Comparative Literature
What does comparative literature mean in a rapidly changing world?
The Comparative Literature section at Utrecht University is an open community of internationally recognised scholars who work with literature in several languages and media. We consider what comparison means in a rapidly changing world, using multi-temporal, multilingual, intermedial, and critical frameworks.

As a group, we carry out our research and teaching with a broad understanding of the literary medium and value innovative approaches, such as:
- literature as a (trans)cultural medium
- cultural memory
- creativity- and comparative media studies
- post/colonial studies
- digital-, environmental-, and medical humanities
- reader- and publishing studies, the sociology of literature
Expertise

We offer a broad programme cutting through different historical periods, from the classical ages (in Europe, Eurasia, China, and India) to the present. Within this comprehensive setting, our staff members bring specific expertise in the fields of Anglophone and European, Chinese and Japanese, African, South Asian, and Eurasian literature. Their research ranges from books to bodies, trauma to translation, decoloniality to diaspora, (critical) ecology to e-cultures, and animals to activism.
More information
Reach out to us if you are looking for a dissertation supervisor, or seek our expertise or collaboration. Visit the personal websites of our staff members by clicking on their names listed below, or visit the site of our research institute.
See also our programme websites:
Staff members
- Literature, Empirical Research, Phenomenology
- Diaspora and Transnational Studies, Translational Research, Twentieth Century, Twenty-first Century
- Critical Theory, Postcolonial Studies, Literature and Memory, Modernism, Cultural Memory, Gender and Literature
- Medieval French, Medieval Culture, Medieval Literature, Middle Dutch, Historical Fiction
- Literature and (New) Media, Intermediality, Creative Humanities, Creativity, Philosophy of Art, Literary Theory, Music, Aesthetics
- History of Science, History of Medicine, Gender and Sexuality, History of Identities, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, Women's History, Biographies and Life Stories, Literature
- Comparative Literature Studies, Literary Theory, Environmental Humanities, Cultural Memory, German Literature, Modernism, Literary (Post)Modernism
- Empirical Research, Literary Theory, Didactics of Literature, Phenomenology, Digital Humanities, Reading, Bridging Science and Humanities Research, Contemporary Literature, Early Modern Literature and Culture
- Digital Humanities, Early Modern Literature and Culture, Data Mining, Natural Language Processing, Computational Humanities, Cultural History
- Animal studies, Posthumanism, German Literature, Literary Translation, Literary Theory, Modernism, Literary (Post)Modernism, Comparative Literature Studies, Literary Criticism, Environmental Humanities, Contemporary Literature
- Cultural Studies, Collective Memory, Turkey Studies, Biographies and Life Stories, Autobiographical Memory, Political Activism, Social Movements, Life Writing
dr. Leila Essa
Email: l.essa@uu.nl- Comparative Literature Studies, Anglophone Indian Literature, German Literature and Culture, Contemporary Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Literature and Space, Literature and Memory, Literature and (New) Media, Social Justice, Postmigrant Authorship
- Comparative Literature Studies, Climate Change, Gender and Literature, Feminist Literary Criticism , New Materialism, Postcolonial Studies, Queer Theory, Literary Theory, Australia, Modern Dutch Literature, Contemporary Literature, Migration
- Gender Studies, Political Activism, Archives, Literature in the 19th / 20th Century
- Literary Theory, Feminist Literary Criticism , Postcolonial Studies, Decoloniality, New Materialism, Aesthetics, Literature in the 19th / 20th Century, Contemporary Literature, French Culture and Literature, German Literature
Annika Kirbis
Email: a.kirbis@uu.nl- Cultural Memory, Perpetrator Studies, Environmental Humanities, Disability Studies, Posthumanism, German Literature and Culture, Italian Literature, Italian Culture, Literary Theory, Modernism
- Women's Writing, Latin Language and Literature, Intellectual History and Early Modern Europe, Early Modern Cultural History
- Literary Theory, Comparative Literature Studies, Gender and Sexuality, Queer Theory, Feminist Literary Criticism , Contemporary Literature, Postcolonial Criticism, Archives
- Autobiographical Memory, Biographies and Life Stories, Feminist Literary Criticism , Media Studies, Literary Theory, Contemporary Literature, Queer Theory, Social Media
- Modernism, Contemporary Literature, Comparative Literature Studies, Literature and (New) Media, Media Studies, Literary Theory, Russian Avant-Garde Art and Theory
- History of the Book, Children's Literature, Media Studies, Popular Culture, Relation between Literature and Science, Digital Humanities, Early Modern Cultural History
- Ethics, Feminist Epistemology, Philosophy of Human Rights, Latin America
dr. Merve Tabur
Email: m.tabur@uu.nl- Environmental Humanities, Climate Change, Middle Eastern Studies, Speculative fiction, Critical Theory, Feminist Theories, Postcolonial Studies