Comparative Literature and Social Anthropology

Comparative literature and social anthropology is an unusual and intellectually rich combination that approaches human culture from two different but complementary directions. Comparative literature opens literary study across the boundaries of language and culture, inviting you to read texts of any genre, any period, and any origin, asking how literary forms and ideas travel across traditions and what the study of one literature illuminates about another, as St Andrews itself describes. Social anthropology takes a similarly cross-cultural approach, but through the study of societies and their practices, beliefs, kinship systems, and material cultures, asking fundamental questions about what it means to be human across radically different social contexts.

The University of St Andrews' four-year full-time Comparative Literature and Social Anthropology degree has a typical entry tariff of 184 points and includes a year abroad option, giving you the chance to study at a partner institution and engage directly with another academic and cultural tradition. You will develop the ability to read across literary traditions, engage with texts in English translation, and analyse cultures through the ethnographic and theoretical frameworks of social anthropology. The combination asks you to move between literary interpretation and social analysis, developing an unusual degree of cultural breadth and the analytical skills to draw comparisons across languages, genres, and societies.

Graduates work in education, international development, journalism, the cultural sector, NGOs, the civil service, publishing, research, and areas of business where cross-cultural understanding is valued. The analytical and interpretive skills developed across both disciplines are transferable to many professional contexts, particularly those involving engagement with diversity, difference, and cultural complexity. Postgraduate study in comparative literature, anthropology, cultural studies, or area studies is a natural next step.