Student Work
Chad Canter was ready for the next big thing in his life when he transferred with an associate's degree to the UO. Interested in literature and philosophy, Chad found the best way to combine his two main interests was with COLT major. Within COLT, Chad's two focuses are French and English. “I really liked the Madness in Creativity class. It’s nice to have a reading over a broad range of work. And I think that is part of the reason why I like COLT program as opposed to just the English program. The professor was George Moore. His energy levels are totally insane, off the scales. He’s passionate and inspiring.” After traveling to Angers, France, this summer on study abroad, Chad hopes to participate in the school's Kidd Tutorial creative writing program and pursue a master's in poetry or fiction writing.
Julia Cuellar traded her violin for the study of language after coming to the UO initially as a music student. Now, with majors in comparative literature and Spanish, Julia is on track. Julia’s first focus in COLT is Borderland Latin American Literature; her other, Northwest Literature. Julia studied abroad in Spain for five months and highly recommends the experience. “In the COLT classes there’s an intellectual community,” says Julia. “All the teachers agree that you are going to be involved in their classes whether you like it or not. It keeps everyone engaged and makes the discussions much more interesting. It makes everyone stay on task.” Julia is a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and plans to join Teach for America after graduation.
Selected Faculty Work
Associate Professor of Philosophy John Lysaker has written on a wide range of philosophical and literary topics, including friendship in Derrida and Nietzsche, the political thought of Jean-Luc Nancy, and the critical aesthetics of Adorno. Current projects include a booklength discussion and defense of self-culture in Emerson, continued work in social-theoretical aesthetic theory, and ongoing collaborative and interdisciplinary inquiry into the nature of schizophrenia. John's teaching interests include 19th- and 20th-Century Continental Philosophy (increasingly, Kant to the present) as well as American Philosophy, with a focus on problems in aesthetics, philosophical psychology, and social theory.
Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Katya Hokanson received her Ph. D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Humanities. Her current book project is Theatrical Asides: Russian Women's Travel Writing. Hokanson's current research interests include the history of Russian colonialism, the writing of Aleksandr Pushkin, and Russian women writers of the nineteenth century, particularly Madame Blavatsky. Her teaching focuses on Russian and European literature of the nineteenth century and literary theory.
Leah Middlebrook, assistant professor of comparative literature and Spanish at the UO, teaches courses in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish, French and Latin American literature, as well as introductory courses on the discipline of comparative literature. A Fulbright scholar, Leah's research and teaching interests include lyric poetry (especially the sonnet), theories of the subject, and critical constructions of Western modernity, particularly as they shape our ideas about the "early" modern. Noting that students receive less training in how to read and enjoy literature nowadays than they did when she in school, she asks, "Why are we not reading literature in this culture, and what can I do to help?"
Career Prospects
Students who major in comparative literature exit the university with linguistic as well as analytical reading and writing skills that qualify them for a range of professional positions—not only in academia, but also in business, publishing, journalism, and in any vocation in which the ability to think and write well is an asset.