1. Comparative Literature (2015)

Comparative Literature was crossing borders between nations, languages, cultures and disciplines long before terms such as “transnational” or “interdisciplinary” became central to other fields of study, and the University of Michigan can lay claim to one of the discipline’s oldest centers in the nation. Since Michigan first established the Program in Comparative Literature in 1937, it has been at the forefront of intellectual developments in the humanities, studying literature and its relation to the world as a form of human expression that cannot be restrained by national paradigms.

When Professors Hugo P. Thieme, Chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Norman L. Willey (Germanic Languages and Literatures), and Karl Litzenberg (English Language and Literature) proposed a program to the Rackham School of Graduate Studies, they looked to the few Comparative Literature programs in existence at the time, in particular those at Harvard and Columbia. In that era, Comparative Literature predominantly studied canonical works in a number of European literary traditions; the field was dedicated mostly to enduring works from Greek and Roman antiquity and in English, German, French, and, less frequently, Russian literatures. Thus, students in the newly emerging field were able to draw on the expertise of faculty from multiple national literature departments and produce innovative scholarship on the history of literature in an international context.

Professors Thieme, Willey and Litzenberg were the Program’s first faculty members, and they oversaw the admission and training of the first cohorts of students without so much as a single supporting staff member, no designated funding to pay instructors to offer courses, nor any space within the university to house the Program. The departments which had appointed Thieme, Willey and Litzenberg (Romance Languages, German, and English) continued to appoint a single member each to the Comparative Literature Committee, while only the Program’s director received a teaching appointment to offer courses in Comparative Literature itself. In the first ten years of the Program, the three members of this committee oversaw 12 MA degrees but no doctoral degrees.

The Program gained enhanced visibility when Professor Austin Warren was appointed to the committee in 1948. Together with René Wellek, Warren had co-authored the highly influential Theory of Literature, which remained an important textbook well into the 1960s. While the Program continued to grow both in national esteem and enrollment, it also faced some controversy. Worried that the new Program might thrive at the expense of the foreign language departments, some faculty members argued to dissolve the committee and to relocate Comparative Literature students within the core departments. But the members of the Comparative Literature Committee were successful in mounting a case for the study of literature and its theory independent of national—and at times nationalist—cultural agendas.

The urgency of such research had become painfully clear during World War II. The Program of Comparative Literature had lost both students and faculty in both theaters of the war, and in the wake of such tremendous destruction and divisiveness, Comparative Literature shifted its focus. Rather than concentrating on the differences among national literatures, it emphasized the commonalities and continuities between cultures. Less inclined to simply trace literary influences across borders, comparatists began to study cultural events, literary phenomena and ideas that transcended political and linguistic divisions.

In keeping with these ideals, in 1953 the Comparative Literature Committee at Michigan argued that the Program needed to include faculty from the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, the Oriental Civilizations Program, and the Department of Classics. The graduate school agreed on the urgency of that mission, and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan found itself at the forefront of a discipline that was slowly shedding its eurocentric orientation. In spite of these tremendous strides, the Program continued to operate without a budget or a campus facility until the early 1970s, when Professor Charles Witke (Classics) became director and secured private offices, a conference room and supporting services.

The 1970s saw the rise of literary and cultural theory, and once again, Comparative Literature was positioned in the avant-garde. CompLit, the shorthand by which the discipline has been known for decades, was the only Program on campus that regularly offered courses in the history and theory of literary criticism, attracting students from across the humanities who sought to deepen and refine the philosophical framework of their research. The Program had grown at a fast clip: while its classes attracted visitors from across campus, CompLit students in turn could be found teaching courses for other departments and programs. Thus, the Program made its influence felt in the fields of French, Spanish, German, and Great Books, making Comparative Literature an intellectual hub where humanities faculty and students explored intellectual trends together, collaborated, and inspired each other.

Toward the end of the 1970s, the Program began to lose momentum. The three courses required of all CompLit students—a one-semester introduction to literary and cultural theory and a two-semester history of literary criticism—continued to be popular among students from many departments, but the number of students enrolling for graduate degrees in CompLit dropped precipitously.

During this brief crisis, Ross Chambers agreed to be the acting director in 1978 while a national search was launched for a new director. The search failed, and the University turned to an internal appointment in Stuart McDougal. Upon assuming the directorship in the spring of 1981, McDougal discovered that only two students were enrolled in the Program for the following year. He began an aggressive program of recruitment, contacting professors across the country and encouraging them to send their students to Michigan for graduate work. McDougal also instituted a lecture series on translation, coordinated with a graduate seminar, and established translation studies as a part of the Program. The series brought distinguished visitors such as Robert Fitzgerald, Galway Kinnell, Allen Mandelbaum, Kevin Crossley-Holland and Joseph Brodsky to Michigan, and engaged esteemed Michigan faculty such as the linguist Ian Catford and Robert Danly, a translator of Japanese whose work was honored with an American Book Award. The lecture series captured the hearts and minds of the faculty, students and community so much that even after it ended, a Translation Workshop, for no academic credit, attracted students and faculty from many departments as well as local translators not affiliated with the university to assist and improve one another’s translations.

In the fall of 1981, Chambers was offered a position at Yale. He decided that he would stay at Michigan—on the condition that he be allowed to teach half of his courses in Comparative Literature. The University granted Chambers the first permanent half-time appointment in the Program’s history. In one stroke, the Program had added an extremely distinguished full professor to its faculty. The range of Chambers’s work reflects the growth, creativity and transformation that the discipline of comparative literature underwent during the years it was conceived of as an interdepartmental program. As time went by, Chambers’s work turned from strictly literary to cultural and political theory, helping to define a shift in the profession at large.

