Support the Department

First, they are essential to the Department’s spiritual mission, namely, the development of MA and PhD students of the highest caliber. We use such donations to support student travel for research and conference participation.

In the past several years, contributions to Comparative Literature have directly benefited student research trips to the Institut Mémoires d’éditions contémporaine (IMEC) in Caen, France, but also to Buenos Aires, Santiago, Paris, and Berlin. Charitable contributions have also allowed students to attend major national and international conferences. These funds are used as well to host distinguished speakers and visiting professors in Comparative Literature.

The life of Comparative Literature depends on the constant renewal of our intellectual resources. Such renewal happens through the constant circulation of new ideas and new paradigms of thought. Nothing, therefore, is more vital to the intellectual life of our students than the opportunity to travel and the opportunity to meet and interact with some of the leading scholars and theorists in Comparative Literature.

Second, charitable contributions provide a kind of corporeal support. They provide important equipment–computers, video projectors, scanners, etc.–necessary for the production and dissemination of knowledge. In these two ways, contributions support to the body and soul of Comparative Literature. Nothing is more important to the continuing vitality of the Department.