Comparative Literature at UCI aims to be a space hospitable to critical thinking, a capacious space of crossroads and intersections between different languages, cultural forms, and ways of reading. The discipline started by comparing and contrasting literatures from different national traditions, but the department at UCI was constructed to open the meanings of comparative literature as a field, to think not only about relations between pre-established national literatures but to explore the internal differences of cultural phenomena such as films, comics, urban space, monuments, and politics from across the globe.

Our major is open and flexible, and we encourage both double-majors and minors. We think that the more interesting and unusual the combination, the better. We want to be a space of oxygenation at UCI, where you have the freedom to compare and think across disciplines, to ask the questions you may not have the time to ask in your other classes and majors.