Comparative Literature is the study of common features in the literatures of more than one culture. It can focus on a genre, a period or a theme, or it can focus very broadly on the materials of literature itself—structure, rhetoric or language. We live today in a global society where languages, literatures and cultures intersect and interbreed, and that is why it is important to broaden our scope, to see the world. We offer courses in the literature and culture of Europe and America, of China, Japan and Korea, and of East and West Africa. In comparative literature classes, you will read works in translation.