World and Comparative Literature

This World and Comparative Literature PhD programme from The University of Exeter seeks to cross the borders and bridge the distances between languages, literatures and cultures.

The World and Comparative Literature PhD programme from The University of Exeter research expertise covers a wide range of world literatures and cultures ranging from European literatures (ancient, medieval, and modern), Mediterranean, Latin American, and Chinese literatures and Cultures to Spanish and Latin American cinema and visual culture, Italian cinema, and Chinese art. Most staff also specialise in research of a world or comparative nature.

Key facts

• The Department of English has particular and growing strength in world literary and postcolonial studies, world cinema, global modernisms, and the global circulation of literature, film and culture more generally. Increasingly, colleagues are working with students who are concerned to situate English/Anglophone culture within a comparative framework.
• Given today’s developments in multiculturalism, trans-nationalism, literary theories of the capitalist world system and globalisation, this new programme in World and Comparative Literature encourages interdisciplinary and multilingual perspectives on literature and culture; it allows PG researchers to cross borders between national literatures, disciplines, between historical eras and media; and to have the opportunity to actively promote cultural exchange rather than simply receiving cultural knowledge.
• Examples of such research topics or areas include cultural studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, world-systems theory, as well as historical and trans historical literary studies more generally.

Research topics:

• Cultural studies

• Gender studies

• Postcolonial studies

• World-systems theory

• Historical and trans historical literary studies