Hi! I would love to study comparative literature as an undergraduate. (I am trilingual and love both literature and history!) Do you know which top colleges have the best comparative literature majors?
(Right now, my dream schools are Brown and Yale. What do you know about their respective programs?)
Look into Kenyon:
https://www.kenyon.edu/academics/departments-programs/comparative-world-literature/
Also consider colleges from these articles:
https://contently.net/2014/11/06/resources/tools/training/10-best-colleges-creative-writers/
https://www.flavorwire.com/409437/the-25-most-literary-colleges-in-america
Most reasonably selective universities and liberal arts colleges have excellent English and literature programs, so I recommend focusing first on factors like selectivity, size, location/setting, affordability, and so on before you narrow down based on academics.
It depends somewhat on your interests, though. If you’re interested in literature in a less commonly offered language (e.g. Persian or Irish), you’ll need to be more selective about your colleges than if you’re interested in, say, Italian and Spanish literature, which are offered at virtually every liberal arts school.
If you would like a brief list of schools to consider that would be notably strong for study in these areas, look into these:
Brown
Columbia
Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Bates
Hamilton
Williams
Haverford / Bryn Mawr
Colgate
Kenyon
Oberlin
Grinnell
A clarification: I speak both French and Italian, and would likely be studying French Comparative Literature. I’m also interested in Folklore Studies, Medieval Studies, and Cultural Anthropology! (Hope this helps!)
Do you know of such a thing? Comparative literature, by definition, typically crosses national and linguistic boundaries. Your interest may simply align with a major in French and Francophone studies. As an aside, if you have an interest in the distinctive cultural and linguistic regions within France, you might want to read The Discovery of France, by Graham Robb.
With respect to your other interests, programs in Medieval/Renaissance studies and cultural anthropology tend to be fairly commonly offered at a range of colleges, while folklore studies appears much less commonly.