MA Comparative Literature/History of Art

About this course

Comparative literature and history of art are two disciplines that share a fundamental commitment to understanding how human beings make meaning through creative work, whether in words or in visual form. Comparative literature crosses national boundaries, time periods, and genres to examine how texts in different languages respond to each other, how literary forms travel and transform across cultures, and what we learn when we resist the confinements of a single national tradition. History of art applies related questions to visual objects, examining why paintings, sculptures, architecture, and other works look the way they do, and what they reveal about the societies and individuals who produced them. At the University of Glasgow, this part-time degree allows you to develop expertise in both disciplines alongside other commitments. Glasgow has research strengths in comparative literature, with a tradition of reading across languages and periods, and in history of art, with specialists in a wide range of periods and cultures. You will develop your interpretive and analytical skills across both disciplines simultaneously, learning to read texts comparatively and to analyse visual objects in their historical and cultural context. A year abroad is embedded in the programme, giving you the opportunity to engage with literary and artistic traditions in a different environment. The combination of literary and visual analysis develops an unusually rich set of hermeneutic tools. Graduates of comparative literature and history of art work in publishing, journalism, the museum and gallery sector, arts administration, cultural criticism, education, broadcasting, and the creative industries. Many also pursue academic careers in either comparative literature or art history, for which postgraduate study is required. The programme provides an excellent foundation for doctoral research in either field or at their intersection, and the analytical and communication skills developed through both disciplines are transferable across a wide range of professional contexts.

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