Venues

Gilmorehill Campus

Content

Defined most broadly, comparative literature is the study of ‘literature without walls’. The comparative or cross-cultural study of literatures is, in some ways, an idealistic academic discipline: it assumes that people from different cultures, times, places and languages can communicate with each other, understand (if not fully share) each other’s traditions, and benefit from such contacts.

Year 1: The courses on our year 1 programme currently have heroism as the overarching theme. The courses interrogate the notion of heroism, its absence in our lives and our longing for it as this finds expression in various historical contexts and cultures.

Some of the texts currently studied across our courses include: Aleksandr Pushkin, The Queen of Spades; The Tain (Táin Bó Cúailnge – The Cattle Raid of Cooley); Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter; Heinrich Böll, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum and Jean Racine, Phaedra.

Year 2: Courses in year 2 currently focus on the idea of crossing frontiers in geographical, scientific, political, psychological, social, cultural and gender-orientated terms. They examine the human motivations behind and the consequences of various 'crossings', as well as the exploration of identity, otherness, secrets, mysteries and taboos.

Years 3 and 4: If you progress to Honours (years 3 and 4), you will take current core courses on literary and cultural theories, and you will read texts from an intercultural perspective. You will also gain an awareness of issues of language and translation as they relate to the reading of texts from different cultures.

Entry Requirements

2026 entry requirements

Standard entry: 5 Highers at AAAAB (by end S6 with min BBBB after S5) including English and a humanities subject at AA (AB or BA may be considered).

Entry to year 2 may be possible with 3 Advanced Highers at AAA in relevant subjects.

Widening access entry: 4 Highers at AABB or BBBB (by end S6) including English and a humanities subject. Completion of pre-entry programme is necessary.