<p>I know that you must learn a Foreign Language up to the highest degree of fluency, but, what about the literature courses you take? Are they going to be about reading books off your language area through english or the language you are taking?</p>
<p>Wouldn't reading a WHOLE book in like Russian be a little too hard? or are they books in which contain the Russian Pages and then the Translated Pages?</p>
<p>I would like to know the answer to this too!</p>
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<p>Um, if you’re going to learn Russian to “the highest degree of fluency” then you should be able to read in Russian. Otherwise, why bother learning another language?</p>
<p>well i am certainly fluent in 4 languages: English, Spanish, Albanian, and Serbian. I don’t think i could actually read a WHOLE book in Spanish, which i learned from 6-12th grade and pretty much know it very well (760 on SAT 2, 5 on AP Span and 99 on NYS Regents.) Albanian and Serbian are languages taught through my culture and family, so im sure i could read books in them, but it would take a while.</p>
<p>I’m an English major with a concentration on Comparative literature, maybe I can answer some of your questions. </p>
<p>As an undergraduate comparative literature major, you are not expected to read a book in a foreign language without the assistance from a dictionary. However, at the graduate level, you are required to acquire a very high proficiency in your second language, which should be your area of concentration, and a reading knowledge of a third language.
Requirement in each school differs to accommodate the lack of language fluency among individual students. If you study Russian, reading translated work would be fine, but if you can get into a graduate level Russian class, do it by all means.
It is very hard to read literature in another language without near native fluency. A score of 800 in SATII in critical languages such as Russian, Korean, or Chinese will not enable you to read a full novel in that particular language. </p>
<p>I do Chinese, French, and American literature, and I’m a native speaker of Chinese. I have yet to see another individual who can articulate his idea in Chinese and English at the same level of native fluency. Even my professor, despite 8 years of training at Columbia, does not articulate her idea as clearly and fluently as in Chinese. </p>
<p>But then again, I’m talking about some serious hardcore languages here. If you are talking about Spanish and French, the difficulty goes all down considerably. Hell, I’ve been learning French for a brevity of 1 years, and I’m already writing paragraphs and doing subjunctive. </p>
<p>Comparative literature is still very eurocentric; as a result, you often see people with 4-5 European languages under their belt. I think this is primarily due to the ease of learning these languages as an European living in a cosmopolitan Europe where the learning of English is compulsory, and whose geopolitics necessitates the learning of at least 2-3 other languages.</p>
<p>omg! thank you so much for this information! i was hoping for a Comparative Literature Major to answer this. i have a few questions here:</p>
<p>Are Spanish and Russian enough? Do i have to learn any more languages since i already know Albanian and Serbian? Not to mention that im starting summer classes for American Sign Language as well. Can i just reach a high level of fluency in Grad school in Spanish and Russian and that being enough?</p>
<p>Also, how many books do you read a semester for a Comparative Literature course? </p>
<p>What kind of books do you read? Don Quijote and Russian Folklore and Fairy tales?</p>
<p>You have already fulfilled your language requirement for graduate school, so, don’t even worry about it; majority of comp lit undergrad can’t even do two. Instead of learning more languages, I would recommend you to get comfortable with each of these national literatures you have listed. Take Stanford’s comp lit program, for instance, it asks for the ability to take a graduate class in your second language, and an intensive course in a third language upon entrance; as we know, graduate level language classes for Chinese or Russian are basically high school level stuff for that particular language’s native speakers. It is not that hard.
I see that you have a lot of background in literature of Balkans; maybe you should start reading major literary works in these languages instead of learning more. One can only learn so many languages.
The reading load for comp lit is similar to the reading load of an English major. As of right now, I’m reading an average of 2 books a week, and I’m also have to attend to other duties such as being a smartass in the class, study for French, and ass kissing professors. </p>
<p>In all honestly, comparative literature doesn’t compare at all. People in the field basically use it as an instrument to study foreign literature in American universities. Courses in comparative literature tend to be less literature based, and more theory focused. For instance, you need to have a really grasp at critical theory, Derrida, de Man, Spivak, Said, etc
I hate to disappoint you, but today’s comparative literature circle is filled with confused scholars, jargon bashing theorists, WASP hating minorities, and what else, um, a general disenchantment of the field. Some profound theorist such as Spivak spelled the death of comparative literature several years ago, so, as you can see, this field is pretty much going down to hell. However, compare to other English majors, you stand a better chance at finding a job. You can work for CIA, go travel, whereas English majors will be sucked away in their hyper performative radical feminist stance where coffee making and flipping burgers become cultural hermeneutics of late capitalism’s neoconservative conspiracy against the endless deconstruction of their lost, enlightened soul. </p>
<p>A nice alternative would be working for CIA, guaranteed salary and job security, I mean, why not.
Moreover, unless you are as morbid as I am, please do yourself a favor and forget about going to graduate school. I’m working as an undergraduate TA for my professor now, and here is the fact of attending graduate school: of the ppl who started the program, 50 percent won’t finish, of those 50 percent that do finish in 7-10 years, less than half of them find a JOB, and 1 out of every 100 Ph.Ds produced by top schools end up in a tenure, or tenure track position.
My Chinese professor got her Ph.D from Columbia, wrote four books, was pretty well received within her field, and her current salary is 60000 a year. Compare to fellow CC investment bankers, your salary will be like a peanut with the work load of an Investment banker.
Lastly, please read this article
Graduate school, just don’t go.
[Graduate</a> School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846/]Graduate”>http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846/)</p>
<p>CIA? thats pretty awesome lol. </p>
<p>At most, i think I wouldn’t go to Grad school for Comp Lit.</p>
<p>I plan on majoring in Comparative Lit and Psychology with minors in Biochemistry and Film Studies.
This make seem funny and make you think this is a joke, but, i plan on
Possibly becoming a Child Psychiatrist and later on,write novels on psychiatric disorders/Culture in the Balkin area and eventually make films about them. You know, movies and books like Taken, Psycho, sixth sense, Don Quijote, Mr.Jones, etc. the college i am attending has ALOT of courses on Psychological Analysis through world Literature for Comp Lit majors. </p>
<p>My close cousin is a publicist so she could REALLY help me out with this lol.</p>