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. 

Literature of the World, bij Backforward24

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

    • dr. L. (Lida) Amiri

    • Diaspora and Transnational Studies, Translational Research, Twentieth Century, Twenty-first Century

    • dr. P.A.L. Bijl

    • Tashina Blom MA

    • Political Activism and Rhetoric, Literary Theory, History of Feminism, Cultural Theory, Cultural Memory

    • dr. Michela Borzaga

    • Critical Theory, Postcolonial Studies, Literature and Memory, Modernism, Cultural Memory, Gender and Literature

    • dr. Frank Brandsma

    • Medieval French, Medieval Culture, Medieval Literature, Middle Dutch, Historical Fiction

    • prof. dr. Kiene Brillenburg Wurth

    • Literature and (New) Media, Intermediality, Creative Humanities, Creativity, Philosophy of Art, Literary Theory, Music, Aesthetics

    • dr. Saskia Bultman

    • History of Science, History of Medicine, Gender and Sexuality, History of Identities, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, Women's History, Biographies and Life Stories, Literature

    • dr. Olivia da Costa Fialho

    • Empirical Research, Literary Theory, Didactics of Literature, Phenomenology, Digital Humanities, Reading, Bridging Science and Humanities Research, Contemporary Literature, Early Modern Literature and Culture

    • dr. Kári Driscoll

    • Animal studies, Posthumanism, German Literature, Literary Translation, Literary Theory, Modernism, Literary (Post)Modernism, Comparative Literature Studies, Literary Criticism, Environmental Humanities, Contemporary Literature

    • A. (Arnab) Dutta MA

    • dr. Sophie van den Elzen

    • Antislavery and Abolitionism, Cultural History, History of Feminism, Literature and Memory, Literary Theory, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, Political Activism and Rhetoric, Magazine Studies, Transnationalism

    • Duygu Erbil

    • dr. Femi Eromosele

    • dr. Leila Essa

    • 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

    • dr. Susanne Ferwerda

    • 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

    • T.W. (Tom) Hedley MA

    • Literary (Post)Modernism, Attitude towards Science and Mathematics, Literature and Space, German Literature and Culture, Irish Literature, Narratology, Austrian Literature, Mathematical Thinking, Life Writing, Literature and Memory

    • Tessel Janse

    • dr. Flore Janssen

    • Gender Studies, Political Activism, Archives, Literature in the 19th / 20th Century

    • dr. Susanne Knittel

    • Disability Studies, German Literature and Culture, Italian Literature, Italian Culture, Literary Theory, Modernism, Perpetrator Studies, Posthumanism

    • Jason Mariotis

    • dr. Müge Özoglu

    • Literary Theory, Comparative Literature Studies, Gender and Sexuality, Queer Theory, Feminist Literary Criticism , Contemporary Literature

    • prof. dr. Ann Rigney

    • Collective Memory, Historical Fiction, Historical Theory, Intermediality, Literary Theory, Nationalism and Transnationalism, Reception Studies, Narratology, Walter Scott, Social Movements

    • dr. Jeroen Salman

    • History of the Book, Children's Literature, Media Studies, Popular Culture, Relation between Literature and Science, Digital Humanities, Early Modern Cultural History

    • dr. Merve Tabur

    • Environmental Humanities, Climate Change, Middle Eastern Studies, Speculative fiction, Critical Theory, Feminist Theories, Postcolonial Studies