"I've often had occasion to think back fondly on my variegated comp. lit. major at Dartmouth (German, music, some French and Italian, assorted poetry and drama) — which distinctly paved the route to later career developments."
[more]"I loved my Comp Lit major." I worked with Peter Bien on a thesis on Joyce and Mann — a terrific professor whom I still correspond with.
[more]"For me, comparative literature was a direct springboard to a career that I have found intellectually stimulating."
[more]"For me it was a life choice, not a career choice. I chose Comp Lit because it allowed me to delve into all the Big Questions; because it was explicitly multi-lingual and multi-cultural; because I could include anthropology, political philosophy, psychology, and religion courses in my program; because it was the edgiest of the humanities at the time. All those interests remain as intensely alive as they were then, though more have come along — art history, architecture, urban planning, economics."
[more]"Education comes of course from the Latin “to lead out of darkness” into the light of the truth, which is exactly what the original Comparative Literature Department did."
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