The Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto offers M.A.and Ph.D. programmes of study in every major area from medieval to contemporary literatures with particular emphasis on literary theory and criticism. To be eligible for admission into either degree programme, candidates must have done their undergraduate work in two or more languages and literatures, and meet all the requirements of the School of Graduate Studies . Provided the language requirements of the Centre are satisfied, students may pursue theoretical issues that cross traditional disciplines.
The Toronto Centre, founded by Northrop Frye in 1969, is unique in North America in design, purpose and practice. Each student has an individualized curriculum whose aim is to provide a thorough preparation in literary traditions and a rigorous study of different theoretical approaches. With their application for admission, candidates submit a statement of purpose and, if they are accepted into one of the programmes, prepare with the help of the graduate coordinator, a plan of study based on that document.
The range of languages, literatures and special resources available at the University of Toronto enables students to explore literary achievements in a vast spectrum of national and linguistic traditions, while the Centre's strong emphasis on modern literary theory gives their studies critical and methodological coherence. All students, therefore, take about two thirds of their courses in the Centre for Comparative Literature and one third in other Graduate Departments.
Upon entering, students register in a number of courses on literary theory and methodology offered by the Centre itself. They also select courses on specific authors, periods and genres given in Departments of Languages and Literatures, or courses offered by other Departments in the Humanities. This makes it possible for students to devise plans of study which combine two or more literatures within a given historical framework (e.g., the 19th century novel in Russia, France and Germany).
The following are some of the Departments and Centres with courses available to students of Comparative Literature: Book History and Print Culture, Classics, Drama, East Asian Studies, English, French, German, History, History of Art, Italian Studies, Linguistics, Medieval Studies, Music, Near & Middle Eastern Studies, Philosophy, Semiotics, Slavic Languages and Literatures, Spanish and Portuguese, Women's Studies. (See the SGS calendar)
Besides the fifteen members of the core faculty and the forty members of the Adjunct Faculty, the Centre brings a number of distinguished visiting professors to the campus. In the past, these have included Hans-Georg Gadamer, Tzvetan Todorov, Fredric Jameson, and Jacques Derrida. Paul Ricoeur's The Rule of Metaphor and Wolfgang Iser's The Act of Reading were originally given as lecture series in the Centre. Every year, since 1979, the privately endowed Northrop Frye Professorship in Literary Theory has enabled the Centre to appoint such outstanding scholars as Robert Weimann, Ralph Cohen, Hugh Kenner, Wladimir Krysinski, Edward Said, Mieke Bal, Sander Gilman, Barbara Herrnstein-Smith, Julia Kristeva, Derek Walcott, Charles Taylor, Natalie Davis, Tilottama Rajan, Michael Holquist and Leonard Findlay to teach one course on a special topic in Comparative Literature and to give public lectures for the University community.
