Department of Comparative Literature

Introduction to the Department

Through the study of different literary traditions that transcend regional and temporal boundaries, comparative literature immerses you into cultures from around the world. You can focus on a particular comparative approach to study various literatures of your choice whose original language is not English, including Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, and Russian. You will study these literatures under the guidance of faculty members who have been trained in the original languages in which these works have been written. All courses are conducted in English translation.

Department Features

  • You have the opportunity to serve on the Comparative Literature student board and gain leadership skills while working with other students.
  • You have the opportunity to work one-on-one with faculty pursuing your independent research.
  • You can travel to various parts of the world, either with faculty members or with other students, to learn more about the literary cultures you study in the classroom.

 

Available Majors

Meet Our People

OWU is people. Brilliant, engaging, passionate, friendly, genuine people. Meet some of them here.

Joe Pileski '16

"The Comparative Literature major is more than just a love of content, a love of stories; we come also with a curiosity of the how: how different cultures approach text and ideas of textuality, translation, and theory and transmission. It's more than what literature is about—it’s about what literature is."

Michal Raizen

Assistant Professor of Mediterranean Literatures

Professor Raizen situates her work among a growing body of scholarship devoted to comparative Mediterranean studies. Her research on affect and translational communities has taken her to Egypt, Morocco, and Israel-Palestine.

Anne Sokolsky

Associate Professor of East Asian Literature

Professor Sokolsky frequently travels to Japan with students. Her latest book is on 20th-century Japanese writer Tamura Toshiko. She is currently working on a biography about her grandfather’s time in China as a journalist working for Sun Yat-sen and a manuscript about the Taiwanese journal, "Taiwan fujinkai," written for women in Japanese-ruled Taiwan during Japan’s colonial period.

Stephanie Merkel

Associate Professor of Slavic Literatures

Professor Merkel's research on Russian Romanticism explores the intersection of poetry and fashion. She writes on Vladimir Nabokov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Anna Akhmatova.

Travel Learning

In past Travel-Learning Courses, students have pursued studies in Japan and Italy.

Department Contact Info

Location

Sturges Hall 205
Ohio Wesleyan University
Delaware, OH 43015
P 740-368-3590
F 740-368-3599
E bmfedoush@owu.edu

Department Contact

Chair: Anne Sokolsky
Associate Professor of Comparative Literature (Japanese)
740-368-3572
aesokols@owu.edu

Academic Assistant: Beth Fedoush
740-368-3590
bmfedoush@owu.edu