Chambers’s work for CompLit proved to be such a successful model for ground-breaking scholarship and teaching in the humanities that LSA Dean Peter Steiner could be persuaded to hire five distinguished faculty members to be jointly appointed in the Program of Comparative Literature. For the first time in its history, CompLit had a strong faculty of its own. The Program grew in numbers and stature until, by the end of the decade, the Program enrolled 40-50 Ph.D. students, virtually all of whom had either research fellowships or teaching fellowships in a variety of departments.

In 1984, the Program developed a new undergraduate major, thereby introducing undergraduates to the richness of this discipline as well as offering additional teaching opportunities for graduate students in CompLit. Two years later, Comparative Literature was designated a “strong program” by the University. When an External Review Committee evaluated the Program in 1989, they noted that in the twelve years that had passed since the last review, Michigan had “made its way into the top fifteen programs in the country—a remarkable change.”

The growing prestige of the Program was reflected in the fact that it hosted the triennial conference for the American Comparative Literature Association in 1986 in Ann Arbor, and from 1991-1993, Stuart McDougal served as the President of the ACLA. The Program’s scope was increasing at the same time: CompLit gave students the opportunity to do doctoral research in film studies long before the consolidation of Screen Arts and Cultures. And, while the Program strengthened its connections to Romance Languages and English, it forged new joint appointments with departments not previously affiliated. The trend toward a truly global faculty has continued ever since. In 2013, Comparative Literature’s faculty members held joint appointments in no fewer than fourteen departments: Slavic, Romance Languages, Classics, African-American Studies, English, Women’s Studies, Philosophy, History of Art, History, Modern Greek, Asian Languages and Cultures, German, Near-Eastern Studies, and the Residential College.

This trend toward global reach was strongly endorsed and furthered by the tenure of Simon Gikandi, who assumed the directorship in 1997. The second half of the twentieth century had seen vast geopolitical and cultural changes, from decolonization in Africa and Asia to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the former Eastern Bloc. Gikandi pushed to further align Comparative Literature with its global goals, bringing a new emphasis on postcolonial studies to complement strength in European literature, culture and philosophy. Thanks to Gikandi’s leadership, Michigan comparatists continued to rethink world literatures beyond European paradigms and, in the process, redefine the very concept of comparison. With a faculty 21 members strong by 2013, Comparative Literature regularly offered courses in literature from Africa, East and South Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

When Tobin Siebers became director in 2001, he led the Program toward the inclusion of minor and underprivileged groups in the West. CompLit was already a conduit for literary and cultural theory on campus and a meeting ground for a wide range of disciplines interested in reaching beyond their traditional audiences. In his tenure, Siebers brought attention to disability studies, which examines the ways in which culture produces normative codes for human bodies and their actions in the world. While enriching the Program with a new set of concerns, he continued Gikandi’s push towards cultural inclusion by founding the Global Ethnic Literatures Seminar (GELS), housed in Comparative Literature from 2001-2008. GELS funded seminars for faculty and graduate student scholars from across LSA that explored topics related to multiculturalism and international diversity and hosted a series of highly visible public lectures and conferences. And in 2004, the Program once again hosted the annual meeting of the ACLA.

In 2007, the Program that had brought together scholars of literature, culture, theory, and history for seven decades reached another milestone: the Regents approved the change in status from Program to Department of Comparative Literature, and Professor Siebers spent his last year of leadership as the first chair of Comparative Literature. The institutional work required was nothing less than heroic, but the most gratifying aspect of CompLit’s new status was an opportunity to rethink, refine, and consolidate Comparative Literature’s roles at Michigan. During a time when the University at large energetically pursues the internationalization of its research and teaching, CompLit is uniquely positioned: at present, our faculty and graduate students command no fewer than 47 languages between them, and roughly half of both faculty and graduate students are native speakers of languages other than English.

In 2008, Yopie Prins took over as the Department’s first female chair. Under her leadership, Comparative Literature began to showcase its unique strengths by pursuing a range of initiatives related to the study of translation, which the Department considers to be an ancient liberal art that lends itself to theoretical, historical, aesthetic, and ethical explorations, while several of the Department’s members are highly accomplished translators in their own right. Thus, CompLit hosted the highly successful “Theme Semester on Translation” in the Fall of 2012. When Silke-Maria Weineck took over as chair in 2013, she was thrilled to see approval of a new Minor in Translation Studies, offered under the aegis of Comparative Literature. Building on these strong foundations, the Department undertook a broad initiative in “Engaging Translation” that will combine cutting-edge research, the promotion of literary translation as a creative, intellectual process, and engaged learning activities for undergraduate and graduate students alike. Thus, Comparative Literature partnered with the Clinical Program at the Law School to assist non-English speaking immigrants in need and to create internship opportunities for bi-lingual undergraduates, ranging from literary to humanitarian to community service activities.

While the graduate program continued to thrive, Comparative Literature began to expand its undergraduate offerings with large-enrollment courses that introduce students from across the University to the global, theoretical, and historical dimension of cultural phenomena. Comparative Literature is poised to function as a hub for the humanities as well as the University’s numerous international initiatives.

In 2014, Comparative Literature at Michigan was continuing to evolve toward its ideal of a truly inclusive critical study of world literatures and cultures, still committed to its central mission: to cross borders and to mediate between our own cultures and those thought to be foreign. Members of the Department conceived their mission to be translation in the broadest sense: between languages, between cultures, between the margins and the centers, between nations, historical periods, ideologies, and disciplines.