theory, and the ability to do advanced work
in two languages and reading knowledge of a third language. Together,
the student and the DGS examine the student's preparation and interests
to determine an appropriate course of study. By the end of the first year
the student, again in consultation with the DGS, should compose her or
his Special Committee.
From the third term onward the chief responsibility for the student rests
with the Special Committee. This committee normally consists of three
members. All of them must be on the Cornell graduate faculty; the chair
must be a member of the Field of Comparative Literature, and it is strongly
recommended that a second committee member also belong to the Field. Students
are required to meet with the members of their committee for the Second-Year
Review by the end of their third term, and they are encouraged to meet
at least once a year thereafter to formulate topics and compose reading
lists for their A-exams and to discuss their progress toward completing
the dissertation. It is the student's responsibility to see that this
continued contact is maintained.
REQUIREMENTS:
Languages.
The student should have a good reading knowledge
of the languages of choice; this involves at least two foreign languages,
since one of the literatures may be English. It is strongly urged that
she or he acquire fluency in speaking one of the foreign languages, especially
if a concentration in a foreign language is chosen.
Courses.
The student normally takes 12 courses during her
or his doctoral study . The student selects the courses in consultation
with the Special Committee. Of the total number of courses, 10 must be
taken for a grade.
Teaching.
Each candidate is required to do at least one year
of classroom teaching.
The
Second-Year Review and Examinations.
The Second-Year Review. This review is intended
to enable students to begin focusing on the topics and the fields of research
that will form the basis of their A-exams. To help ensure a substantive
and constructive meeting with their special committees, students will
prepare a relatively brief statement of research interests and proposed
areas of course work up to the A-exam and will supply a piece of writing
that represents the current or future shape of their research. The writing
sample would consist of previously written work and would not be an essay
newly composed for this meeting; it might be a section of a recently completed
seminar paper, not necessarily the entire essay. One purpose of the statement
would be to reflect on the place of this writing sample in the constellation
of a student's interests: to address its relation to future work, to frame
it as part of a coherent project, or to use it as a springboard to discuss
the comparatist parameters of the anticipated research. The review would
take place in the third term as a precondition of registering for the
fourth term of courses.
The
A-exam.
The purpose of the A-exam is twofold: first, to
certify the student’s competence in his or her fields of specialization,
particularly with a view to preparing the student to seek employment in
a single-language department, and second, to lay the foundations for the
dissertation. Scholarship in Comparative Literature is increasingly interdisciplinary
and includes a variety of language areas, each with its own disciplinary
protocols. The fields of specialization are thus determined by each student
in consultation with the Special Committee, which is also the ultimate
arbiter of the nature and content of the A exam questions. The fields
often entail concentration in a particular period of the major literature,
emphasis on a particular genre and on theoretical or methodological approaches.
The
following examples from recently completed A exams roughly follow this
pattern:
1.
first field: English modernist novel
second field: German modernist novel
third field: Psychoanalysis and deconstruction
2.first field: Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean Modernism
second field: Harlem renaissance
third field: Postcolonial theory and theories of modernity
Student
programs with a more prominently interdisciplinary focus might configure
the fields somewhat differently, as in the following examples:
1.first
field: Melodrama in Hindi film and television
second field: Salman Rushdie and postcolonial theory
third field: Theories of global modernity
2
first field: Modernism/Postmodernism
second field: German and Spanish 20th century experimental novel
third field: Literature, Painting and the Body
The
fields, typically three in number, form the basis of three reading lists.
For each list, the student drafts a question which is the starting point
of an essay. The essays can range from a survey of a field to a focused
analysis that functions as a dry run for a dissertation chapter. Once
the essay portion of the exam is completed, an oral exam is scheduled.
The A-exam must be taken before the student's seventh term of residence.
Dissertation
The student must complete an acceptable dissertation.
The work is directed by the chair of his or her Special Committee and
must be approved by all members of the Special Committee.
The B-exam.
This oral examination deals with the dissertation. It is administered
by the Special Committee
Appendix:
Recommended Timeline from the A-exam to the Job Market. click here for a pdf file
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