The Comparative Literature Programme works with literature from all over the world and from all time periods: from Aarhus to Afghanistan and from Homer to the newest literature in digital media. The programme links literature as an independent art form with literature as a central part of cultural life. Research topics span a broad spectrum, from travel literature, the discovery of memory and the unconscious, to testimony and the recollection of particularly traumatic events in literature.
The programme’s researchers make use of a range of different approaches to literary history, including genre theory, poetics and narratology. They also work closely with the programmes in aesthetic studies, including art history and dramaturgy, and with culture and language programmes in and abroad.
The research environment
In addition to the programme’s core research interests of literary theory, world literature, romanticism, modernism and edition philology, several of the programme’s literary theorists are involved in a variety of interdisciplinary projects on topics such as digital media, the history of technology and film, and human rights and memory, in relation to both literature and culture.
Our researchers are also engaged in communicating their work to a broader audience outside the university, from continuing education courses for upper secondary school teachers and the general public, activities at Danish folk high schools and upper secondary schools, and literary criticism in newspapers and journals. We also have a long tradition for writing textbooks and publishing literary classics.